“A comprehensive euro zone deal is beyond reach”-Fitch rating agency
The ratings agencies seem to enjoy to releasing bad news on a Friday. Actually, putting France on negative outlook and not an outright downgrade yesterday was probably good news. It was quadruple witching yesterday with some equity rebalancing thrown in for good measure. So stuff moved around a lot.
Home prices in Spain dropped for the fourteenth consecutive quarter yesterday and their unemployment rate is still north of 20%. There isn’t an austerity plan in the solar system that will fix that, as Spanish banks face a 43% price fall on repossessed homes.
Have a great weekend.
The $ZNGA IPO bombed as it was priced at 10, but traded down to 9 before it caught a bounce.
The former Notre Dame walk-on has agreed to pay $382,866 to resolve the SEC’s claim that he participated in a pump-and-dump, fraudulently inducing investors to bid up the stock of his sports drink company, Rudy Nutrition. He did not admit or deny the allegations.
The Arab spring was revisited as Cairo is starting to look like a war zone again.
Kazakhstan is a mess and they shut down You tube and Twitter. Russian customs agents also found some radioactive luggage trying to make its way to Iran yesterday. That’s cute.
We had yet another debate last week. Watching GOP candidates praise each other like hearing Bill Ray Cyrus talk about bands that influenced him.
Christopher Hitchens passed on last week. He was firm in his beliefs and he cared nary a wit about what people thought. Refreshing. Loved that about him. Here is a clip of him flipping the bird to Bill Maher’s minions.
$SPY, $UUP, $EWP, $EURO