When Is +1.55% A Disappointment?
In spite of today’s sharp rally, the market failed to hold early gains, and is likely to disappoint Europe overnight. The DAX is up 4.55% and is up 5.3% in dollar terms. The Euro Stoxx 50 is up almost 4% in USD terms YTD. On top of that Spanish 5-year bond yields are 25 bps […]
(BN) National Bank of Greece Offers to Buy Back $2.5 Billion Debt
My head must still hurt from New Year’s Eve, but if I understand this, NBG issued preferreds to the Greek government (who just happened to have some money lying around). That raised their capital. Now they are going to buy back some debt with that money. The discount will count as “earnings” thus also increasing […]
Meet The New Year, Same As The Old Year
Stock futures are up sharply after another week of unprecedented volatility. Although last week was relatively tame, only 13 times in the last 60 years has the S&P 500 had a down 1% day during the week between Christmas and New Year’s. We managed one of those days last week. We also had a 1% […]
Words And Phrases I Hope Not To See Or Hear in 2012
Rather than making some predictions, here is a list of words and phrases that were popular in 2011 that just annoy me. It would be nice if they become less popular in 2012, but I predict they will remain in use. Bazooka No self-respecting video game would have a “bazooka” as the ultimate weapon. Bazookas […]
Yawn…
A weak Italian bond auction, a weak Euro, and a slightly disappointing claims number hasn’t done much for stocks. Futures have barely budged, though that may be because with desks are barely staffed. The surge on the first day of trading last year is too fresh in everyone’s mind to get too bearish yet, but […]
Why Is The Euro Dropping?
The Euro is dropping fast right now, dragging other risk assets with it. So far, there is no good explanation, but the assumption is that someone “knows” something, and that something is bad. Neither are a surprise. With so many governments and international agencies involved, leaks are to be expected, and since all that the […]
Italian Yield Curve
With all eyes focused on Italy and the “success” of Italian bond auctions, I thought this chart might be useful. Attention has been on the 10 year (was 7% again until earlier this morning) and how much cheaper the 2 year came than just a few months ago. Clearly Italy has done some things to […]
Italy Goes The Full Monti
It was just a little footnote to the LTRO announcement. Just a little statement that 40 billion of the collateral received by the ECB was newly issued, newly guaranteed Italian debt. The more I think about it, the more uncomfortable I get. The ECB claims they have 40 billion of Italian government bonds on their […]
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The LTRO
I’ve taken some comfort with the LTRO. While it won’t solve the sovereign debt crisis, or even provide much direct benefit, it does help the banks. It helps the banks manage their balance sheet and is a clear sign that the ECB takes its role of lender of last resort to banks very seriously. That […]
I Am Confused….(Soon To Be Restated To Bemused)
Somehow the revisions to home sales don’t affect how many months of supply there is? I guess so, but that does seem like a stretch. What I’m more curious about is the starts and permits numbers. Yesterday the market celebrated 685k starts and 681k permits. We thought we were running at existing home sales of […]
