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Eurozone optimists were dealt another blow when Moody's Investors Service downgraded Spain's credit rating two notches. Moody's lowered Spain's debt rating to A1, down from the previous rating of Aa2. The Spanish downgrade will hurt Spain's ability to raise funds because the lower credit rating...

Moody's Investors Service dropped a bombshell on the markets late on Monday when the credit rating agency said that it will "monitor and assess” France's Aaa credit rating. The markets have reacted negatively to much of the recent news out of Europe. The possibility of a downgrade to France's...

Dexia SA agreed to sell its Belgian banking retail operations to the Belgian government for 4 billion euros ($5.4 billion) in order to prevent the Belgian-French financial institution from going bankrupt. Dexia had recently lost access to short term funding because of concerns over its debt...

Banking stocks across Europe have been rising since European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said that the eurozone's leaders were considering recapitalizing the region's banks. Banking stocks had already been given a boost after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Europe needed to...

So gold did not go to $2,000 an ounce by the end of September as was discussed last month, but that does not mean it will not get there, eventually. Gold gave back almost all of the gain it had in August (12%) in September, as the short term mentality of "return of capital, not return on capital...

Moody's Investors Service on Tuesday downgraded its ratings of Italian bonds to A2 with a negative outlook, down three levels from the previous rating of Aa2. Moody's Investors Service went on to say that all but the highest rated eurozone countries were also under pressure and could face future...

I woke up this morning around 4 AM EST, and was surprised to see futures doing nothing in the U.S. as a plan seems to be forming in Europe to copy the United States of Bailout plan for 2008.  A few hours later they are ripping higher.  While there is still a long road to get 17 countries to agree...

The Capitol of Greece was brought to a standstill on Thursday as thousands of public transport workers went on strike in protest of the latest round of austerity measures that are aimed at convincing Greece's international creditors that the country is serious about reducing its fiscal deficits....

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao crushed the hopes of many European optimists on Wednesday when he said while attending the World Economic Forum that it was up to European countries to "put their own houses in order" instead of hoping for cash rich China to bail them out. Premier Wen was responding in...

European stocks were near a two year low as French banking stocks took a beating during trading in Europe on Tuesday. There are growing concerns that French banks are facing a liquidity crisis that will worsen if Greece defaults on its national debt. French and German financial institutions are...

There has been growing talk that China will soon increase its purchases of Italian debt in a move that Italian officials hope will drive down Italy's borrowing costs. Italian Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti is said to have met with Lou Jiwei, the head of the Chinese sovereign wealth fund China...

Millions of Italians across Italy are thought to be taking part in a general strike to protest against their government's proposed austerity measures that were expected to amount to 45.5 billion euros. The strike is disrupting everything from transportation to manufacturing, with government offices...

It has been a rough summer for investors, but our heavy allocations to steady dividend-paying stocks and to defensive sectors such as utilities — represented by the Utilities SPDR ETF (NYSE: XLU) took less damage that the overall market averages. During a panic-fueled rout — such as the one that...

Germany is downplaying speculation that a Tuesday meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy will result in some sort of agreement to create eurobonds backed by all of the eurozone members. Steffen Seibert, a spokesman for the German government, said a day...

France, Italy, Spain and Belgium announced that they are introducing restrictions on short selling in a fight against market volatility that they say is being caused by the abusive spread of false rumors. French banking stocks took a hit earlier this week as rumors spread that the banks' financial...