Spain’s economy grew 3.1% year-over-year in Q2 2025, a pace that left Germany, France, and most of the eurozone behind. That kind of divergence is exactly what single-country ETFs are built to…
It’s been a turbulent past couple of weeks, but the S&P 500 is poised to finish the year with some historically decent gains intact. At the time of this writing, the S&P…
With the Brexit Vote only adding that much more uncertainty, the reality is setting in that this could spell long-term trouble for the European Union. Britain never did share its currency, but…
Greece is back as a financial market again. Well, sort of. The nation finally allowed its stock market to open back up after an unheard of five-week trading halt.
ThinkstockIt seems almost too hard to believe, but we have seen two of the PIIGS upgraded by different credit ratings agencies this Friday. Fitch ratings has raised Greece’s sovereign credit rating, and…
ThinkstockWhat happens when you put a vote out to the people about whether or not their benefits and public spending should be cut to appeal to international creditors? If you believe in…
The Spanish bank stress tests are out and the initial verdict is that the shortfall was just not as bad as expected. In order to encompass about 90% of Spain’s banking system…
Spain is starting to look more and more like Greece with protesters clashing with police in the capital. The difference is that Spain is a much more important economy to Europe and…
Spain is again taking the center stage, even after Greece’s Prime Minister Samaras was meeting with Angela Merkel of Germany. And now we have seen headlines on the broad tape that Spain is…
Most, or much, of the world hates short sellers. Betting against markets is just unfair, or so goes the logic. There is just one small problem: a market without short sellers is…
European leaders are taking the aid directly to the banks to stave off any added crisis. The futures in the U.S. are soaring and the markets in Europe are up big. This…
A 2014 bond auction in France went off at 0.54% this Thursday, while the same maturity in 2014 went for a yield of 4.70% in Spain. The fear is that long-term borrowing…
The Greek elections went the way that the market participants were initially hoping for, but now the reality is setting in that Greece may ultimately not be able to stay in the…
Trusting anything out of Greece or any of the PIIGS nations is a bit difficult these days. With the weekend coming upon us, Greece is set to be the center of the…
Egan-Jones Ratings is just the latest ratings agency to hit the PIIGS today. The ratings agency lowered the Kingdom of Spain’s ratings down to “CCC+” from “B.” What is perhaps more important is…
