Below are key European banking risk monitors, which are included as part of Josh Steiner and the Financial team's "Monday Morning Risk Monitor".  If you'd like to receive the work of the Financials team or request a trial please email .

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Last week's risk monitor argued for being cautiously opportunistic on the long side as the interbank risk measures remained benign, Euribor-OIS & TED Spread, in spite of the growing concern around EM market and currency risks. This week is a different story. On Friday of last week we saw the Euribor-OIS spread hockey stick higher. We also saw a notable upward move in the TED Spread. These have historically been two of the most accurate risk gauges in signaling when to move from an aggressive to a defensive posture. They're indicating fairly clearly now that the situation is deteriorating. Couple that with our quantitative line of intermediate-term support (TREND: $21.36) in the XLF being broken, and there are clear, bright-red warning signals flashing. We'll heed them until they tell a different story.

European Financial CDS - Swaps were slightly wider, on average, across European banks last week, but, looked at on a month-over-month basis, continue to push higher. Italian banks are showing some of the worst performance on a month-over-month basis.

European Banking Monitor: Switching From Bullish To Bearish - zzzzbanks

Sovereign CDS – Sovereign swaps were modestly wider last week, outside of Japan and Portugal. 

European Banking Monitor: Switching From Bullish To Bearish - zz. sov1png

European Banking Monitor: Switching From Bullish To Bearish - zzz. sov2

European Banking Monitor: Switching From Bullish To Bearish - zzz. sov3

Euribor-OIS Spread – The Euribor-OIS spread widened by 5 bps to 16 bps. The Euribor-OIS spread (the difference between the euro interbank lending rate and overnight indexed swaps) measures bank counterparty risk in the Eurozone. The OIS is analogous to the effective Fed Funds rate in the United States.  Banks lending at the OIS do not swap principal, so counterparty risk in the OIS is minimal.  By contrast, the Euribor rate is the rate offered for unsecured interbank lending.  Thus, the spread between the two isolates counterparty risk. 

European Banking Monitor: Switching From Bullish To Bearish - zz. euribor

Matthew Hedrick

Associate