Sponsorship Link
Crude oil jumps sharply today on Syrian Sanctions and news out of Eurozone and breaches 100 level. Gold also rebounds strongly on dollar's weakness and is back above 1700 level. The Arab League overwhelmingly approved sanctions against Syria over the weekend, by 19-3 votes. Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassim announced the sanction in Cairo aiming to "avoid any suffering for the Syrian people", and those measures include cutting off transactions with Syrian central bank and suspending Arab government funding for Syrian projects. That's another move in current wave of international pressure to end its violent suppressions of protests against President Bashar Al-Assad, which lead to at least 3500 death according to UN. Unrests in North Africa and Middle East led to almost entirely halted oil production in Tunisia and Egypt.
Overall market sentiments were lifted today on news report that IMF was preparing a bailout package for Italy after the country's benchmark 10 year yield continued to stay above the unsustainable 7% level. The package would amount to up to EUR 600b and there were discussions on what form of support could be offered. However, the rumor was later dismissed by IMF as it denied of any discussions on bailout program for Italy.
Later in the day, there were also rumors that Germany was considering to jointly issue bonds with France, Finland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Austria, the Eurozone's six triple A rated countries. The join bonds, called "elite-bonds", are expected to stabilize AAA countries and could be used to raise funds to aid troubling nations including Italy and Spain. Yield could be at around 2-2.5%, slightly higher than German bunds. Though, Germany Finance Ministry denied the speculations.
Must Read
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development expects sharp deterioration in European growth next year while US is expected to gain momentum mildly. Overall Eurozone GDP is expected to slow from this year's 1.6% to 2012's 0.2%. OECD warned that recovery would stall amid escalating debt crisis. Even Germany's growth is expected to slow from 3.0% in 2011 to 0.6% in 2011. UK's growth is expected to slow from 0.9% in 2011 to 0.5% in 2012 on weak international demand and contraction in consumer spending and further QE is warranted from BoE. Meanwhile, US growth is expected to accelerate from 1.7% in 2011 to 2.0% in 2012 but that would only hold if Washington break their impasse over the federal budget. Meanwhile, OECD also expect China's growth to slow from 9.3% in 2011 to 8.5% in 2012 on global headwinds.
Moody's warned that the current sovereign debt crisis is now "threatening the credit standing of all European sovereigns." The rating agency noted that according to its "central scenario", the "euro area will be preserved without further widespread defaults". But even in that case, there are still "very negative rating implications in the interim period". Meanwhile, the probability of "multiple defaults" is "no longer negligible". And "a series of defaults would also significantly increase the likelihood of one or more members not simply defaulting, but also leaving the euro area."
Follow us
