Allen's Scorecard: 2012
By: OVERALL GRADE: C
Euro zone debt crisis will get a lot worse and weak banks will fail. F
Credit to Mario Draghi, the ECB President who decided, within days of my making this prediction, that he would ease market tensions with the first of two Long-Term Refinancing Operations. As a result, my predictions were both wrong.
The EU will act at the last minute. B
The ECB acted long before the last minute, but that didn't stop Europe's politicians from bickering and consistently wasting any breathing space handed to them by ECB intervention.Given that we had an LTRO 2 and an OMT announcement, I think it is fair to say eurozone officials rarely did anything that was not at the last minute. Going to give myself a B.
Strong banks will clean up. A
Big banks that avoided any major scandals did very well once the ECB came to their rescue, earlier than I had expected.
U.S. debt will dominate. A+
Fiscal Cliff anyone? I am going to struggle to Rise Above another A -plus.
