Hungary may be frantically trying to backpedal its way out of the eyebrow-raising, and market-moving, comments made by some of its politicians and spokespeople last week.
But that hasn’t stopped JP Morgan from publishing a table of which European banks are most exposed to the country. Fittingly from an Austro-Hungarian historical perspective, and unsurprisingly given what we learned in last-year’s eastern Europe scare, Austrian banks appear at the top of the list:
Nevertheless, given those new, reassuring, comments from Hungarian officials, JPM says:
All in all, the situation should be broadly contained after the initial concerns and some of the banks that have exposure to Hungary and that suffered last week should reasonably see some relief, although we believe it is fair to say that investors will remain very wary, given last week’s seriously alarming messages. Indeed CEE region may attract further scrutiny by the market having been so far less touched by the events and concerns that have affected the Euro area.
A word of advice for Hungarian politicians: In this case, silence is golden.
Related links:
Not for the forint-hearted – FT Alphaville
Forget Club Med, Hungary might be next – FT Alphaville
CEE’s western exposure – FT Alphaville, 2009