Euro Crisis Deepens Amid Spain, Short-Sale Ban!

- The Eurozone Titanic has hit the iceberg! Stock markets across Europe have tanked. Should the EUR-USD break 1.20, it is Armageddon for the Euro! The 10 year Spanish bond has hit 7.5% and 10 Year Italian bond has hit 6.3%! Both yields are still rising! The Eurozone is very close to collapse!
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Euro Crisis Deepens Amid Spain, Short-Sale Ban!
By Patrick Donahue, http://www.businessweek.com/
Europe was plunged into fresh market turmoil as the first call for bailout aid by a Spanish region sent borrowing costs surging, while Spain and Italy reinstated a ban on betting on stock declines.
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Stocks and the euro fell as Catalonia joined a list of Spanish regions that may tap aid from the central government, spurring 10-year yields to rise to a euro-era record. Meantime, Greece’s so-called troika of international creditors — the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund — arrives tomorrow in Athens, rekindling concern the currency union will splinter.
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“The problem in the region is profound, but the pace that it has been dealt with was slow,” said John Stopford, head of fixed income at Investec Asset Management, which oversees $98 billion. “The bank bailout for Spain is far from sufficient to deal with the country’s problems.”
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After euro finance ministers failed to stanch a decline in the single currency with the approval of a 100 billion-euro ($122 billion) aid package for Spanish banks last week, the ban by the governments in Rome and Madrid reflected renewed concern that the currency union was far from resolving its crisis.
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The euro slipped below its lifetime average against the U.S. dollar and to the lowest level in more than 11 years against the yen today, dropping to $1.2080 at 2:41 p.m. in Frankfurt. Spain’s 10-year bond yields rose as high as to 7.57 percent. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index dropped 2.4 percent at 3:45 p.m. in London.
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Spanish Regions
The slump has been compounded as Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy confronts 15 billion euros of debt redemptions in regions in the second half of this year. In addition to Catalonia, the most indebted region, Castilla-La-Mancha, Murcia, the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands may follow Valencia in seeking aid from Madrid, El Pais newspaper reported.
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Spain’s Economy Minister Luis de Guindos will visit Berlin tomorrow for talks with German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble. No press conference is planned.
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Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, his country burdened by rising borrowing costs, said last week that unrest in Spain, where protesters derided the country’s 65 billion-euro austerity package, added to euro concerns.
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