I Remember When The Dynamic Duo Was Batman And Robin
The market is essentially frozen ahead of yet another Merkozy press conference. I have lost count of how many of these press conferences they have had. I haven’t lost count of how many resulted in anything particularly useful – zero is an easy number to remember. So what are we going to get? Renewed commitment […]
(BN) Espirito Santo Issues 3-Year Debt Guaranteed by Portuguese State
I haven’t found the bond details yet, but guess there is no rush when you issue it to yourself and send it straight to the ECB. I can’t imagine there was massive actual demand for this. Portugal itself cannot issue bonds to the market. Its 2 year debt yields more than 13%. So why exactly […]
So 200 Was Pretty Much Priced In?
So it looks like 200 was pretty much what the market had priced in. It felt like the market had priced in a pretty nice number, and I thought it would take more than 200k to get a serious, lasting, pop in risk assets, but this muted reaction is pretty surprising. The bulls have a real […]
Daily Credit ETF and Index Summary (12.01.06)
Main is 1.5 tighter so far, XOVER is 7 tighter. SOVX seems about unchanged, but it also seems to be a product on the verge of death. Volumes seem abysmal and the liquidity matches that. HYG and JNK have attracted over $500 million of new money this year. Yet they are down. The premium to […]
Mediobanca And UniCredit  
So, according to this, Mediobanca is the largest shareholder of UniCredit. I guess it could be custodial, but does explain why they are part of the underwriting group that backstopped the deal. If you combine the Central Bank of Libya, Libyan Investment Authority, and Libyan Foreign Bank holdings, then they are actually bigger than Mediobanca. At the risk of making […]
Daily Credit ETF and Index Summary (12.01.05)
A couple of obvious stories and follow-ups. HY17, which we liked the most yesterday, significantly outperformed HYG and JNK. That trade may have a bit of room to run so wouldn’t take it off yet, but is encouraging to see about a 0.5% move in that convergence. HYG and JNK were both down marginally yesterday. […]
Spain Guarantees Spanish Bonds
Made you look 🙂 Although the headline is obviously too bizarre to be true, I bet that a lot of people see it, and wonder for at least a moment what Spain is up to now. That moment of doubt, that thought that a country could be guaranteeing its own debt is a key to […]
Daily Credit ETF and Index Summary (12.01.04)
Credit didn’t do as well as equities and didn’t have the “liftathon” atmosphere that we often get at the start of the year. Many people were in meetings, and investors were just trying to get their arms around the situation here and abroad, but the performance was pretty mundane. There is still hope that the […]
(BN) Spain Helped Valencia With $160 Million Payment, El Pais Reports
We first got this story from the www.trumanfactor.com people. It seems as another case where a sovereign is slinging around guarantees with reckless abandon. This time it is to help a state rather than a bank, but the idea is the same, sovereigns are creating more and more contingent off-balance sheet liabilities to keep struggling […]
Some Good Answers To Other Times +1.55% Is A Disappointment
1) When it is the % of your bonus that is in cash 2) When it is your child’s GPA 3) When it is your bonus expressed as a % of your salary 4) When it is the % of actual votes you get in Iowa as a Republican Candidate 5) When that would put […]
