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The prospect of a Donald Trump return to the White House in 2024 poses a “fundamental” challenge to Europe, the leader of the world’s largest investment company warned Tuesday. The Daily Telegraph reports BlackRock vice chairman Philipp Hildebrand issued his caution from the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. In doing so he added his voice to the swelling chorus from Europe that fears a Trump return to the world stage. The veteran Swiss banker said the re-election of the former U.S. president “would challenge Europe fundamentally” given Trump’s determination to embrace America First in matters...

IMF chief Christine Lagarde goes on trial in France on Monday over a massive state payout to a flamboyant tycoon when she was finance minister in a case that risks tarnishing her stellar career. Lagarde denies the charges of negligence, arguing she was acting "in the state's interest" in making the payment to Bernard Tapie, the former owner of sportswear giant Adidas and Olympique Marseille football club. If found guilty, Lagarde could receive a one-year prison sentence and a 15,000 euro ($15,900) fine.

France's highest appeals court ruled on Friday that International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde must stand trial for her role in a 400 million euros ($440 million) state payout in 2008 to businessman Bernard Tapie. She was French finance minister at the time. The court rejected her appeal against a judge's order in December for her to stand trial at the Cour de Justice de la Republique, a special court that tries ministers for crimes in office. Her lawyer Patrick Maisonneuve expressed regret over the decision and said he was convinced that the trial would show she was innocent. IMF...

Greece’s predicament is simple. It has debt repayments to make this summer and it doesn’t have the money to pay the bills. The European Union can solve this acute cashflow problem by unlocking the funds pledged to Greece under the terms of last summer’s bailout agreement, but it will only do so if Athens demonstrates that it is serious about sorting out its budget. Austerity today will lead to generosity from EU finance ministers when they meet on Tuesday. Here’s where things get interesting. The difference between this Sunday and all the other tension-packed Sundays that have studded the Greek...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is preparing for its spring meeting which gathers the leading economic voices across the globe to discuss the issues and policies impacting the world's financial markets. It's a critical time as we watch a continued struggle for the global economy. I spoke with managing director Christine Lagarde to get a sense of where things stand.

The world economy would be worse off without negative interest rates, according to International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde. Negative rates in Europe and Japan have helped support global growth and price gains, she said in an interview in Ho Chi Minh City on Friday. The finance sector may need to implement new business models as a result, she said. “If we had not had those negative rates, we would be in a much worse place today, with inflation probably lower than where it is, with growth probably lower than where we have it,” Lagarde said. “It was a...

Global economic growth will be disappointing next year and the outlook for the medium-term has also deteriorated, the head of the International Monetary Fund said in a guest article for German newspaper Handelsblatt published on Wednesday. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the prospect of rising interest rates in the United States and an economic slowdown in China were contributing to uncertainty and a higher risk of economic vulnerability worldwide. Added to that, growth in global trade has slowed considerably and a decline in raw material prices is posing problems for economies based on these, while the financial sector in...

I have gone on record that the most dangerous organization is the now French led IMF with Christine Lagarde at the helm, which has presented a concept report that debt cuts for over-indebted states are uncompromising and are to be performed more effectively in the future by defaulting on retirement accounts held in life insurance, mutual funds and other types of pension schemes, or arbitrarily extending debt perpetually so you cannot redeem. Yes you read correctly, The new IMF paper is described in great detail exactly how to now allow the private sector, which has invested in government bonds, to...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The world's top finance officials expressed confidence Saturday that the global economy finally has turned the corner to stronger growth. This time, they may be right. Despite challenges that include market jitters about the Federal Reserve's bond-buying slowdown and global tensions over Ukraine, policymakers said they believe there is a foundation for sustained growth that can provide jobs for the millions of people still looking for work five years after the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. "Creating a more dynamic, sustainable, balanced and job-rich global economy remains our paramount collective goal," the policy-setting...

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said Thursday that a failure to raise the U.S. debt ceiling could "very seriously damage" the global economy. "The government shutdown is bad enough, but failure to raise the debt ceiling would be far worse, and could very seriously damage not only the U.S. economy, but the entire global economy," Lagarde said in a speech at George Washington University ahead of the 2013 World Bank-IMF Annual Meetings. "So it is 'mission-critical' that this be resolved as soon as possible," she added. Referring to the anticipated tapering of Federal Reserve's quantitative easing program, Lagarde...

Yields on European sovereign bonds plummeted today in the expectation of another round of global monetary easing. In particular, the PIGS (minus Greece) fell over 10 basis points. Greece actually rose. Japan’s 10 year sovereign yield rose today by 2.9 basis points. However, the Japanese sovereign curve remains below the level when the Bank of Japan announced their mega-easing. Here is a different look at the yield surface for Japan: On this side of the Pacific Ocean, the US 10 year Treasury fell 1.2 basis points to remain under 1.7%. And Bankrate’s 30 year fixed average has fallen to 3.51%...

French police have searched the Paris apartment of IMF chief Christine Lagarde, as they investigate her role in awarding financial compensation to businessman Bernard Tapie in 2008. As finance minister, she referred his long-running dispute with bank Credit Lyonnais to an arbitration panel, which awarded him 400m euros (£340m) damages. Mr Tapie was a supporter of ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy. Critics say she abused her authority but Ms Lagarde denies any wrongdoing. "This search will help uncover the truth, which will contribute to exonerating my client from any criminal wrongdoing," Ms Lagarde's lawyer, Yves Repiquet, told the Reuters news agency. The...

At a speech at the Brookings Institute in Washington D.C., IMF’s head Christine Lagarde called for the U.S. to perform principal reductions for residential mortgages. ... the IMF said U.S. steps to tackle the problem have had limited effect. The agency recommended wider efforts to reduce the value of mortgages rather than rescheduling or refinancing them. “Fannie and Freddie have to be part of the equation,” Lagarde said, wading into a vigorous U.S. policy debate. “U.S. households have to be able to unload a bit.” As I mentioned at the Brookings Institute on earlier this week, there is no evidence...

April 12 (Bloomberg) — More Americans than forecast filed claims for jobless benefits last week, a sign the pace of improvement in the labor market is slowing. Jobless claims increased 13,000 in the week ended April 7 to 380,000, the highest since Jan. 28, the Labor Department reported today in Washington. The median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey called for 355,000 claims. The number of people on unemployment benefit rolls and those receiving extended payments declined. On a non seasonally adjusted basis, oops! On the positive side, continuing jobless claims dropped on a SA basis. As my friend Rebel...

Financial Panic Sweeps Europe As The Head Of The IMF Warns Of A “1930s Depression”December 17, 2011 Are we on the verge of another Great Depression? Christian Lagarde, the head of the IMF, said this week that if dramatic action is not taken immediately we could actually see conditions "reminiscent of the 1930s depression" and that no country on earth "will be immune to the crisis". Right now, financial panic is sweeping across Europe, but most Americans are not too concerned about it because they simply don't understand how important the EU is. The truth is that the EU has...

A police chief who hoped to guard Dominique Strauss-Kahn if he became President of France organised an orgy with him in a Paris hotel, it was claimed today. The senior officer is also said to have accompanied prostitutes to New York to meet up with Mr Strauss-Kahn when he was in charge of the International Monetary Fund. The well-sourced allegations about Jean-Christophe Lagarde are not only deeply embarrassing for Mr Strauss-Kahn, but point to wide-scale corruption at the heart of French political life. Sleaze allegations: Dominique Strauss-Kahn leaves a Paris polling station today after voting in the Socialist Party's election...

Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, warned that the global economy is entering a "dangerous new phase" on Friday, ahead of the G7 summit in Marseilles, France. ... "The world is collectively suffering from a crisis of confidence, in the face of a deteriorating economic outlook and rising concerns about the health of sovereigns and banks." Her speech at Chatham House in London came after a turbulent week for the markets, with the focus on sovereign debt issues

No sooner does former top Chicago labor/anti-trust lawyer, now IMF head Christine Lagarde instruct "the US and Europe to abandon fiscal austerity and switch to stimulus measures" than European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet echoes her, saying...threats to the euro region have worsened and inflation risks have eased, giving officials the option to take further action should the debt crisis worsen... We paraphrase ourselves because the eggheads at these central banks have been paraphrasing Christine Lagarde since she issued the marching orders to the world's two economic powerhouses from Jackson Hole. Falling right in behind, Chicago Fed president Evans has...

Rush to back Christine Lagarde casts doubt on IMF ‘competition’ By Howard Schneider, Published: May 24 French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, who is emerging as Europe’s favorite to replace Dominque Strauss-Kahn as head of the International Monetary Fund, would enter any contest for the position with as many as a third of the votes on the agency’s board already locked up. The prospect that Lagarde could be all but anointed before the competition even begins is casting doubt on whether it will be an open process, as the board has promised. This is putting the Obama administration in a sensitive...