Archive for December, 2011

Markets In Black After Technical Support

Thursday, December 15th, 2011
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 70.1 points, to 11,893, the S&P jumped 6.7 points, to 1,219. US Data lifts markets as Europe rumor grows silent. A report from the New York Federal Reserve on manufacturing in the New York region also easily topped expectations. The gauge hit 9.53 in December from an anemic 0.61 in November, and better than the reading of 3 economists had anticipated. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve’s manufacturing gauge climbed to 10.3 in December from 3.6 in November, easily topping estimates of a reading of 5. Traders who used to profit from price swings are struggling as record stock market volatility shows no signs of abating. All VIX futures expiring next year trade above 30, indicating that investors are betting that stock-market volatility will remain above average for the next eight months.
 
Hedge funds are on track to post their second-worst year on record, with managers such as John Paulson seeing bets undermined by Europe’s two-year sovereign-debt crisis and concerns over the U.S. economic recovery. Paulson, who is having the worst year of his career as bets on a U.S. economic recovery go awry, reduced risk at his firm after losing as much as 47 percent in the first nine months in one of his biggest funds.U.S. mutual funds are headed for their second-weakest year of deposits in two decades, and the top Wall Street banks posted their worst quarter in trading and investment banking since the depths of the 2008 financial crisis.

Smaller investors are also pulling back. U.S. mutual funds that invest in stocks and bonds attracted an estimated $42 billion through November, according to the Investment Company Institute, a Washington-based trade group. Funds have seen net withdrawals in every month since June, with redemptions reaching a peak in August. At the current rate, 2011 is on pace to be the second- weakest year in two decades, ICI data show. In 2008, the worst year, investors withdrew $225 billion.

Traders used to profit from volatility in the aftermath of events such as the 2008 bankruptcy of investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. or the 1998 collapse of U.S. hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management LP. 

Three-month historic volatility for the gauge known as the VIX increased to a record 191.59 on Oct. 31, above the 92.56 median over the past decade and surpassing the prior peak of 190.44 from December 2008. The benchmark for U.S. options prices and expected stock-market swings surged the most in four years on Aug. 8 after S&P’s stripped the U.S. of its top credit rating for the first time. The Dow plunged 634.76 points the first trading day after the U.S. downgrade for the biggest drop in two years. Over the next three days it rebounded 429.92 points, plunged 519.83 points and rallied 423.37 points. Dow swings between intraday highs and lows averaged 126.49 points this year through July. Since Aug. 1 they averaged 261.22 points. The Dow is 245.97 points above where it ended last year.

The VIX closed at 26.04 yesterday, or 27 percent above the 20.56 average over its 21-year history. All VIX futures expiring next year trade above 30, indicating that investors are betting that stock-market volatility will remain above average for the next eight months. April futures trade at 31.70, which indicates that options traders expect the S&P 500 Index to make daily moves of about 2 percent.

Commodities Slammed; S&P Drops To 1210

Wednesday, December 14th, 2011

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA – 11,823.48) gave up 131.5 points, or 1.1%, to end below both its 20-day and 200-day moving averages for the first time since Nov. 29. The S&P (SPX – 1,211.82) was slapped for 13.9 points, or 1.1%, ending south of its own 20-day trendline for the first time this month. Stocks and commodities were slammed lower today, as escalating concerns about European debt sent Wall Street scrambling for the perceived safety of the U.S. dollar and 10-Year Treasury Bonds (1.89). The Euro sank to an 11 month low against the US Dollar, breaching the key $1.30 level for the first time in nearly a year. Dollar-denominated commodities like crude and gold (NYSE:GLD) tumbled.

Gold prices continued their precipitous fall, dropping sharply in morning trade. The yellow metal fell below its 200-day moving average for the first time since January 2009. Previous dips below the key metric often have been positive for gold. Over the following week, month, three months, six months, and one year, the price of gold has averaged gains with positive returns two thirds of the time. While gold saw negative returns in the three, six, and twelve months following the end of its 1980 and 1988 streaks, following the four remaining streaks the close below the 200-DMA turned out to be a pause that refreshed for gold. Short Gold (NYSE:DZZ)

Target $1400

Here’s a post from August 11th 2011 here

The price of US crude fell below $96 a barrel and could have much more room to drop should the global economic slowdown continue, despite actions by the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries. OPEC’s decision to raise the official target for the cartel’s output to close to the current level of production probably had little impact.   Short Oil (NYSE:SCO)

Target $85

Here’s a post from June 16th 2011 here

In Europe, an auction of Italian sovereign debt saw the euro zone’s third-largest economy pay a euro era record yield of 6.47 percent to sell five-year paper. The sale came after the EU tried to move towards greater fiscal integration at last week’s summit, adding to investor concerns. The National Bank of Greece has indicated it will seek shareholders’ approval for a 1 billion-euro government bailout, sending its shares sharply higher.

NAR To Revise 5 Years Of Home Sales Figures

Wednesday, December 14th, 2011

For the last few years I’ve been warning investors of further downward pressures in the housing market. We as humans tend to forget or exhibit amnesia of the past history. Keep this in mind “History Repeats itself”. So what’s the latest that supports my arguement on the current state of the Housing economy? Shadow numbers. That’s right, “Shadow numbers on housing have been right along. Late last night the National Association of Realtors announced that they goofed up on their numbers. How ironic, false figures to mask the doldrums of the housing market. Far fewer homes have been sold over the past five years than previously estimated. The truth is people…..we need to go back to basics and allow the housing naturally take its course without Fed and Government intervention. Manipulation forced house valuations to exceed 100% return within 5 years. That is unheard of. The normal house appreciation has always been 1-5% annual growth. Interest rates going up will stabilize hosing prices.

Read previous posts here and here

NAR said it plans to downwardly revise sales of previously-owned homes going back to 2007 during the release of its next existing home sales report on Dec. 21. NAR’s existing home sales numbers, released monthly, are a closely followed gauge of the health of the housing market. While NAR hasn’t revealed exactly how big the revision to home sales will be “meaningful”. For the real estate business, this means the housing market’s downturn was deeper than what was initially thought. 

The database NAR uses to track existing home sales, the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), has led the real estate agency to over-count existing home sales for several reasons. The MLS database only includes home sales listed by realtors, and excludes homes listed by owners, providing a very narrow view of the market. And because more people are using realtors to list their homes instead of selling them independently, realtor-listed sales numbers have become artificially inflated. In addition, some of the assumptions NAR used in calculating its data have become outdated, since they were based on 2000 Census data.
The MLS has also been expanding its geographic coverage, so it may have appeared that there were more home sales simply because data from new areas were starting to show up. Also because of this geographic expansion, the system has been double-counting sales of some homes that can be considered part of multiple regions.

NAR realized this upward “shift“ in data during its most recent re-benchmarking process this year. With the help of the government, economists and other real estate groups, NAR has now taken these factors into account and will issue revised numbers on Dec. 21 at 10 a.m.

Greece Hits 113% 5 Year CDS Rates

Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

It’s becoming more and more apparent that Greece is getting the boot from investors and public markets as the 5 Year CDS rates hit unimaginable rate of 113%. This is in extraordinary circumstances if Greece were borrowing from public markets, but luckily they are being funded by the ECB and IMF. This leads me to suggest Greece will get the boot from the EU and be made an example of. The must be done to set the precedence of the future stability of the Euro and Euro-zone. Drachmas must begin to be recirculated to support the economy. It has created many citizens to migrate across borders while creating  pain and suffering amongst the people. The price for remaining bound to the single currency will be more hardship and sacrifice.  Current rumor has it that a growing number of legal and financial experts are examining in detail what would happen if Greece abandoned the euro.

It would be Europe’s worst nightmare: after weeks of rumors, one day the Prime Minister of Greece will tell the World that they are leavinG the Euro. The danger that Greece or some other deeply damaged country in the euro zone could leave the single-currency union can no longer be ruled out. And it was largely this prospect that drove leaders last week to agree to adopt strict fiscal rules that they hope will wrap the 17 European Union nations that use the euro into an even tighter embrace.

The monetary union have refused to discuss in public the possibility of member states abandoning the euro — a contingency not even addressed in any of the treaties governing the monetary union. As Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, put it last week: “It would be imprudent to create contingency plans when we see no likelihood that they could happen.”

Over the last year, Greeks have withdrawn almost 40 billion euros, or nearly $53 billion, in deposits from their banking system, equal to about 17 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. A total of 14 billion euros in deposits was withdrawn in September and October alone. According to testimony by Georgios A. Provopoulos, the head of the Greek central bank, before a parliamentary committee last month, this outflow continued in early November “at a very large scale.”

About the Drachma Here

Below is the research of Landon Thomas, Jr.  of  The New York Times

Over the last month Nomura and UBS have come out with detailed studies on the topic. Nomura forecast a 60 percent devaluation of the new drachma. UBS went further, warning of hyperinflation, military coups and possible civil war that could afflict a departing country.

One of the more detailed studies comes from Eric Dor, an economist at the Iéseg School of Management in Lille, France. In “Leaving the Eurozone: A User’s Guide,” Mr. Dor starts with the obvious: any return to the drachma would have to be preceded by an immediate freeze on bank deposits. To prevent panicked Greeks from sending the rest of their deposits abroad, transfers to countries outside of Greece would be halted. As the new currency inevitably lost value, new drachma accounts would remain frozen. Shops would be required to accept scrip or devalued euros circulating only within Greece until the country’s bank note printer, operated by the central bank, could churn out enough drachmas to replace the 200 billion euros in cash and deposits currently in Greece. Meanwhile, Greece would become a financial pariah. Visitors would find Greece a paradise of bargains, but for most Greeks themselves, travel would become prohibitively expensive.

One person who does think a Greek exit will happen is Charles Proctor, a British lawyer who has studied the legal intricacies of leaving the euro zone. “I think there has to be a recognition that a single currency does not suit a vast range of economies,” Mr. Proctor said. “And that some member economies must depart in order to get their economic houses in order.” Like others, he points to the fact that there is no explicit clause in European treaties that allows for an easy departure, either forced or voluntary. While 10 European Union countries do not use the euro, a disorderly exit would almost certainly mean that Greece would have to leave the union as well. Mr. Proctor also takes on the thorny issue of what would happen to the investor holding a Greek bond that is governed by domestic law, as more than 90 percent of Greek bonds are. Most likely, he concludes, the result would be default as investors would not accept interest and principal payments in devalued drachmas. While this would certainly hurt European banks, the European Central Bank, which owns around 60 billion euros or so of Greek bonds, would suffer the most. Unless the International Monetary Fund agreed to help, Greece would be unable to borrow from abroad. On the plus side, with a cheap currency and restored control of its monetary policy, Greece’s chances of returning to growth might improve drastically.

While their numbers remain small, some Greek economists say that this is the only way to address the country’s persistent inability to balance its trade. Theodore Mariolis, an economist at Panteion University in Athens, argues that a devaluation of 50 percent or more could close Greece’s trade gap without sending inflation soaring — an outcome that many economists might regard as too good to be true.

But whether that provides a long-run solution for a country that has failed to improve its competitiveness is questionable. And the biggest problem for Greece if it returns to the drachma, says Hal S. Scott, an expert on international finance at Harvard Law School, would be persuading Greeks to believe in and hold an ever weakening drachma when a much stronger euro would be so readily available. This constant selling pressure would make a devaluation all the more extreme, raising the threat of hyperinflation. “The devaluation issue is the most serious part,” Mr. Scott said. “I just do not see how you deal with it.”

After Euphoria Last Week On EU, Doubts Remain

Monday, December 12th, 2011

Stocks continue to be hammered by the Euro drama as doubts remain after few weeks of euphoria. Combined with some downbeat news out of the technology sector sent U.S. stocks sharply lower Monday. The DJIA is currently down 200 point swhile the S&P is 26 points to 1229 with support around 1220. Intel shares plunged after the firm cut its profit outlook  by $1 billion and UBS lowered its view on the company for the first quarter in 2012. American stocks joined a global slump today as Moody’s said that last week’s EU summit failed to produce “decisive policy measures” to end the region’s crisis.

Friday’s European Union summit produced an agreement to pursue stricter budget rules for the single currency area and also to have euro zone states and others provide up to 200 billion euros ($267 billion) in bilateral loans to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help tackle the crisis.

But Moody’s Investor Service said it still plans to review the ratings on EU sovereign credit as the agency expressed doubt that the proposed measures will do much to resolve the crisis. That marked a sharp change from Friday, when the market rallied on hopes that European leaders finally had presented a unified front to tackle the problem.

 Notable Winners This Morning

ARNA: +10%

VMC: +19%

Britain Lone Rejector Of New EU Treaty

Friday, December 9th, 2011

Markets dropped yesterday almost 200 points in the DJIA due to Germany’s opposing to merge rescue funds. Germany said it opposes any change in the agreed sequence in which the the region’s bailout funds will be used. It stands by the current agreement that the permanent European Stability Mechanism will take over from the European Financial Stability Facility by the middle of next year. This morning markets are up 125 points on news that all 26 EU nations with the exception of Britain, agreed to pursue tighter integration with stricter budget discipline in the single currency area. Markets remain pressured to the downside with support at 1220 in the S&P and resistance to 1253 then 1265.

In drafting a new treaty, the countries hope to help European nations struggling with giant debts over the long term, and in that sense there were early indications of success. Such an agreement is considered necessary before the European Central Bank and other institutions commit more money to lowering the borrowing costs of heavily indebted countries like Italy and Spain. 

Draghi has yet to say whether the European Central Bank will take more aggressive action to buy the bonds of heavily indebted countries, and borrowing costs for European governments were slightly higher Friday. While the deal could help save the euro, the political implications of the rift are enormous. Germany and France had hoped to persuade all 27 EU countries to agree to change the treaty that governs their union. But Britain, which doesn’t use the euro, firmly said no. Britain’s leaders argued that the revised treaty would threaten their national sovereignty and damage London’s esteemed financial services industry. Germany and France, the eurozone’s biggest economies, made clear that a deal among the 17 euro countries and whoever else wanted to join was better than nothing.

Hungary, the Czech Republic and Sweden said they were undecided and would need to consult their parliaments, while the other six countries outside the eurozone — Denmark, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania — agreed they wanted to join.

Twenty-six of the 27 EU leaders agreed to pursue tighter integration with stricter budget discipline in the single currency area, but Britain said it could not accept proposed EU treaty amendments after failing to secure concessions. The decision appears to isolate Britain even more markedly as the only one of the 10 non-euro-zone countries in the EU not to agree to join the treaty change. The outcome of a two-day European Union summit left financial markets uncertain whether and when more decisive action would be taken to stem a debt crisis that began in Greece, spread to Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain and now threatens France and even economic powerhouse Germany.

Details of the Treaty

The treaty will constitute unprecedented intervention in national budgets by a central European body. Participating governments will need to have balanced budgets — which is calculated as a structural deficit no greater than 0.5 percent of gross domestic product — and will have to amend their constitutions to include such a requirement. An unspecified “automatic correction mechanism” will punish countries that break the rules. In addition, countries that run deficits larger than 3 percent will face sanctions. To prevent such deficits, countries will have to submit their national budgets to the European Commission, which will have the authority to request that they be revised. Countries will also have to report in advance how much they plan to borrow. After a brief morning break, the leaders were back in meetings Friday to work out the details of their new “intergovernmental accord,” including specifying how violators will be prosecuted. They want it written by March. A new treaty could take three months to negotiate and may require referendums in some countries.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a press conference in Brussels following the summit that there was no indication that Britain could change its mind on treaty change. Merkel also said EU leaders had decided to give EU institutions greater responsibility

What To Expect Tomorrow – Pre EU Summit

Thursday, December 8th, 2011

Thursday is an action-filled day in the euro zone, starting with the European Central Bank’s 7:45 a.m. EST rate decision, which is followed by a press briefing. European leaders also start their two-day summit with a meeting and dinner, and a possible press briefing. Separately, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy meet with ECB President Mario Draghi and several other officials Thursday afternoon. More meetings and another possible briefing follow on Friday. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner visits Milan and will meet with Italy’s new leader, Mario Monti before heading back to Washington. Near the end of trading Wednesday, the Nikkei news service reported that the G20 was ready to load up the IMF with $600 billion for a European bailout, but the IMF denied the report shortly before the closing bell and the IMF-driven rally lost steam. There is also a Bank of England rates meeting Thursday morning, with a statement expected at 7 a.m. EST. There is important weekly jobless claims data at 8:30 a.m. EST and wholesale trade data at 10 a.m. Claims rose back above 400,000 last week, and it will be a negative sign if that trend continues.

[PRINTING]

Some central banks in Europe have started weighing contingency plans to prepare for the possibility that countries leave the euro zone or the currency union breaks apart entirely, according to people familiar with the matter. The first signs are surfacing that central banks are thinking about how to resuscitate currencies based on bank notes that haven’t been printed since the first euros went into circulation in January 2002. Outside the 17-country euro zone, numerous European central banks are eyeing defensive measures to protect against the possible fallout if the euro zone were to unravel, other people said. Several, including Switzerland, are considering possible replacements for the euro as the external reference point, or peg, they use to try to keep their currencies’ values stable. The central banks’ planning is preliminary, according to the people familiar with the matter. It doesn’t represent an expectation that the euro zone is headed for dissolution. But the fact central bankers are even studying the possibility, which until this fall was considered unthinkable, underscores how swiftly conditions have deteriorated. Policy makers, central bankers and investors around the world have pinned their hopes on this week’s Brussels summit to forge a long-awaited solution to the Continent’s two-year financial crisis, which was ignited by doubts over countries’ abilities to pay their debts.

In Greece, widely regarded as the country most likely to leave the euro zone because of its fiscal problems, the central bank has a bank-note printing facility called IETA. Built in 1941, the Attica plant today is outfitted with “state-of-the-art machinery,” according to the Bank of Greece’s website. But IETA’s printing in recent years has been limited. It has been one of five or six countries responsible for printing batches of €10 notes, according to the ECB. Athens has buzzed with rumors over the past year that the Bank of Greece was secretly printing drachmas, Greece’s pre-euro currency. Widely circulated joke emails featured drachma bank notes bearing the image of then-Prime Minister George Papandreou. The rumors at times have been blamed for triggering waves of withdrawals from Greek retail banks.

Rumors And News Out Of Europe

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

Soooo what will it be. Europe to be rescued or not this week. This ongoing saga since May 2011 has whip-lashed investors, hedge funds, and traders alike. Futures that have been pointing positive, would shortly turn negative upon market opening. This is the constant trading environment that has made traders and investors impatient and reluctant. The S&P is shy of the 200 day Moving Averages as we had butted against it a few times (1260-1265) There is no other Index around the world markets that is trading so reluctant as the United States, not even the BRIC’s. So what’s the latest saga out of Europe? With the ECB expected to lower rates tomorrow what else may propel the markets higher. Will December 9th EU Summit, mark the turning point for the markets?

Pessimistic comments from EU paymaster Germany and new figures exposing growing stress among Europe’s banks took the shine off financial market hopes of a turning point in the euro zone debt crisis at a summit this week. President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chancellor Angela Merkel will lay out a plan to amend the EU treaty to anchor stricter budget discipline in the euro area, aiming to restore market trust and prevent the sovereign debt crisis spiraling out of control. 

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, whose fourth trip to Europe in as many months speaks of the alarm in Washington at the damage the debt crisis could wreak on the U.S. economy, backed the Franco-German plan to impose mandatory penalties on euro states that exceed deficit targets and bring forward a permanent rescue fund. The ECB’s governing council holds a crucial meeting on Thursday, before the EU summit, at which most economists expect it to cut interest rates to 1.0 percent from 1.25 percent, introduce longer-term liquidity tenders for banks and widen the collateral they can use to borrow from it. ECB President Mario Draghi, who met Geithner on Tuesday in Frankfurt, has signaled that a euro zone “fiscal compact” could encourage the ECB to act more forcefully.

Figures released on Wednesday showed just how urgently some European banks need help. Italian banks had to borrow 153.2 billion euros in emergency liquidity from the ECB in November, up from 111.3 billion euros at the end of October, Bank of Italy data showed, another big leap in reliance on the central bank which has almost quadrupled since June, when Italian lenders took 41.3 billion euros. Euro zone banks took more than $50 billion in the ECB’s first dollar funding operation since the world’s leading central banks agreed last week to cut their cost, five times the $10 billion forecast in a Reuters poll of money market traders. And Germany is set to reactivate a bank rescue fund created at the height of the 2008 financial crisis at next week’s cabinet meeting, a government official said.

A Reuters poll of 13 economists found 11 expect France to lose its top-notch AAA credit rating within three months, a potential blow to Sarkozy’s re-election bid.

Two days before the summit, new ideas bubbled about how to boost the euro zone’s crisis capabilities. EU officials said leaders could decide to raise the combined lending limit of the temporary EFSF rescue fund and its successor, the permanent European Stability Mechanism, which France and Germany want introduced a year early, in 2012. But the German official said he could not foresee running the two funds simultaneously. He also objected to talk of issuing common euro zone bonds as a longer-term solution.

Merkel and Sarkozy called for a new EU fast track for progress on creating a common corporate tax base, a financial transaction tax and labor market regulations — ideas that are anathema to EU members such as Britain and Ireland. The framework should also cover financial regulation, growth supporting policies and more efficient use of European funds in the euro area, it said.

Latest Europe Rescue Plan: 2nd Bailout Fund

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

European officials are discussing the possibility of significantly boosting the region’s ability to fight the debt crisis by operating two bailout fund. The talks are focusing on the possibility of allowing the euro-zone’s 440 billion euros ($590 billion) bailout fund to remain in operation when a new 500 billion facility comes into force in 2012. The idea of a bulked up rescue fund will be introduced along with the proposal on revising existing treaties to strengthen budget rules when leaders from 27 European Union countries meet later this week. The report boosted hopes that European Union leaders will announce both short-term and long-term solutions to the eurozone debt crisis at a summit later this week. Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of Australia lowered its benchmark interest rate to 4.25% from 4.5%, citing a worsening outlook for the global economy. The leaders of France and Germany agreed Monday on a new pact that they say will help enforce fiscal discipline and prevent a future debt crisis. Meanwhile, the European Central Bank is widely expected to cut interest rates at its policy meeting Thursday.

The Maastricht Treaty currently governing the Eurozone calls for public debt to be not more 60 percent of GDP. That means that Eurozone governments may be able to run up debts that would push up against the Reighart-Rogoff growth barrier on their own—without even taking into account private borrowing. In other words, debt may have to come way, way down before market confidence is restored. Perhaps not as far as say, California, which is experiencing budgetary problems despite having a GDP-to-debt ratio of just 5 percent. But much further than the Europeans seem to anticipate. And while the Germans aren’t entirely wrong in their belief that lower deficits would restore funding capacity, I don’t think they recognize that as currency users debt to GDP ratios may need to be under 30% to get to that point.

Brits throws a  monkey wrench

David Cameron has said he will not sign any reworked EU treaty designed to solve the eurozone crisis if it does not contain safeguards to protect British interests. The prime minister said there must be protection for the single market and the UK financial services sector. The EU treaty may be rewritten to achieve greater fiscal integration within the eurozone. But that would require the agreement of all 27 members, including the UK. The trap is that in the end the other countries will go ahead on their own and not just decide economic policy for the Eurozone, they’ll end up designing policy for the whole of the European Union. And that will put Britain in the second division, a place that it’s tried to avoid for the last 40 years.

The prime minister says he will seek to return powers to the UK at the right time but many Conservative MPs want him to go further. Last month, more than 80 Tory MPs defied the government and called for a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU. Conservative MP Douglas Carswell, who wants the UK to leave the EU, said EU leaders appeared as if they were trying to solve a problem created “by too much Europe by giving us even more Europe”.

Caution Trading After S&P Rating Watch On Europe

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

Trading caution came a day after rating agency Standard & Poor’s said it might cut the sovereign credit rating of 15 euro-zone nations, with the initial reports prompting Wall Street to scale back gains late in Monday’s session. The S&P nearly at breakeven to 1,257. 1260 being the 200 day MA resistance. Timothy Geithner, US Treasury secretary, praised the role of the European Central Bank on Tuesday in tackling the eurozone debt crisis, and lent his support for Franco-German plans to create a “fiscal union” to reinforce European monetary union. The two met the day after Standard & Poor’s, the US credit ratings agency, placed 15 members of the eurozone, including Germany and France, on a negative “credit watch”, warning of a possible future credit downgrading.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in Germany on Tuesday that the European Central Bank was playing a positive role in the euro zone debt crisis, but he played down talk that the U.S. Federal Reserve could boost IMF funding for the crisis. The €440bn ($588bn) European Financial Stability Fund shares the triple A rating of its government backers and has played a key role in the rescues of Greece, Portugal and Ireland. But on Tuesday S&P warned that it may lower the EFSF’s top credit rating if any of its guarantors have their own debt grade lowered. At a meeting last month eurozone ministers endorsed two options to expand the EFSF – an insurance scheme on bond losses and a vehicle for outside investors – that eurozone leaders initially hoped would leverage the €250bn spare capacity of the rescue fund four or five fold, to more than €1,000bn.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, whose government enjoys the highest triple A rating for its borrowing, dismissed the move, saying: “What a rating agency does is its own responsibility.” In the event, they came out with wider agreement than expected on moves to make future budget discipline among the 17 partners sharing the euro as a common currency, including almost automatic sanctions for those breaking the rules. They both backed EU treaty change to enforce the rules, on top of agreements on much tighter budgetary surveillance. Later on Tuesday Tim Geithner, US Treasury secretary, adds to the pressure on European leaders ahead of Friday’s summit when he meets with Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, and Jens Weidmann, Bundesbank president.

Geithner has made several trips to Europe in recent months as U.S. concerns over the crisis grow and, judging by comments from both him and President Barack Obama, the Treasury Secretary may add to a growing chorus calling for the European Central Bank to take more decisive action to resolve the crisis. 

Obama’s administration is increasingly concerned that Europe’s crisis will strike a substantial blow to the U.S. economy, halting still-weak job growth and potentially threatening Obama’s re-election hopes. The Federal Reserve  joined with the European Central Bank and others in action to ease dollar funding strains a week ago and Obama and Geithner have both pointed to the option of the ECB backstopping European governments and the banking system. That idea is viewed by many economists as the key to any comprehensive solution to the crisis, but resisted by Germany.