According to Wragge and Co, at the time when tightening of prudential ratios and the imminent maturity of the debt wall to be refinanced, banks are reducing the size of their balance sheets, and certain insurance companies are considering the possibility of purchasing mortgage loans directly.

The American case during August 2011 and that of France in January shows that the loss of an AAA rating does not necessarily lead to a higher interest rate adjustment.

According to Bruno Mathis from SterWen and Jean Delahousse, all institutions exposed on Lehman which have highly developed credit analysis tools are able to detect warning signs as soon as they come about and would have almost four months to take safety measures (CDS netting, security transfers, deleting credit line, etc.)

This is not electoral populism to only criticize rating agencies, rather than question their economic utility and try to ask questions about their actual skills, in other words their ability to analyze the creditworthiness of issuers they rate.

On the basis of the survival «in fine» of the Euro through a constrained and massive indirect monetization from the ECB, what are the expectations for 2012 on foreign exchange, short-term rates, long-term rates and equities?