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It is no secret that China has massive foreign reserve holdings. Some economic and political commentators have expressed vague warnings regarding this fact frequently in recent years. Yet, there really has been no substantive economic reason to fear the quantity of China's reserves. That is, until...

The European Union said that the Greek Parliament must pass the latest round of austerity measures in order to receive the next installment of the 110 billion euro loan from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. Without the next loan installment, the Greek government could run...

It looks as if it is all but certain that Greece will eventually default on its debt, whether it receives the next tranche of its bailout package or not. Just look at the spreads on Greek debt over comparable German debt. The spreads are astronomic. Late Friday before the bell, Moody's hit us...

On Tuesday, an emergency meeting of euro finance chiefs failed to produce a plan for a privately financed Greek bailout, Bloomberg reported. Over the past several weeks, European politicians—particularly French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel—have been indicating that...

Stocks are selling off again, this time moving towards the lows of the session, and the losses are accelerating. At last check, the Dow was off 116 points, the NASDAQ was lower by 26 points, and the S&P 500 was off 13 points. The losses are being caused by worse than expected economic data,...

The likelihood that Greece will default on its debts increased yesterday after the Standard & Poor's rating agency gave Greece the lowest credit rating of any country that it covers in the world. This immediately sent Greece's borrowing costs higher as 10-year Greek bonds with yields above 17...

The market has reacted negatively to local and regional voting results out of Spain in which the country's ruling Socialist party suffered embarrassing losses. The elections followed a week of protests led by youths that are unhappy with the country's extremely high unemployment rate and are also...

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said that if Greece has trouble financing its debt, Germany will be willing to help but that any new aid will have to be tied to "clear conditions". The problem is that the Greek government has a problem with accepting agreed upon financial conditions...

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said that if Greece has trouble financing its debt, Germany will be willing to help but that any new aid will have to be tied to "clear conditions". The problem is that the Greek government has a problem with accepting agreed upon financial conditions...

The Bank of Spain announced on Friday that the Spanish economy grew by 0.2% during the 1st quarter of 2011, for the second consecutive quarter of 0.2% growth. Spain's central bank also noted that the Spanish economy was up 0.7% from the same quarter a year earlier. The modest growth was said to...

The Portugese Prime Minister said Wednesday that the International Monetary Fund and European Union had reached a deal to bailout the nation for more than $100 billion. The EU and the IMF Tuesday agreed to a 78 billion euro 3-year bailout, Prime Minister Jose Socrates commented.. Greece and...

Finance officials for the European Union (EU) told Portugal today that in order to receive aid, it would have to implement tougher economic reforms. Portugal joined Greece and Ireland this week in asking the EU and International Monetary Fund (IMF) to bailout its dire financial situation....

Goldman Sachs is telling clients in a newly-released note that it sees Portugal being the last European nation to seek a bailout, following Greece and Ireland. Francesco Garzarelli, Goldman Sachs's chief interest-rate strategist said that “We do not expect any other EMU sovereign to be in need of...

Portugal is the latest European nation to seek a financial bailout, citing high interest rates on an increasingly burdensome debt load. "The government decided today to ask the European Commission for financial help," Prime Minister José Sócrates said in a televised statement Wednesday evening....

Moody's analysts cut Portugal's sovereign debt rating one notch Tuesday, taking a wait-and-see approach to the financial crisis surrounding the Portuguese debt load. "The limited migration of the rating to Baa1 (and not lower) in today's action, reflects Moody's assessment that assistance would be...