PIIGS

The much anticipated press conference between French president Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel was nothing short of a disaster earlier, and equity markets plunged as soon as they started opening their mouths. The two biggest points of the press conference were both seen as...

It happened faster than Greece did, and it could be the biggest thing of 2011, with speculators going after Italy and the country's near $2 trillion in debt. Italy is the third largest debtor nation in the world, and is part of the vaunted "PIIGS" group, which includes Greece, Portugal, Italy,...

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...

The world has long recognized that Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain (the so called PIIGS) have been struggling with debt and solvency issues for years. Obviously, Greece has been the poster child for the group, with massive Greek protests dominating the news seemingly every other day....

Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan is out with some comments on Greece, and the potential spillover to other Eurozone countries. Noonan said that Ireland fears "adverse consequences" from Greece. There is talk of a potential Greek default, and the worry is that if Greece were to default, then...

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,...

Moody’s Investors Service (NYSE: MCO) downgraded Ireland's credit rating one notch, to Aa2 from Aa1, citing a weak banking system and rising debt according to a report from the New York Times. Even with the downgrade, Ireland still remains comfortably above junk level. Moody’s also changed the...