The European Central Bank has become increasingly confident that it can wean the euro zone off some of its crisis-era support without endangering the region’s economy, The Irish Times reported. According to minutes published on Thursday from the July 26th meeting of the bank’s governing council, the euro zone was set to grow at a “solid pace”, with the risks to the outlook “broadly balanced” despite the threat of a global trade war. The ECB remains on track to end its €2.5 trillion quantitative easing programme by the end of 2018.

Eurozone businesses have tempered their expectations about the pace of future growth according to a closely-watched survey of executives, with fears of a global trade war weighing particularly heavily on the manufacturing sector, the Financial Times reported. The flash reading of the August purchasing managers’ index, compiled by IHS Markit, showed indicators of current activity, employment and price gauges for the single currency area, “remained elevated”.

On October 27, 1997, the S&P 500 fell nearly 7 per cent as contagion from Asia’s currency crisis spread globally. About a year later, Russia’s debt default and the collapse of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management sparked a 20 per cent decline in the S&P 500. In August 2015, fears of a hard landing in China, following a surprise 2 per cent devaluation in the currency, led the S&P 500 into correction territory, the Financial Times reported in a commentary.

The number of insolvencies in the first semester of this year got to the lowest level of the last ten years, but the amount of losses generated to creditors edges close to a 10-year record, Business Review reported. The number of large companies with a turnover over EUR 1 million becoming insolvent registered a growth of almost 5 percent, reaching 189 insolvent companies in the first semester of the current year. Increasing insolvency among large companies is a systemic problem as they spread greater financial and social shock in the already highly polarized business environment.

Ireland’s banks have intensified a drive to offload soured loans from the financial crisis as regulators increase pressure on the sector to accelerate the repairing of balance sheets still burdened by bad lending practices before the crash, the Financial Times reported. Under the scrutiny of the European Central Bank and domestic authorities, Irish lenders have recently sold non-performing loans with a gross value of about €6.5bn to US investment vehicles owned by Cerberus, Goldman Sachs and Lone Star Funds.

The exodus of foreign investors from Italy’s bond market is gathering pace, with net sales of the country’s sovereign debt climbing to a record level for the second month in a row, the Financial Times reported. Holdings of Italian debt by foreign investors declined by a net €38bn in June, according to recently released figures from the European Central Bank, eclipsing the previous month’s net fall of €34bn, which was itself a record.

After the acquisition of two financial institutions in Switzerland and Austria within just two months, the shopping spree of Liechtenstein’s largest listed bank may not have come to an end yet, Bloomberg News reported. "We are interested in further takeovers in Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Austria. We have around 400 million francs of surplus capital that we can use for mergers and acquisitions," Roland Matt, Group CEO of Liechtensteinische Landesbank AG (LLB), said in an interview with Bloomberg. He pointed out that acquisitions would have to strengthen existing activities of the bank.

Traders have expressed mounting fears for the country’s financial health, and the potential knock-on effects for its European neighbours, The Daily Express reported. At the root of this lies moves by Italy’s new populist government to further increase astronomical levels of public debt - which is already way above the euro-threshold of 60 percent of gross domestic product. Rome's government debt stands at 130 percent of GDP, just below that of the eurozone’s perennial economic basket-case Greece.

Losses for already hard-pressed Danish farmers are likely to be bigger than previously expected, an industry lobby group said on Wednesday, warning this could trigger more bankruptcies. Denmark, like many other countries in Europe, has been hit by one of the hottest summers on record, which has damaged crops and hit farmers’ income, Reuters reported. The drought, combined with low pork prices, is expected to trigger losses in the Danish agricultural sector not seen since the 2008 financial crisis.

Russian potash producer Uralkali has questioned the process behind the sale of the Force India Formula One team after losing out in a battle between billionaire fathers of young racing drivers, Reuters reported. Uralkali co-owner Dmitry Mazepin is the father of 19-year-old Nikita, who races in the junior GP3 series and is a development driver for Force India. The team were put into administration at the end of July with a rescue deal led by Canadian Lawrence Stroll, the father of 19-year-old Williams F1 racer Lance, announced on Aug. 7.