, Columnist
Italy's Banks on the Brink
Renzi's departure complicates the rescue plan without dooming it.
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For once, the pollsters were right -- and it's bad news for financial markets. Italians have rejected Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's make-or-break constitutional reform, and the 41-year-old leader is on his way out.
The prospect of political instability in the eurozone's third-largest economy whacked the euro and threatens to deal a serious blow to shares of struggling Italian banks such as Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, which is scrambling to draw a line under a pile of bad loans and raise capital from private investors at the same time.