On more than one occasion in the past few weeks, cars approaching the French port of Calais have been greeted with massive tire fires manned by shouting dockworkers.
An air-traffic controller strike in France, a fire at Rome’s airport, terrorist attacks in Tunisia, and Greece’s great depression. The omens weren’t great for EasyJet’s latest quarter, but the budget airline’s shares jumped today after it unexpectedly reported halfway decent results for the three months to June.
Greece is making its way up in the world. Yesterday (July 20), it repaid overdue debts with the IMF, ending an ignominious period in which it spent a few weeks in the company of Somalia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe as one of the only countries in arrears with the fund.
PZ Cussons is not a household name, but many of the holding company’s products are. Normally, the London-listed maker of soaps, detergents, appliances and other consumer goods—sometimes dubbed a “mini Unilever”—would be happy to toil in obscurity, steadily expanding its reach and growing its profit.
Greek banks were closed for three weeks to conserve cash after a contentious referendum on austerity measures brought the country’s bailout negotiations to a halt. But now that the outlines of a new deal are in place, the immediate crisis has been averted, Athens is back in its creditors’ good graces, and the banks can reopen—even if there isn’t much that customers can do there besides enjoy the air conditioning.
Greece is out of the international financial dog house. Over the past three weeks, the cash-strapped country has stiffed the IMF twice, missing loan repayments worth around €2 billion ($2.2 billion) in total.
This chart has tongues wagging in the markets today:
You may have heard that Greece is in a bit of trouble. So why are some Greek retailers seeing their stock fly off the shelves?
Good job, Greece! You get €900 million today, €7 billion tomorrow, and vast riches in the future.*
The numbers: Ticking along. Headline profit in the first half of this year fell by nearly 20% versus the previous year, which doesn’t sound like a great result for the Swiss watch group. But the shortfall was due largely to the surging Swiss franc, which has gained more than 15% versus the euro so far this year. When the group converts its sales outside of Switzerland into francs, it puts a big dent in otherwise decent results.
Never underestimate Europe’s capacity for compromise. Throughout the region’s wrenching debt crisis, leaders from the EU, euro zone, and related institutions have shown an extraordinary ability to fudge the big decisions.
Updated at 7:45am ET
Throughout the high-stakes bailout negotiations between Greece and its creditors, the fate of the euro zone has hung in the balance. For months, Athens and its lenders have bickered bitterly over steep tax hikes, deep pension cuts, and cavernous black holes in bank balance sheets.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a deal! It took 17 hours of talks, but this morning euro zone leaders emerged, blinking and bleary-eyed, from the negotiating room with an agreement for a new three-year Greek bailout worth up to €86 billion ($95 billion).
There is a tantalizing rumor making the rounds in Brussels. It’s that if euro-zone finance ministers—the “Eurogroup”—sign off on Greece’s make-or-break pledge on reforms on Saturday (July 11), and grant a new bailout, then the emergency EU leaders’ summit called for Sunday will be cancelled. If that happens, it will be one of the few times that European officials subtract, rather than add, a meeting to the calendar to blather on about Greece.
Fewer than 6,000 police officers across the whole of England and Wales (population 57 million) are authorized to carry guns. According to the latest statistics, published today, those cops were called to nearly 15,000 incidents in the year to March 2014. The number of cases when they actually fired their guns? Two. (Down from three the previous year.)
A deadline was once a tangible thing. During the American Civil War, soldiers told captives that if they strayed beyond a certain distance from the prison camp, they would be shot. That distance marked the dead line.
Even more than usual, there is an air of weariness and resentment on the streets of London—and beneath them.
The ultimate insult for a CEO is when the company’s shares jump on news of your departure. That’s what’s happening at Barclays today, with shares rising by around 3% in early trading after the big British bank announced the ouster of chief executive Antony Jenkins. In essence, the bank has gained some £1.4 billion ($2.2 billion) in market value by jettisoning its CEO.
European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker is a colorful character. A little too colorful sometimes.
For Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras, the resounding rejection of creditors’ latest bailout proposal in a referendum was, first and foremost, a “victory of democracy.” The country will never succumb to “blackmail” by lenders, he said, as its voters proved at the polls.
The news from Athens is coming thick and fast. Greek voters comprehensively rejected a bailout proposal from creditors yesterday (July 5), setting the stage for yet another showdown between the government and its creditors. Greece’s membership in the euro zone, and the fate of its economy in general, hangs in the balance.
Greece voted overwhelmingly against enduring more austerity in exchange for a new round of bailout funding from its creditors. With roughly 91% of the vote in more than 61% of voter cast their ballot against the deal, in a victory for Greece’s left-leaning government and a rebuke to the troubled country’s euro zone creditors.
“Either you give in to ultimatums or you opt for democracy.” With that, Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras encouraged citizens to pass judgment on the country’s latest bailout deal in a referendum this weekend. There’s just one snag: The offer has expired and Greece’s lenders say it is no longer valid.
