A double-notch downgrade to Spain’s credit ratings has piled more pressure on European leaders to make rapid progress on solving the region’s debt crisis or face unbearable borrowing costs.
The fresh blow from Moody’s Investors Service came just a day after the agency warned France its “Aaa” rating could be at risk.
“If the eurozone can’t figure a way to handle the situation, you are going to see Spanish yields continue to go up and they are going to have a problem to fund themselves,” said Jessica Hoversen, currency and fixed income analyst at MF Global in New York.
Investors are counting down to a summit of EU leaders this weekend that was originally hailed as a watershed event.
Moody’s cut Spain’s bond rating to “A1,” from “Aa2,” the third of the major agencies to act in recent weeks and taking it a notch below the ratings of Standard & Poor’s and Fitch.
The ratings agency’s reasoning made worrying reading for those hoping for a speedy resolution to the country’s troubles.
“Since placing the ratings under review in late July 2011, no credible resolution of the current sovereign debt crisis has emerged and it will in any event take time for confidence in the area’s political cohesion and growth prospects to be fully restored,” the agency said.
In the meantime, Spain’s large sovereign borrowing needs, heavily indebted banking system and challenging growth outlook left it vulnerable to further downgrades, a judgement that would encompass all too many of EU members.
Markets have been on edge for fear European leaders would not agree on a plan to address the crisis, which has already forced Greece, Ireland and Portugal to seek bailouts and has driven up borrowing costs in Italy and Spain.
Greek unions began a 48-hour general strike yesterday, the biggest protest in years, as parliament prepares to vote on sweeping new austerity measures designed to stave off default.
France saw its borrowing costs jump on Tuesday after Moody’s warned it might slap a negative outlook on the country’s “Aaa” rating in the next three months if slower growth and the costs of helping to bail out banks stretch its budget too much. French Finance Minister Francois Baroin said the rating was not at risk.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained