"There is no financial crisis in Spain."
The above quote is from the chairman of a Spanish bank whose stock chart looks like this…
The above quote is from the chairman of a Spanish bank whose stock chart looks like this…
Emilio Botin, chairman of Spain's biggest bank, Banco Santander, today told Reuters his country is not suffering a financial crisis. Experience has taught us that when a financial executive (or government official) says there's no problem, there's a problem.
Of course, Botin revealed himself in his next breath… he told Reuters that Spanish banks need 40 billion euros to stay afloat, adding those figures are "perfectly accessible." We're sure the cost to bail out the Spanish banking system will be much larger than 40 billion euros. It likely will cost hundreds of billions of euros… But 40 billion is a good start.
While Botin is trying to calm fears… Spain's Treasury Minister Cristobal Montoro basically told the world, in an interview on Spanish radio, that his country is shut out of global credit markets… "The risk premium says Spain doesn't have the market door open" he said. "The risk premium says that as a state we have a problem in accessing markets, when we need to refinance our debt."
Spain is going to test the credit markets on Thursday by issuing 1 billion-2 billion euros of medium- and long-term debt. If we were the treasury minister of a country in crisis, we probably wouldn't be making announcements like this two days before an important bond auction…
With the imminent wave of liquidity about to hit Europe, it's no wonder global gold demand continues rising… Recent data show Hong Kong shipped 101,768 kilograms of gold to mainland China in April, up 62% in one month (and the second-highest monthly export in history). And Iran imported $1.2 billion of gold from Turkey in April (up from $7,500 a year earlier). In the U.S., sales of American Eagle gold coins more than doubled in May to 53,000 ounces, up from 20,000 in April.
No comments:
Post a Comment