Trader’s Narrative

The stock market just is. Trying to find reasons for it’s gyrations is usually a harrowing exercise. And pinpointing a single cause is pretty much a futile effort.
By now, the event that is most prominent in everyone’s mind is the multi-billion Euro Societe Generale fraud, perpetrated by Jerome Kerviel but before being eclipsed by […]

While the US market was closed for Martin Luther King day, markets in Europe declined in what can only be described as a panic.
Lets throw some scary numbers around: Toronto fell almost 5%, Mexico -5.4%, the MSCI World Index fell 3%, the European Stoxx 600 -5.7%, the FTSE -5.5%, the DAX more than -7%, in […]

I’ve been keeping a wary eye on the white hot Spanish real estate market for a few years. Each year, as prices keep climbing people stand wide mouthed and shake their head saying it just can’t go up any more. Of course, it does.

A family member bought a penthouse condo in Madrid for 600,000 Euros […]

Bolsas y Mercados Españoles (Spanish Exchanges and Markets) debuted today in the Spanish stock market. BME is the holding company for the individual stock exchanges, settlement, clearing and counterparty, the futures and derivatives market, as well data dissemination and the technology that drives the Spanish financial markets. Basically the whole enchilada.
It’s IPO follow in the […]

As you’ve probably seen on your filters, Escala (ESCL) has been crashing for the past few consecutive days. The shares gapped down hard on Tuesday and continued to sell off the Spanish authorities raided the offices of Afinsa and shut them down by declaring them insolvent.
The anti-corruption prosecutor has arrested 9 owners/executives of Afinsa. It […]