Credit vs Equity. Logical vs Illogical?
S&P futures have moved more than 20 points since 3:30pm. The first big move was on the back of a story that Greece really will commit to the whatever the EU demands. The second move was after China re-pledged to invest in Europe. IG17 is about 1.5 bps tighter than the wides of the day […]
ZeroHedge’s Comment On The Latest Greek Rumor
ZeroHedge’s comment on the latest Greek rumor is about as good as it gets. Samaras letter is allegedly worth far more than the paper it’s written on. It is worth almost a 1% move in the stock markets of the world, I wonder if the EU will cherish it quite as much? We all know we […]
Is It Proper Etiquette To Break Up With An SMS?
I guess I shouldn’t be thinking about break-ups on Valentine’s day – that hallmark of Hallmark holidays – but with the EU switching from a summit to a conference call they are either finally worried about the money spent on all these summits (doubtful) or are trying to figure out a way of saying no […]
The Germans And Paperwork
So, there are headlines that there will not be a meeting tomorrow because the paperwork isn’t done. As much as that sounds bogus to me, and we should be selling off, I have to relate a story. I was working for a German institution. A very old school German one. I had to do a […]
If You’re Waiting For The Afternoon Rally…
If you’re waiting for the afternoon rally, you may want to go home. The expectation that we will rally after Europe goes home is once again extremely high. Traders make the Pavlovian response of buying stocks as the closing bells ring in Europe because they have become conditioned to it. It seems to prevalent of […]
(BN) Rehn Calls on Spain to Spell Out Deficit-Reduction Measures
He is one busy non elected official. +——————————————————————————+ BN 02/14 14:46 Rehn Sees Determination to Prevent Disorderly Greek Default BN 02/14 14:11 EU’s Rehn Says Crisis Shows Serious Risks Macro Imbalances Pose BN 02/14 14:44 *REHN SAYS FAIR TAX SYSTEM IS ESSENTIAL ELEMENT FOR GREECE BN 02/14 14:44 *REHN SAYS EU STANDS BY […]
A Weird Start To The Day…
Futures sold off a bit early in the evening on the back of Moody’s Downgrades which weren’t that important since they left France and the UK alone and only played catch up with S&P on the rest and they already had Portugal as junk so not a big change. Comments coming out of Germany didn’t […]
PSI, Troika, And Tic Tac Toe
I have been struggling with two issues that I just can’t make sense of. At the risk of coming across as a bigger geek than usual, I feel like the darn computer in “War Games” trying to win at tic tac toe (was tic tac toe ever fun again after that movie?) two things make […]
Greek Bonds and PSI – Beware the Ides Of March (Or At Least The 20th)
So what is happening with PSI? Here is a chart of the Greek bonds due on March 20th. They have allegedly been trading up. I use the term “allegedly” because the bonds are supposedly quoted 2 to 4 points wide, on a million up. So not exactly a liquid market. But let’s assume the chart […]
(BN) Papademos Received 199 Votes of Support in Greek Austerity Vote
So the vote was 199-74. In theory the 3 parties that backed Papademos should have had 253 votes. These 3 parties expelled 43 “deputies” for defying the party line. I can’t tell whether that is part of the 74 or these are separate. There should be closer to 300 voters, so not sure what happened […]