Equities takes cues from European debt
So, what is the tally of the damage in the financial markets at the end of the week? Since their mid to late April highs, global equity markets are close to or in correction territory. The hardest hit market (leaving aside Greece) is the French market: the CAC index is down 16.6 per cent.The UK is next, down by 12.1 per cent. The election results contributed to a 2.6 per cent fall on Friday. The S&P/ASX 200 is off 10.4 per cent, although last Sunday's announcement of the planned super tax on resource profits has exacerbated the situation. The German DAX is down 9.7 per cent and the Dow is off only 7.4 per cent, although that could have been a lot worse after an inter-day fall of almost 1000 points on Thursday.As for sovereign credit default swaps, the Greek results are mentioned in the earlier article, but on Thursday Portugal was out by 20 basis points to 450 bps, Ireland was out by 41 bps to 285 bps, Italy was out by 50 bps to 235 bps and Spain was out by 60 bps to 290 bps. Even some of the largest Western economies were not immune, with the United Kingdom out by six bps to 92 bps; France was out by seven bps to 82 bps, Germany was out by four bps to 58 bps and the United States was out by three bps to 44 bps.Australia finished the week at 50 bps.Corporate CDS indices are also coming under pressure: the Aussie iTraxx was out nine bps on Thursday to 109 bps; the European Main was out by 14 bps to 120 bps; and the US CDX index was out by 23 bps to 128 bps. In mid-April these indices were at 78 bps, 76 bps and 82 bps, respectively.Finally, signs of tension are creeping into the standard measures of systemic liquidity. The TED spread stood at 30.1 bps on Friday, while the Australian three-month overnight index swap, bank bill spread was at 28 bps. In mid-April these measures were at 14 bps and 15 bps.