The aggregate of the main European banking institutions has lost almost half a billion of euros in market value, from €670 billion to just over €200 billion during the last five years. The average drop has been 65 percent. But Italian and French banks have led the fall with a 70 percent of their stock [...]

MADRID | Ferrovial and the local authorities of the Spanish city of Santander reached an agreement to create a research centre for Intelligent Cities, the company said on Wednesday. The Centre’s researchers may also work on projects implemented under the cooperation agreement between Ferrovial and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This new public-private initiative in the area of research [...]

LONDON | The exchange traded funds or ETF platform of global investment company BlackRock on Wednesday announced the launch of eight funds that will provide targeted exposure to the sovereign debt of eight euro zone countries. The launch pushes on the expansion of iShares’ fixed income range to meet growing interest in fixed income ETFs, [...]

All the way from Afi analysts in Madrid, we got this simple and colourful chart comparing purchasing managers index figures of different countries in September 2011 (because it was the month when global manufacturing activity recorded the latest lowest levels) and March-April 2012, with a third column that brings up the variation between those dates. [...]