Debt crisis: Spain requests bailout to save banks

The head of Austria's central bank, Ewald Nowotny, and German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble have both made statements over this weekend that affect bailout options for Spain. In particular, Nowotny says Spain must seek help before ECB buys bonds. Spain would have to apply for a rescue package before qualifying for inclusion in the European Central Bank's plan to buy debt of struggling euro zone members, ECB policymaker Ewald Nowotny said.

Welcome to another week of European headline-driven trading! Equity futures are materially higher as traders react to the news out of Spain. Two weeks ago, the Spanish Prime Minister claimed that the country wouldn’t need a bailout.

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's overspending regions have enjoyed a holiday from the headlines, content to let debt-laden banks take most of the blame for the Mediterranean country's slide into crisis. But most of the regions, which were largely responsible for Spain missing its deficit goals by a wide margin last year, could soon become an even bigger problem for the country and its banks if sovereign borrowing costs do not fall. ...

If the leaders of the European Union cannot agree soon to some sort of 'master plan' that saves Greece, shields Spain and Italy from the contagion of wholesale investor selling, protects France from a fatal downgrade, avoids failure for the world's largest banks, and persuades German voters not to dump its government ... all hell will break loose in Europe, the UK, USA, etc. Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain are more than 3.1 trillion Euros in debt. France — which, according to Moody's, is now in danger of suffering a fatal downgrade of its debt — owes another 1.6 trillion.

Spain's overspending regions have enjoyed a holiday from the headlines, content to let debt-laden banks take most of the blame for the Mediterranean country's slide into crisis. But most of the regions, ...

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's overspending regions have enjoyed a holiday from the headlines, content to let debt-laden banks take most of the blame for the Mediterranean country's slide into crisis.

  As the fiscal cliff euphoria and start of the year buying fade, investors are waking up to the fact that fundamentally nothing was fixed in 2012.   Indeed, once could easily argue that the fiscal cliff “deal” is a great metaphor for 2012 as a whole: an enormous charade played by political leaders that ultimately solved nothing and in fact left everyone worse off.