Good morning
Some observations before I start:
- If you want to receive blog posts via email, you can sign up on the right (your right) of the webpage.
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- The fishing was awesome.
- Photos of said fishing expedition are being posted through my twitter feed – so if you want to have a look (you should – there are elephants, some sunsets, and a fish eagle), follow me there.
- Right. I’m done. Now news.
The headlines:
- Spain and Italy ban short-selling.
Link: those naughty speculators.
The speculation on bank stocks… It sounds like a familiarly French story.
Spain have banned it for three months. Italy have done it for a week.
For a brief summary of short-selling: see here.
There’s talk that it won’t work because the collapse in the share price is people genuinely selling off – not hedge funds temporarily speculating…
- Germany gets a negative rating outlook.
Link: that just happened.
The Ratings Agencies are now concerned that Germany (and the Netherlands) will end up backing the rest of Europe. Hence the “we’re feeling a bit negative about your AAA rating staying AAA”.
Not that the Ratings Agencies are particularly relevant. But they’ve been on Germany’s side for a while – it’s just interesting to watch the shift.
- Hong Kong trading suspended.
Link: bad weather.
Ah typhoons. A not-so-gentle reminder that despite the financial world’s self-obsession – natural disasters can bring it to a halt far more abruptly than Greece.
- China’s shadow banking system.
Link: it lives online.
I just thought that this was really interesting. Micro-finance sounds like a giant admin headache to me. But where there’s demand, there’s supply. From lots of people collectively to other lots of people collectively. At really high rates of interest.
Truly: the People’s bank.
And despite the warnings about not-paying-back – I think that there’s something culturally worse about you’re not paying back a person versus not paying back a bank…
That’s all for now.
Have a good day.
