Spain's Borrowing Costs Soar; Latest 'Ominous Sign' In Europe

Today's developments in Europe's financial crisis focus mainly on Spain:

-- The Wall Street Journal writes that "Spain, on the edge of losing debt market access, paid around 2 percentage points more in interest rates Tuesday than a month ago to lure investors to its Treasury bill sale, an ominous sign ahead of a critical government bond auction Thursday."

-- According to The Financial Times, the spike in Spain's borrowing costs came "amid economists' predictions that it would need a full international bailout for its struggling economy."

Meanwhile, Bloomberg News says, "emerging countries boosted their pledges to the [International Monetary Fund's] global firewall, nearly doubling the fund's resources to $456 billion, at a G-20 summit in Mexico dominated by the global effort to restore confidence in the euro. ... 'There is concern that the firewall available may not be adequate to deal with contagion,' Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said at the summit. 'The resources currently expected to be mobilized by Europe and the IMF are less than was estimated a year ago, and the crisis is actually more serious.' "

As for Wall Street and the effect of all this on American markets, according to Bloomberg: "U.S. stock futures swung between gains and losses [today] as Greek leaders said they will form a group to renegotiate the terms of the country's bailout and as the Federal Reserve begins its two-day monetary policy meeting."

Speaking of Greece, Joanna Kakissis tells our Newscast Desk that leaders there "say they could form a coalition government to run the troubled eurozone country as early as today."

Some related posts by our friends at Planet Money:

-- Episode 378: How Spain Created A Banking Monster.

-- Spain's Bank Matchmaker On What Went Wrong.

-- Why Germany Keeps Saying No.

-- Another All-Downside-No-Upside Weekend For Europe.

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