Update: Steve Liesman with the party spoiler: "Imf official denies 600b aid rumor." Yet idiots still bidding stocks.
With just 20 minutes left, today the rumor comes not form the FT but the Nikkei:
- G-20 CONSIDERING IMF LENDING PROGRAM FOR EUROPE:NIKKEI;
- G-20 CONSIDERING $600B IMF LENDING PROGRAM FOR EUROPE: NIKKEI
Apparently the fact that before this rumor we had news that the IMF is short $120 billion in cash for already proposed credit facilities is completely irrelevant. Idiotic momentum algos rule!
IMF: May Need $120 Billion In Extra Resources With New Loan Facility
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The International Monetary Fund's executive board said Wednesday the IMF may need more cash resources to help finance a new lending facility created last week.
Although IMF staff said in a policy paper that potential resource needs are difficult to determine, they estimate the fund may need an additional $120 billion in its reserves to help finance countries short of cash.
IMF staff also said the fund's new short-term lending facilities designed to prevent crises getting out of hand would work well if coordinated internationally, such as with central banks providing foreign-exchange swap lines. It pointed to Europe in particular.
"Avenues for co-financing by other multilateral and regional institutions could also be done similar to the recent Fund-supported programs with European Union members as part of the (Balance of Payment) Facility and European Financial Stabilization Facility," IMF's senior staff wrote in a policy paper prepared for the board
European leaders are meeting later this week in an eleventh-hour attempt to forge a debt-crisis strategy. Europe is on the brink of financial calamity as bank funding dries up, core EU sovereign debt is threatened with rating downgrades and the euro zone's largest economies flirt with an inability to pay massive upcoming bills.
Officials are considering pooling funding from European central banks through the IMF as one of several options being considered to douse the debt fires. In addition, euro-zone leaders have courted financing from emerging markets, also likely be channeled through the IMF.
Italy, rapidly becoming the new heart of the sovereign-debt crisis in Europe, rejected an offer by the IMF for a short-term credit line in November, instead opting for IMF monitoring of its economic-overhaul policies. But economists have said the monitoring program stands a good chance of turning into a lending program.