Spain

By Don Quijones, Spain & Mexico, editor at Wolf Street.

Next Banking Scandal Explodes in Spain

While Facebook's stratospheric ascent to new record highs continues, storm clouds may be gathering for the $340 billion market cap company: according to a new study by marketing intelligence firm Across the board, people are spending less time on their Social Media apps. Using SimilarWeb data on Android apps, the company looked at data from the U.S, UK, Germany, Spain, Australia, India, South Africa, Brazil and Spain and compared app data from Q1 2015 to Q1 2016, and found that in almost all countries, time spent on the 4 leading Social Media apps is down.

One of the recurring concerns voiced by Bank of America's Michael Hartnett is that with May now in the rearview mirror, we are entering "the event risk month" of June (incidentally, over the weekend, the credit strategist presented several ideas how to trade said event risk, either bullish or bearish). Now it is UBS' turn to reiterate the warning that June may see a spike in volatility due to "an unusual number of known unknowns."

Submitted by Mike "Mish" Shedlock

Another Deadlocked Election Coming Up In Spain?

After six months of failed coalition attempts, Spain’s King Felipe dissolved parliament and announced new elections. I reported on this last week, but the official document dissolving parliament was signed today. New elections are on June 26. Will the results be any different?

There are 350 seats in Spain’s parliament. Courtesy of the BBC, the 2015 election went like this (blue highlights mine).

Party Leaders

Submitted by Giulio Meotti via The Gatestone Institute,

• Of all French soldiers currently engaged in military operations, half of them are deployed inside France. And half of those are assigned to protect 717 Jewish schools.

• This massive deployment of armed forces in our own cities is a departure from history. It is a moral disarmament, before a military one.