The IMF finally announced it's Latvia "bailout" plan on Friday. The plan involves lending about €1.7 billion ($2.4 billion) to Latvia to stabilise the currency and financial support while the government implements its economic adjustment plan. The loan, which will be in the form of a 27-month stand-by arrangement, is still subject to final approval by the IMF's Executive Board but is likely to be discussed before the end of this year under the Fund's fast-track emergency financing procedures, and it is not anticipated that there will be any last minute hitches (although I do imagine some eyebrow raising over the decision to support the continuation of the Lat peg). The Latvian government admits that some of the IMF economists involved in the negotiations advocated a devaluation of the lat as a way of ammeliorating the ...

Once again, I am flattering an entry with a picture taking here in Switzerland where I am currently entertaining courses at HEC Lausance. As you can see, it is a beautiful place and also, as it were, very interesting with respect to tail fume patterns from the enormous amount of airplanes moving back and forth over le Lac Léman (middle of Europe remember!). Posting is slim I know, but so unfortunately is time; I can assure that it is not out of lack of enthusiasm to write and opinion on current events.

Moving on to the topic du jour it is interesting to observe wow fast things sometimes change. We need not go back more than 5-6 months to observe how hawkish central banks across the economic edifice were busy scrambling to raise rates in order to quell inflationary pressures. Most notably, the

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by Claus Vistesen: Lausanne

As I peer out my window over towards the Alps and the northern entrance to Le Vallé du Rhône I can't help asking myself whether some of those experiments which are habitually conducted a mere 40 kilometers from my current habitat haven't gone terribly wrong? With every passing day getting I find it more and more difficult to avoid associating all those worthy attempts to uncover that illusive Hick's Particle with the all-encompassing black hole into which our financial markets seem to be getting sucked with a disturbing velocity, despite the numerous efforts by the global financial authorities to invent some sort of monetary equivalent to "anti-matter".

But while the current crisis is pretty much a generalised global one, if there is one region where the crisis is making its presence more acutely than elsewhere, that place is Eastern Europe, and among the

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As I peer out my window towards the Alpes and the northern entry point to Le Vallé du Rhône I am wondering whether the experiments conducted only 40 kilometers from my current habitat haven't gone terribly wrong? Consequently, it is getting decidedly difficult not to link the initiation of experiments to uncover the illusive Hick's Particle with the all encompassing black hole that seems to be disturbing the workings of financial markets.

One place where the crisis is fast making its presence increasingly felt is Eastern Europe as well as the Baltics; the latter being the immediate focus of this piece. This is not so strange. On many occasions since the credit crisis went global back in the summer of 2007 many analysts including yours truly have been flagging the risks for a hard landing in Eastern Europe. This situation has by and large materialised at this

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Update added below (03.08.2008): New links and further discussion on this can be found in the update below. It really seems as if more than one eye is turning to the Baltics at the moment THE weather deities are extraordinarily generous at the moment here in Copenhagen and being cooped up in a 17m2 studio does not exactly inspire to being a good protestant. However, financial markets and news streams are serving up a nice batch of data points and being the wonk I am, I am keeping tap; even if the beaches of Zealand have (and will be) frequented more than a couple of times. Last time I had the Baltics under the spotlight I asked two overall questions. The first dealt with the extent to which the Baltics had entered a recession in the beginning of ...

By Claus Vistesen Copenhagen

Last time I had the Baltics under the spotlight I asked two overall questions. The first dealt with the extent to which the Baltics had entered a recession in the beginning of 2008 and the second question surrounded the risk of the Baltic pegs to the Euro. This time around and with the recent Q2 GDP release from Lithuania it would be nice to revisit the first of these questions. And with the market focus looking to shift from inflation to growth the second question is likely to become in vogue once again.

As the Q1 GDP numbers came in for the Baltics I concluded that it was very likely that the region had entered a recession. In light of the proverbial definition of a recession as a consecutive quarter contraction it seems clear the Lithuania managed to smartly skirt the recession

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Forbes columnist Zack O’Malley Greenburg, said that many European banks are healthy and look like innocent victims of the subprime mess, and they are less likely to cut dividends.  He recommends the following banks as those likely to bounce back:

a. Allied Irish Banks

b. Banco Santander

c. Bank of Ireland

d. BNP Paribas -4% dividend

e. Commerzbank -4% dividend

f. HSBC Holdings

g. Societe General

h. Swedbank

Track Zack’s picks at:

http://www.trackthepros.com/categories.php?category_id=270