The editors of Qorreo, that excellent purveyor of English-language background on Spain, have been kind enough to publish our take on the current version of the eurozone debt crisis.
As Banco Santander takes another run at its June low of 7.12 euros, an interesting item appears in yesterday's online edition of Expansión.
The chart on the left (grabbed from Bloomberg) shows today's price action for the Spanish 10-year bond. Anotated with the letter A is 10:07 London time - the moment at which FT Alphaville announced that today's auction of 3- and 6-month paper had fallen short of clearing the '4-5 billion' on offer - in fact settling for 3.26 billion.
Digging a bit further into a tip provided by the really good Spanish financial news source, Capital Madrid, we've come across a rather odd ambivalence on the part of the Banco de España with regards to the reporting of non-performing loans on the books of Spain's financial institutions.The default rate, taking into account the Asset Protection Scheme, is 2.39%, one of the lowest in the sector.
The pundits were right. September home closings via Spanish property registries - almost all reflecting sales made following the one point increase in the applicable sales tax - tanked with respect to August.
Up next?
Buyers with incomes of over 24,000 euros transacting after December 31 will no longer be able to claim the home ownership deduction on their income tax returns.
The reader should make no mistake about it. That he presided over the taking of swift action in the face of last spring's bond market upheaval does in no way changes that the two defining characteristics of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's presidency over the course of the current crisis are captured by the words, incomprehension and denial. That he might believe that he has now survived all the trials by fire that life might put him to comes via an item at idealista.com...
The unfailingly brilliant - despite the disappearance of its founder - Macro Man made the point last July that the cheapest way to play eurozone sovereign risk was through the FX markets, popping up this Bloomberg chart of the Spain 10-year/bund spread and EUR/USD to prove the point. This is no longer the case.
