Are European banks allowed to lend Dollars to their retail mortgage customers? - just a thought. I know that there would be a constant currency exposure if it was possible, but it would be interesting to know if you could refinance a mortgage into another currency? Anyone ever thought of this before?
what about long term, can anybody see any light at the end of the tunnel? The strong € will surly cause us more problems in the long run, it seem a long time since we heard some good news.
I wouldn't argue with what you say melvin123 - I could see the U.S. and the E.U. not being the best of friends in financial term's. 2009 will be a bloodbath.
Yeah the FED have also announced that they are going start buying assets such as Treasuries, mortgage backed securities etc which will put even more more money into the economy and cutting credit spreads or so they hope. We are now pretty much in unchartered territory so I don't think anyone knows how this work out. Of course they are already buying commercial paper and providing a backstop to money market funds so I would be very interested in getting a look at the FED balance sheet. I reckon it could make scary reading! But they have as far as they can with regard to rates. Worrying thing was the statement saying exceptionally low rates are here for a while. Big admission for a Central Bank to make.
Are European banks allowed to lend Dollars to their retail mortgage customers? - just a thought. I know that there would be a constant currency exposure if it was possible, but it would be interesting to know if you could refinance a mortgage into another currency? Anyone ever thought of this before?