The T Report: Falling Knives, Dead CATs & Strikeless Puts
Falling Knives Europe has played a dangerous game of catching falling knives. Do nothing. Markets weaken. Have some meetings and vague plans. Markets turn more negative. Complain about speculators. Market starts to panic and economies constrict. Politicians and Central Bankers talk more. Markets swing up and down between hopes of some new solution and fears […]
The T Report: The Greek Election is Irrelevant but FROB Isn’t
Does the Greek Election Still Matter? The market still wants to believe that the Greek elections are an important catalyst for the market. That if one side wins, the Greeks stick to the original plan and continue to destroy their country, but make the markets happy. If the other side wins, conventional wisdom, is that […]
The T Report: What a FROBbing Headache
You’ve Been FROBbed We still await details of what the Spanish bailout is. So far the market has decided to take a negative view on how effective it will be. That may turn out to be the correct view, but many of the headlines seemed to ignore what few details we do have. This is […]
The T Report: Skeptics Galore and the Big Picture
It seems like it would be easier to find an adult who believes in Santa Claus than one who believe the events in Spain over the weekend accomplish anything. It is actually very hard to find a positive article, yet most seem to take worst case scenarios and take that as the likely outcome. Some […]
The T Report: Central Banks, Spanish Banks, and 2 JPM Banks
Yesterday’s price action was about par for the course. Markets were higher on Chinese rate cut and that Merkel said something other than “austerity now”. Stocks dipped as Ben didn’t provide any immediate plans for QE. Then stocks rallied because no one had believed Ben was going to do much anyways. Finally, into the close, […]
The T Report: Killing Vampires, Werewolves, and Zombie Banks
We all know how to kill a vampire and a werewolf. For vampires you need to either trap them in sunlight or drive a wooden stake through their heart. For werewolves, you need a silver bullet. Or at least you did before the Twilight series came out. But killing a zombie bank isn’t necessarily as […]
The T Report 2: Hanging By a Thread and Inflation in Europe
The ECB press conference was an unadulterated disappointment. Absolutely nothing was given of any use. Some platitudes about watching and ready to act, but that’s about it. Why he chose to do nothing is a matter of speculation and seems to range from myopic, delusional, under orders from Merkel, or that Goldman was short and […]
The T Report: A Playbill for this Morning’s Central Bank Theater
Expectations for the ECB meeting seem high with U.S. futures back to 1,298 recovering almost two thirds of Friday’s drop. The range of possible outcomes from the ECB meeting seems exceptionally high. Some ideas being bantered out seem unrealistic because it isn’t actually the ECB’s mandate. Others have so many possible variations that the mere […]
The T Report: Schadenfreude Is a German Word
The market is relatively stable overnight and this morning. Yesterday traded in fits and starts with brief moments of concern that Friday’s sell-off would continue and brief moments of hope that Europe was going to do something to fix the situation in Europe. Trading was on light volume and liquidity seemed low as gaps of […]
The T Report: Still in Holiday Mode
With Europe effectively shut down today it looks like it will be a dull day. Chinese CPI came in a bit higher than expected at 3.6%, and was largely a result of food inflation, tempering the hopes that China would ease more aggressively. PPI came in as expected at -0.3% signaling that the production slowdown […]