Portugal raises global concerns

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Equity markets took a slight beating last week as Portugal's second largest bank, Banco Espirito Santo, reported that it held 1.18 billion Euros in loans, securities and other items of its parent company Espirito Santo International. The update was provided after Santo International failed a payment on one of its commercial paper. In spite of the Portuguese central bank attempting to attempted to reassure markets that Santo International's solvency is "solid", the following day saw Banco Espirito Santo downgraded by both Moody's, as well as Standard & Poor's rating services. Moody's did say that the downgrade should not affect the Portuguese government bond's rating, recently revised to Ba2. At this point, however, concerns of a run on the banks in Portugal induced a pessimistic sentiment in equity markets. The Spanish IBEX 35 Index lost 1.94% between Thursday and Friday. The German DAX lost 1.45% between the two days, and the French CAC40 lost nearly 1%. U.S. equity markets were less affected, however, they did gain some fuel from the aforementioned dovish minutes. Join Anyoption and take advantage of the volatility of the markets ..Start Trading TODAY!