image_1
Jan18

Compass Directions Tuesday, 17 January 2012

Posted in Main category

After downgrading nine European nations including France on January 13, Standard and Poor’s announced that it will also cut the rating of the European Financial Stability Facility from AAA to AA+. The news offset a relatively successful French bond auction which saw yields fall on one year notes fall from 0.454% at a January 9 auction to 0.406%. It appears that most investors had already priced in a cut in ratings for France and the reaction of investors in the first trading session after the release of the mass downgrades was rather muted. Germany is now the only eurozone state with a stable AAA rating. The EUR has failed to went much from 18 month lows and opens the Asia morning trading at 1.2660. Click here to read more.. »

Share
comments:Comments Offtags: , , , , , , ,
Jan14

Ireland’s Policy Stance on a Tobin Tax

Posted in Main category

The most contemporary Closing Conference to Save the Euro finished in disarray when the UK refused to sign up to a proposed set of EU treaty changes. The UK’s veto was due to the inclusion of an EU-wide Tobin Tax on security transactions in the set of proposals. The justification for an international Tobin Tax is quite strong. Hypercompetitive securities markets with excessively-large trading volumes and hyper-quick price changes are a serious danger to global financial stability. A Tobin Tax would eliminate these perilous trading extremes without impinging much on underlying market efficiency. On other hand, the UK government’s refusal to sign up to an EU-only Tobin Tax, imposed on the City of London while the US and Asian global financial centres remain outside the tax net, was an obvious and sensible policy choice for the UK. Click here to read more.. »

Share
comments:Comments Offtags: , , , , , , , , , , ,