Archived IMT (2009.01.19)

EURUSD breaks under the $1.32 figure as European bourses enter negative territory following a short-lived rally on the heals of the UK govts' second bailout. S&P's eventual donwgrade of Spain's credit rating is also adding to EURO's losses. Less than a week after the US governments latest provision of backtops to BoA and Citigroup, and the unveiling of Germanys $50 billion fiscal stimulus plan, the UK government announced its second bank rescue, comprising additional multi-billion pound asset protection schemes. A recurring pattern to these government announcements is the simultaneous announcement of large scale banking losses with that of government bailouts. We witnessed such pattern in autumn 2007 when multibillion US dollar losses by Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and UBS were coupled with announcements (on the same day) of multibillion US dollar injections by sovereign wealth funds from Singapore and Abu Dhabi.