NY Times writes "Wary Investors Start to Shun European Banks". It says, "When a $225 million loan to BNP Paribas comes due Thursday at Legg Mason's Western Asset management unit, managers at its money market funds will be exercising caution. Instead of renewing the loan as they would have as recently as two months ago, they are looking to park investors' money elsewhere, avoiding BNP and other Continental banks in favor of institutions in Scandinavia, Canada and Britain.... In August, American money funds and other suppliers of short-term credit chose not to refinance roughly $50 billion of debt issued by European banks, a drop of 14 percent, according to JPMorgan research." The piece adds, "At Fidelity, which manages a total of $428 billion, Adam Banker, a spokesman, said, "We're very comfortable with our money market funds' European bank holdings, including French bank holdings."" See also, Bloomberg's "Europe Stress Seen in Rates on Commercial Paper: Credit Markets".
