Natural Gas Situation in Europe

Interesting article.

Natural gas flows to Europe are dangerously low.

LNG imports are at all time highs.

China hasn't reopened yet.

Asia and EU LNG are correlated.

Germany gas storage is dropping during the summer.

Italy is worse.

Italian Central Bank Buys All Italian Bonds

Pure debt monetization.

European Bank Deposit Outflows: The Case of Italy

European bank deposits have seen outflows since the start of 2012, right when the ECB started tightening its balance sheet. Two of the countries most affected were Spain and Greece where the outflows are steepening. Italy has been holding pretty steady.

But more recently, we see that Italy is topping out, right on the breaking news that inbound money transfers to Italy will have a 20% tax imposed on them. I wonder what this will do to the Italian economy as nobody will buy stuff from Italy anymore because the merchants won't be able to make a profit. Everyone will also transfer their money out of Italian bank accounts to foreign bank accounts.

Let's see how fast the deposits will flow out of Italy going forward.

PIIGS Bank Deposits Outflow Accelerating

As I noted a month earlier, Spain's bank deposits posted an outflow and this outflow is accelerating for the month of May 2013. This time, Italy is posting outflows too.

Greece, Cyprus are of course still in a decline. I expect bail-ins to come if this trend continues. Europeans should be worried about their deposits.

Bank Deposits Update

Remember the Cyprus debacle in March? We were worried about deposits declining.

In February, deposits declined in Cyprus, Ireland, Greece, Portugal. But they increased in Italy and Spain.

In March, we see the same happening again. So I don't see any significant changes. Maybe the Cyprus crisis was just a little drop in the sea.

Chart 1: Bank Deposits

Banks And Their Exposure to the PIIGS

In the news of today, Spain has been in the center spot of attention. Spanish bond yields have been rising quickly and financials have seen weakness in their share price. In this article I want to see which banks have the most exposure to Spain and to the PIIGS in general.

During the stress tests of July 2011 the exposure of 90 banks to the PIIGS countries' government debt was released by the European Banking Authority (EBA).

To find out which banks are exposed to the PIIGS and which banks to avoid, please go to my article here:
Analyzing bank exposure to the PIIGS

Employment Deteriorating for the PIIGS

Since the crisis of 2008, the unemployment rate for the PIIGS has been increasing rapidly. As a consequence, lately investors are putting their hard earned money in more healthy countries like Switzerland and Germany.

Go HERE to read a more in depth analysis on this matter.

Belgium Downgraded by Fitch

Today Belgium was downgraded by Fitch from AA+ to AA with negative outlook. All of this due to the Dexia fiasco. I'm from Belgium and I can say that the bailout of Dexia was the most immoral thing the government has ever done. Dexia has an enormous amount of Greek debt (US$5 billion write down)  and everyone knows Greece is going to default sooner than later. Supporting Dexia was the dumbest act ever. The only reason why Belgium government bonds are doing well is because Belgians have an enormous amount of savings and the unemployment rate is improving.

But we see the consequences already from Dexia. Several cantons lost several millions of money. Of course, we tax payers will need to pay for this.

Amount of shares in Dexia per capita

4 other countries were downgraded as well:

Italy: A => A-
Spain: AA- => A
Cyprus: BBB => BBB-
Slovenia: AA- => A

Surprisingly, the euro went up...