The T Report: A Plausible Bear Path
I’m bearish, but I’m not expecting or looking for a big move down. It is more that I think there is a greater chance of asset prices declining from recent levels, than going up, and some small chance the decline cascades as bullish sentiment has grown. The Bear Path I see the potential for a […]
The T Report: The Bernanke Put is now the Bernanke Call?
It is a very dull start to the week with markets fractionally weaker across the board. European bonds are all a touch weaker. CDS is wider in sovereigns, MAIN, IG, and HY. S&P futures are down a touch as IBEX “leads” the way lower in Europe – but even that is down less than ½%. […]
Fed Holdings – Robbing Timmy to Pay Timmy
Fed Owns 19% of all Treasury Bonds I focused on bonds issued by the Treasury that pay a fixed rate coupon. I didn’t focus on t-bills, as the Fed seems far less involved in those, and they all yield zero anyways. I didn’t include TIIPS for now, because the distribution, off-hand, looks similar, they are […]
The Weekly T Report: Dream the Impossible Dream?
Too Early To Dream of a Fix, but Worth Reviewing what has happened If “buy and hold” and the “carry trade” is the dumb money, it has done pretty well, even in Spain of all places. There have been opportunities to short Spain and make a lot of money, but it is worth pointing out […]
The T Report: Now What?
The Laundry Has Been Done I hated investment advice based on “least dirty shirt”. Now, here we are with DAX up more than the Nasdaq YTD, both in Euros and when converted to dollars. The IBEX index is now up some 35% or so since the July lows. Anything that was hated or viewed as […]
ECB Press Conference – First Thoughts
A Small Step for Draghi, a Giant Step for ECB The ECB’s latest plan is interesting. It doesn’t go as far as some would like, it has problems in that once again everything has to be negotiated. At the same time, it seems like they have made a momentous change in attitude. They still aren’t […]
The T Report: Complaining About Free Beer
We All Know the Type They get handed a free beer and the first thing they say is Too warm Too fizzy Too flat Doesn’t taste right out of plastic cups Don’t you have any Labatt’s? They forget the beer was free and only focus on the negative details. Well after the Draghi leak yesterday, […]
The T Report: What, Me Worry?
The Importance of the Bund Auction Markets are mixed overnight. They had steadily declined as concerns about Asia influenced markets. As the day has gone on in London, markets have bounced off the lows, as hopes of ECB action increase. There was a weak German bund auction. They only sold €3.61 billion out of a […]
The T Report: Re-Coupling Trades are Working
Re-Coupling Spanish and Italian stock markets are both up just over 1% this week already. Germany is about unchanged and the U.S. futures indicate a roughly flat opening. Re-coupling. Spanish 5 year bond yields are 45 bps better in two days and are close to levels last seen in early May (pre-JPM whale trade). Italy […]
The T Report: Tepper, QE, and “Priced In”
Not Priced In This is one of the most memorable clips in recent years on CNBC. The Tepper “Balls to the Walls” take on QE2. It was short, simple, and spot-on. He nailed it. What was interesting at the time was that his belief in how good QE2 would be wasn’t universally shared. Many, myself […]
