Posted on 04/27/2010 9:01:33 AM PDT by mlocher
NEW YORK, April 27 (Reuters) - Global stocks slid and the euro deepened losses against the dollar on Tuesday after Standard & Poor's cut its credit rating on Greece into "junk" territory and slashed its ratings on Portugal.
German Bund futures hit a session high after S&P cut its ratings on Portugal by two notches. The move by S&P drove up investors' bid for safety, and U.S. Treasury debt prices rose.
European equities suffered steep losses, with Portugal's benchmark index plunging 5 percent and the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index provisionally closing down 2.6 percent. The Greek bank index plunged 9.23 percent, and European bank stocks skidded.
On Wall Street, the news from Portugal overshadowed strong earnings, dragging down all three major indexes. The market suffered a knife blow following the news on Greece's ratings, with indexes off about 1 percent.
Standard & Poor's downgraded Greece into junk territory on concerns about its ability to implement the reforms needed to address its high debt burden, cutting its rating a full three notches to BB-plus, the first level of speculative, or junk, status.
The outlook is negative, meaning the agency could downgrade the rating again.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.fidelity.com ...
* S&P cuts Greece to "junk"
* Euro deepens losses against dollar
* U.S. Treasuries rally (Recasts with Greece, Portugal downgrades; new throughout)
Wow...just got a copy of Harry S. Dent’s The Great Depression Ahead the other day and the strengthening of the dollar was one of the predictions in it that I have read so far. The other immediate and relevant prediction is the big crash coming later this year in the US stock market...considering he predicted the end of the early 90’s recession, the boom of the late 90s, the tech bubble burst, the subsequent boom, and our most recent crash in 08, it may be wise to learn what the guy has to say.
A side note: he insists that government policies do not cause the swings in the markets - they only amplify or deaden them. Which do you think the current regime is doing?
Oh, but European socialism really works, it really, really does...just give it some more time...50 years isn’t enough time to get it working properly....just raise the tax rate and increase government spending and you will see...sooner or later, it will work...Why, it’s so popular it’s being forced upon the U.S. as we speak....
I partially agree with his assertion. The government can cause the market to, in the long term, head up or head down. Variability in the market on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis is the result of investors trying to make or preserve capital. The government does not cause variability.
Some current government policies deaden and some deaden market swings. The unusual amount of liquidity is deadening the effect of government spending on US Treasury interest rates -- but the longer term trend is up. Another government policy that deaden market swings include housing props (tax rebates & the FED buying MBS). On the other hand, the CRA was a policy that amplified the housing bubble.
This administration is trying to keep market swings from happening -- it is a stated goal. Unfortunately, the policies that deaden swings also set the economy on a slow downward trend.
You should be the next Billy Mays. Except he sold things that usually worked.
Bizarre. When most other Eurabian entities (and far worse here in the US) are in hock far more deeply than little Greece...why all the attention put on Greece...
Good observation. FBN connects the dots between Greece and our situation on ocassion.
Post modern third way ideology demands NO sovereignty.
Independent nations are an anachronism.
DESTROY them or get them into line.
Use one world Marxism or Mohamedenaism as a tool to destroy borders.
I just find it bizarre that it is safer to invest in bonds from Albania,Macedonia and Turkey then it is to invest in Greece.
Also isn’t like a large bit of Germany’s population Turkish?
I think that might be one reason for their bias.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,534519,00.html
Germans fiddle and faddle while Europe burns...
You sound like you want to raid the savings of your successful neighbor to pay off your own credit card problem. Which is really the viewpoint of a tax-n-spend libtard.
Before going off the deep end and blaming the people of Greece, you should know the whole story and nobody does. Greece does have a debt but not more than most other nations.
At this point nobody really knows what and how this “mess” was caused.
And by the way - Germans have most to lose...not because they can bail out anybody but because they go down big big time if nobody can or wants to buy their stupid products.
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