4 Financial Stock Stories To Take to the Bank

Banco Santander (NYSE:SAN): Current price $7.97

Last month, Spanish banks again reduced their dependence on funding from the European Central Bank, reaffirming a recent trend indicating that more lenders are searching out private buyers for their debt during an easing of tensions in euro zone markets. The Bank of Spain has published numbers that show net borrowing from the ECB dropping for a fifth consecutive month to €298.7 billion, down from €313.1 billion in December. Banks in Spain became dependant upon central bank financing in 2012 as the international markets virtually shut down to Spanish debtors due to worries that the country’s fast-rising debt load was becoming unsustainable.