Fears about debt in Greece, Spain shake up stock markets

Associated Press
May 24, 2011

Europe’s debt crisis returned to shake the markets yesterday. Fears about the solvency of Greece combined with concerns that Spain, or even Italy, may be dragged into the turmoil that has already led to bailouts of three euro countries.

Stocks and the euro tanked on a toxic brew of credit rating downgrades, a heavy electoral defeat for Spain’s governing party, and disagreements among European officials on how to deal with the crisis. Most of Europe’s stock markets ended over 1 percent lower yesterday; in the United States, the Dow Jones average fell as much as 180 points before paring its losses.

“It was a bad weekend for the eurozone and in particular for those politicians and financial authorities trying desperately to keep the euro project together,’’ said Jeremy Batstone-Carr, at Charles Stanley.

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