Most of the major European indexes closed modestly higher today, the first day of a week that includes a highly anticipated EU summit, and a day after Gavyn Davies featured a sobering chart in his FT commentary, The Anatomy of the Eurozone Bank Run.

The EURO STOXX 50 index gained a quarter of a percent, and the Bloomberg table of European Stocks, which includes the STOXX 50 and the eight largest country indexes, showed only two declines for the day.

But the indexes highlighted in red are for the two countries that pose the biggest risks to the Eurozone. On May 9th, Spain's IBEX 35 slipped fractionally below its historic March 2009 low. Six of the eight subsequent sessions have been losses.

 

 

Italy's Milan index is fractionally higher than its 2009 trough, but the index down 24% since its 2012 interim high on March 19th.

 

 

The Athens Stock Exchange General Index is too small to be included in Bloomberg's main list of European indexes. It fell 1.01% today but is 1.5% above its 20th century low set on May 17th.

 

 

The headline story today is national obsession with Facebook IPO. But a more important story of the week will be the outcome of the EU summit in Brussels.