4th Apr - Plainly painful Spain

 Spain's bond auction and rise in yields above the recent trading range is clearly the main event of today. Interesting how US will follow today's action (and yesterday's cold shower for QE3-enthusiasts). Click the charts to enlarge and visit my Charts-page. To the links:

News And Market Re-Cap – RanSquawk / ZH

The euro zone today – MacroScope / Reuters

The Lunch Wrap – alphaville / FT

EM New York headlines – beyondbrics / FT

Morning MarketBeat – MarketBeat / WSJ

Today's yield move not yet on this chart

Morning Take-Out – DealBook / NYT

EZ Crisis Daily Press Summary – Open Europe

TV: Bloomberg, CNBC, BBC

Debt crisis: live – The Telegraph

Europe Crisis Tracker – WSJ

Tracking Europe’s Debt Crisis – NYT

FX Options Analytics – Saxo Bank

The Euro Divorce – Fatasmihov

The argument is not new but the article provides a blueprint of how it should be done, which makes the reading more interesting but, of course, it also opens up their argument to more criticism. Let me summarize their proposal before I take my turn on bringing some arguments that suggest that this might not work as well as the authors suggest.

Europe’s Economic Woes: That Sound You Hear Is The Euro Cracking – TIME

The euro zone has always been a selfish union, crafted in times of unprecedented growth that are unlikely to be repeated and predicated on short-term economic gain rather than longer-term political union within Europe. To fix the euro, you have to fix that problem — and as we’ve written many times, it’s tough to do without a common fiscal union, as you have in the U.S., in which money can be transferred from stronger states to weaker ones.

The ECB’s proportionate response to the Eurozone crisis – voxeu.org

The ECB’s longer-term refinancing operations have been widely analysed. Although comments are largely positive, some experts have argued that direct ECB intervention was the only way to save the Eurozone. This column reviews the criticisms against the operations and assesses whether the ECB should have intervened directly in the sovereign-debt markets instead of providing funding to banks.

Spanish Economic Drama: Nearly 57% of Budget Devoted to Pensions, Unemployment Benefits, and Interest; Unemployment Rate Hits 23.6%; Spain Warns of Soaring Debt – Mish’s

That Spanish auction – alphaville / FT

Sentiment: Deep Red As Europe Is Back With A Thud – ZH
also commentary roundup on the Spanish auction.