RE-Posted Feb 10, 2016 From Armstrong Economics by dev
European Banks are in a real crisis. They have been decimated by fines and trading trying to mimic their New York competition without the same expertise. Then they had to use Euro debt of member states as reserves. Next came the rising taxes and the push to enforce taxation which has seriously harmed the European economy. Add to this toxic brew, the stupid sanction of Russia which seriously reduced trade from manufacturing to agriculture. We have the collapse in commodities which has added to the bad loan nightmare. Even the biggest oil companies like BP are clueless when it comes to forecast their own production and have posted the worst numbers in 20 years. Now stir in the collapse in the Euro, and voilà: we have the banking crisis extraordinaire.
While Deutsche Bank’s co-CEO John Cryan has come out trying to quell fears about the bank’s stability stating that the bank’s balance sheet “remains absolutely rock-solid” just on Tuesday, investors are growing very nervous about the health of European banks as a whole. Now comes the collapse in oil prices and that means only more bad loans ahead.
Deutsche Bank’s stock has fallen 37% so far this year. Our two charts illustrate that the share price has fallen below the record lows of the 2007-2009 crisis in terms of dollars. This does not bode well for the shares in Euro. The credit default swaps on Deutsche Banks have sky-rocketed show that the cost of insuring Deutsche Bank’s debt reflects the bulk of investors of the future.

