Thursday, July 28, 2011

Here's Who's Freaked Out By Spain And Italy Today

"Banks have the most to lose if the PIIGS (Greece, Italy, etc.) go belly up.

And considering that Italy's taking a beating today, this possibility is becoming increasingly more likely. Bloomberg is even suggesting that Italy might soon be forced to accept a new ECB bailout -- if the ECB can afford it.

If it can't, we could have a total European meltdown on our hands.
So with this in mind, we analyzed the largest European banks by assets and compared their market cap, common equity, and total exposure to PIIGS debt (thank you for the bank statistics, EBA!). Then we calculated exposure to PIIGS debt (sovereign and private) as a percentage of the banks' common equity. (Notice that HSBC, ING, and even Societe Generale are all absent from this list.)

The worst 20 cutoff for our test ended up being exposure equal to about 175% of common equity, but it really gets out of control once you get to the PIIGS banks (#1-9).

Hello, contagion!..."

at http://www.businessinsider.com/whos-freaked-out-by-contagion-2011-7?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+clusterstock+%28ClusterStock%29#ixzz1TQchOJN9

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