Key Market Movers This Week: Second Annual Spring EU Crisis, Ongoing Oil Price Fears

Cliff Wachtel submits:

Trend drivers of the prior and coming week, and how to play them:

PRIOR WEEK MARCH 7-11

EU DEBT CRISIS FEARS RE-EMERGE

This was by far the biggest market mover of the past week, as a steady stream of bad news about the PIIGS sovereign debt and banking crisis battered markets this week. Highlights included:

1. Credit Downgrades From Moody?s: To Greece Monday, Spain Thursday (that hit EURUSD hard)
2. A Report by the FT (via CNBC here) That Coming EU Bank Stress Tests Will Again Be A Joke: For example, there are no hard rules defining Tier 1 (the highest quality) capital. Each country is free to set its own definitions. Remember that the dying Irish banks all passed last summer?s tests, so did virtually all of Spain?s banks, many of which Spain now admits need significant recapitalization. Indeed the Moody?s downgrade of Spain?s credit rating was mostly due to concern

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