From the category archives:

sovereign debt

This spring of 2011, United States Congress will vote on whether or not to raise the debt ceiling.  What is the US debt ceiling? The debt ceiling refers to the total cap on U.S. borrowing through Treasury issuances of debt, in the form of bonds, to domestic and foreign holders.
If you think the U.S. is [...]

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You may not have heard of this yuan yet – but the renminbi officially has a new, unofficial nickname – the “redback.” That’s right, it looks and sounds the way you think it’s trying to look and sound.  Not only is the renminbi note red, but it’s got a picture of Mao on the [...]

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Now that the G20 has wrapped up, what can we glean about stock markets going forward?  Canada’s PM Harper noted that markets have been skittish as they have been waiting for the G20’s pronouncement on the delicate balance between imposing fiscal austerity but also facilitating continued stimulus in order to abet the global economic recovery.
Summer [...]

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Estimates suggest the Deepwater Horizon oilspill has already cost BP plc about one billion pounds.  This does not even take into consideration total clean up costs going forward if the leak were to somehow suddenly stop right now.
But so far we haven’t heard much about the wider economic effects that the Deepwater environmental disaster will [...]

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With the recent bailout of Greece, markets have not warmed up to Europe’s debt problems, and this has meant that the Euro has continued to weaken against the USD (sort of like a teeter-totter built out of CDO’s).
As of Friday, May 14, 2010, one Euro will buy a whole $1.237 USD.  That means the Euro [...]

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In a surprise reaction to the weekend approval of the one trillion euro bailout of Greece (750 billion euros from the ECB and 250 billion euros from the IMF, i.e., U.S. money, i.e., China’s savings), markets remained suspicious of long-term improvement in both Greece and the Euro.
As a result, this week has seen a steady [...]

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On April 27, 2010, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Greece’s credit rating to junk status – meaning that it is unlikely Greece can pay back its creditors, which means that it is not worth it for the hypothetical investor to invest in Greece.
The same day, the USD spiked and the Euro and other currencies fell a [...]

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