French Presidential Elections

Bailout terms will push Greece to exit, party says

Spain says Bankia needs more capital

“Spain’s economy minister said Monday that the nationalized Bankia needs to strengthen its capital defenses by as much as €7.5 billion ($9.56 billion), but downplayed the need for bailout from European funds.

THE DETAILS: The minister, Luis de Guindos, said Bankia needed billions more to meet the Spanish government’s new requirements to guard its banking industry against further economic shocks. If Bankia cannot raise the money [...]

I Just Got Back From the EU… and It’s Worse Than You Imagined

by Phoenix Capital Research

I just got off the plane from Europe. I went there because I wanted to see the effects of the French election as well as get an “on the ground” perspective of what’s really happening in Europe.

I can tell you, the situation in Europe is far FAR worse than the media is even willing to acknowledge.

See below:

The above image was taken at 9PM on Paris’ Avenue de Champs-Élysées [...]

Interesting article from HSBC – risks of Europes Ghosts returning

Ghosts from the 1930s have come back to haunt us. We may not yet have succumbed to a Great Depression but depression, in one form or another, is all around us. And we are witnessing the rise of political extremism, a nationalist backlash against a country’s obligations towards its – typically foreign – creditors.

Recovery has either been remarkably muted or, in many parts of Europe, totally non-existent. For some eurozone [...]

Nomura’s senior political analystAlastair Newton is out with his calendar of important political events in 2012. Here’s what you need to watch in May:

At a time when oil prices are being driven up by geo-political risks in Iran, Europe’s debt crisis is being increasingly impacted by politics in the region, and when the world is looking at over 40 elections in a year, political events have become crucial to the market.

Nomura’s senior political analyst Alastair Newton is out with his calendar of important political events in 2012. Here’s what you need to watch [...]

10 Reasons Why The Coming Week Could Be Huge

by Cliff Wachtel, anyoption

The following is Part 2 of our weekly review and preview strategy guide for traders and investors of all major asset classes via both traditional instruments and binary options, covering coming week’s market movers and trade ramifications.

See Part 1 For Prior Week Market Movers, Lessons & Ramifications

1. MAY 3 ECB MEETING

As noted in Part 1 regarding the lessons of last week, the fall of the Dutch government and first round socialist [...]

Euro Crisis Deepens: Cost of Spain’s Housing Bust Could Force a Bailout; Spain and Italy borrowing rates soar in latest auctions; D-Day May 6

Spain’s borrowing rate nearly doubled in a short-term debt auction as investors fretted over the euro zone’s determination to deal with its debts.

And Italy raised nearly €3.5 billion in a short-term bond sale today but at sharply higher interest rates amid fresh concerns over the euro zone outlook, the Bank of Italy said.

The Spanish treasury said it raised €1.933 billion but the timing could hardly have been worse, with financial [...]

Spain, Italy borrowing rates soar

Spain’s borrowing rate nearly doubled in a short-term debt auction as investors fretted over the euro zone’s determination to deal with its debts.

And Italy raised nearly €3.5 billion in a short-term bond sale today but at sharply higher interest rates amid fresh concerns over the euro zone outlook, the Bank of Italy said.

The Spanish treasury said it raised €1.933 billion but the timing could hardly have been worse, with financial [...]

As a reminder, this week’s European bond auctions:

European bond markets appear poised on the edge of the latest precipice as economic data this morning has confirmed once again that all the ECB’s $1.3 trillion liquidity injection did was mask the underlying solvency issues for less than 4 months. Net result: more liquidity injections imminent (and with $2.5 trillion in asset sales and deleveraging still pending, we should probably bold and underlingmore). Yet what some are forgetting is [...]

David Marsh: It’s been a black weekend for Europe’s economic and monetary union, with the French election, the Dutch budget failing, and new pressures on the bailouts rising in Germany

By David Marsh, MarketWatch

LONDON (MarketWatch) — It’s been a black weekend for economic and monetary union (EMU). The first round of the French presidential elections has torpedoed German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s strategy for guiding cash-strapped EMU members out of trouble. The euro area’s No. 2 creditor country after Germany, the Netherlands, is without a functioning administration after the government fell on Saturday in another row over shoring up the [...]

Capitalist propaganda always managed to make people think the markets’ interests were humanity’s interests.” Enough, says Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is galvanising the French presidential elections. He wants a 100% fat-cat tax, a 20% minimum wage increase and the nationalisation of Big Energy

Guardian.co.uk

In a packed agricultural hanger in a rural town in central France, an enraptured crowd raised their fists and chanted: “Resistance! Resistance!” On stage, arms flung wide, sweat pouring down his face, stood the charismatic, hard-left firebrand hailed as the best orator of the presidential campaign. “The French Revolution of 1789 hasn’t breathed its last!” roared Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the poetry-loving pitbull of anti-capitalism. “If Europe is a volcano, France is the [...]

Surprise surge for hard left could scramble French election results

Three weeks from the first round of voting, a surge in support for the hard-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon threatens to scramble forecasts for the French presidential elections.

An opinion poll published yesterday put Mr Mélenchon, 60, in third place with 15 per cent of the vote – the highest for a candidate of the anti-capitalist left since the heyday of the French Communist party 30 years ago.

The rise of Mr Mélenchon, [...]

Next Phase in Merkel’s Desperate and Risky Gamble

Wolf Richter www.testosteronepit.com

The conflict within the Eurozone has been simmering for weeks. On one side: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her efforts to protect and promote her oeuvre. On the other side: Socialist François Hollande who is running against President Nicolas Sarkozy in the French presidential elections. But now, Merkel has raised the stakes by roping in three powerful allies and lining them up against Hollande—a desperate and risky gamble to keep Sarkozy [...]

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