Holidays In The Sun…

Somehow the anger of the sex pistols, the sound of boots marching in the background, seem right to me today.

Greek Industrial Production dropped 11.3% in December.  The unemployment rate jumped to 20.9%, up from 18.2%.

The charade of negotiations and a bailout can go.  Some deal is likely to be announced.  I’m not even sure it will be relevant by the March 20th bond maturity deadline.

The economy is getting worse, fast.

People are getting angry, fast.

The “force feeding of austerity” and plan after plan that is really just a focus on banks at the expense of the people is getting old.

While we wait for whatever plan is about to be announced, to some fanfare and some small pop in stock futures, the markets are mixed.

CDS on European financials is weak again.  Senior Fins are 9 bps wider.  Commerzbank senior and sub are both about 20 bps wider (on top of a big sell off yesterday).

So far Main and IG are tame and only 1 bp wider, but it was the move in financials that briefly spooked the market yesterday, so keep an eye on that.  The weakness in financials seems surprising given all the talk (and hopes and dreams) of another massive LTRO.

New AT&T 10 year came at 105 and is trading right around that level.  Not a big pop.  It may be that the market has hit the point where the new issue concession shrunk too much, and too many people are playing for the quick flip rather than needing the bonds.  The new issues have generally performed well, but we may have hit a saturation point.

In the meantime back to waiting for that imminent announcement out of Brussels or Athens.