For Britain's banks, the perception that European banks are weak and too exposed to sovereign debt is a bigger problem than a Moody's downgrade, says the BBC's business editor, Robert Peston. He writes: The UK banks' downgrade is an inevitable consequence of government policy to reduce the likelihood that they would be bailed out in a crisis - of which the most conspicuous manifestation has been the Vickers' commission recommendations to put retail banks behind a ring fence and make creditors to banks explicitly liable to losses. The important point, for today however, is that these downgrades have been anticipated and discounted by the market for some time, so their real economic impact on the affected banks should be negligible. Mr Peston also gives an interesting run-through of how much capital European banks, including RBS, Lloyds and Barclays, would have to raise under a new set of stress tests, based on figures from French bank Natixis. If RBS was obliged to raise fresh capital, the government would be caught between a rock and a hard place, he writes. The bank has the right to sell new shares to the government at 50p (vs. a 23.5p share price now) under the terms of its previous bailout. This would obviously incur a loss for taxpayers. But the alternative would be the Government fully nationalising RBS... Lloyds has also responded to the Moody's ratings cut on the debt of 12 UK banks this morning. They are also playing down the move.

The EU commission says 22.8 million people were unemployed in the EU in August, down by 62,000 from July and by 300,000 from August last year. In less welcome news, eurozone inflation jumped from 2.5% to 3% in September, galloping away from the European Central Bank's 2% target.
News :

Greece will not meet deficit targets this year or in 2012
Greek civil servants block troika from entering finance ministry
Greek finance minister tries to quash talk of ‘disorderly default’

EU economy commissioner Olli Rehn said on Monday (3 October) that European finance chiefs are considering different options on how to leverage the eurozone’s multi-billion-euro rescue fund to give it further firepower. "We are reviewing options on optimising the use of the [European Financial Stability Fund] in order to get more out of it and make it more effective as a financial firewall to contain contagion. Leveraging is one of the options," he said speaking to reporters in Luxembourg. Finance ministers are meeting in Luxembourg to assess the heavily indebted Greek government’s latest announced efforts to deliver on its promises of austerity and structural adjustment made to international lenders. There are growing fears that were Spain and Italy to be cut off from market funding, the existing €440 billion rescue fund would be insufficient to bail out such large economies and even an expansion of the war-chest to €780 billion agreed by eurozone leaders in July may not be enough.

Investors have pulled more money from U.S. equity funds since the end of April than in the five months after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., adding to the $2.1 trillion rout in American stocks. About $75 billion was withdrawn from funds that focus on shares during the past four months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from the Investment Company Institute, a Washington-based trade group, and EPFR Global, a research firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Outflows totaled $72.8 billion from October 2008 through February 2009, following Lehman’s bankruptcy, the data show. $177.7 billion has been removed during the past 30 months from mutual and exchange-traded funds that invest in U.S. shares as the benchmark gauge for American equity rallied as much as 102 percent, before falling 17.9 percent through Aug. 8. Investors pumped in $18.7 billion during the first four months of 2011, before removing about four times that amount since, according to the average of data from EPFR and ICI, the money managers’ trade group. The August estimate doesn’t include ETF data from ICI. Bond funds added $42.3 billion from the end of April through July and started posting weekly outflows last month, according to ICI. Since the bull market began, fixed-income managers have received a net $666.4 billion.

US Federal Regulators (FTC) - are stepping up their scrutiny of the US arms of Europe's largest banks, amid mounting concerns that the eurozone debt crisis could spill into the American banking system. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which oversees the US operations of many large European banks, has been asking for more information about their ability to fund themselves, the Wall Street Journal reported. It wants to know whether they have reliable access to the funds needed to operate on a day-to-day basis in the US, and is pushing them to turn their US businesses into self-financed organisations that are better insulated from potential problems with their parent companies. Officials at the New York Fed are "very concerned" about European banks facing funding difficulties in the US, a senior executive at a major European bank who has attended talks with officials told the Journal. The New York Fed has also been co-ordinating with New York's superintendent of financial services, Benjamin M Lawsky, to monitor European banks' funding positions, amid fears that those in trouble could siphon money out of their US arms. According to Federal Reserve data, foreign banks, many of which have big trading operations in the US, have seen their funding positions there fluctuate wildly in recent months.

Germany staged an impressive recovery from the 2008/2009 global economic crisis, but there are increasing signs that the boom is now coming to an end. After almost two years of strong growth, its economic outlook is starting to deteriorate, due to a slowdown in major emerging markets including China and fears of a possible United States recession caused by $2.4 trillion in spending cuts linked to the debt ceiling deal. Various indicators released in recent weeks point to a deceleration of Europe's largest economy. The Ifo business climate index for July fell sharply to its lowest level in nine months, and analysts say it is likely to keep dropping. The ZEW investor sentiment index showed the weakest level since January 2009. And the Markit/BME purchasing managers' index for the German manufacturing sector fell 2.6 points in July to 52 points, its lowest level since October 2009. "New order levels went into reverse in July, as fewer export sales helped end a two-year period of sustained growth," Tim Moore, senior economist at Markit, said. German engineering orders in June rose by just 1 percent year-on-year, after having jumped 21 percent in May, the VDMA engineering industry association said. "There are initial indications that demand for investment goods has become less dynamic in Germany and in the other euro member states," said VDMA economist Olaf Wortmann. In addition, top German firms have given more cautious outlooks for the remainder of 2011. Analysts have been paying particularly close attention to what is being said by the chemicals industry, which is regarded as a bellwether for the general industrial outlook because it supplies many different sectors.

Spanish and Italian benchmark bond yields rose after the auctions, and the premium demanded to hold Spanish debt rather than lower-risk German bonds widened. Investors also focused on possible obstacles to the implementation of the Greek deal, with benchmark interbank lending rates for euros rising amid speculation some bondholders might not participate in the crucial debt exchange. Just days after policymakers toasted a €109bn (£96bn) bailout aimed at hauling Greece back from the brink of insolvency, speculation gathered pace that some of its hapless bondholders might shun a distressed debt exchange. There are also worries that the recent move to boost the powers of the European Union's bailout fund will not be enough to limit contagion and that its size will need to be increased to provide assistance for larger economies. Italian and Spanish bond yields were at levels seen before the Greek second bailout agreement amid renewed worries about contagion to debt-laden countries. The main European debt concern is now whether larger countries like Italy and Spain will get sucked into the mire. Peter Schaffrik, head of European rate strategy at RBC Capital Markets, said: "Over the past couple of days we have had a [re-escalation] of the crisis in the eurozone because the Greek deal isn't seen to be a solution, and at the same time we have the debt ceiling saga in the US. It all contributes to tension." The ratings agency Moody's has already cut Greece's debt rating by three notches to Ca, leaving it just one notch above what is considered default, and has said that the chance of a default is now "virtually 100%". Moody's warned that while last week's bailout package agreed by eurozone leaders would make it easier for Greece to reduce its debt, the country still faced medium-term solvency challenges and that there were significant risks in implementing the required reforms.