European Elections And Tolstoy’s Portugal

Posted by on Jan 30, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

I will admit that I don’t know much about European elections.  How exactly does their cycle work? How is the leader chosen? etc.? Almost bizarrely, that lack of detailed knowledge of big political cycles hasn’t been necessary to look at what is going on in Europe, but I think it is becoming more crucial. For […]

Let Them Eat Financial Transaction Taxes

Posted by on Jan 29, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

Sarkozy announced the intention to proceed with some form of transaction tax. The details are sketchy at this point – what trades do they apply to? What jurisdictions would be covered? Etc.  He did seem to once again focus on derivatives and CDS. The fact that there is a buyer and a seller of CDS […]

(AP) Private Investors Near Deal On Greek Debt

Posted by on Jan 28, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

Story after story of how close a deal is. Yet not one provides any details over which holders have granted authority to the IIF to commit them to a decision, let alone how many bonds they have. Just one story with a list of entities that have pledged to support these negotiations and how many […]

Daily Credit ETF and Index Summary (12.01.27) – HY Unstoppable?

Posted by on Jan 27, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

Wow, yesterday saw an almost jaw dropping inflow in the HY ETF’s.  Over $400 million came into HYG and JNK yesterday, bringing the YTD total to over $3.3 billion.  The inflows on Wednesday were also large, guess everyone read the Fed Statement and decided it was necessary to chase yield? I am very cautious the […]

Almost Time To Decouple?

Posted by on Jan 27, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

Not quite, but back in December we seemed to reach a peak amount of optimism about the US and pessimism about Europe.  Everyone seemed to be talking about decoupling and how the US was the best place to invest.  Since December 15th, when we first got a bit “freaked out” how widespread this view had become, we […]

Greece, Portugal, And LTRO

Posted by on Jan 27, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

While we wait to see what happens with the Greek debt negotiations, here is a useful update from Bloomberg. Greek Negotiations Update <http://bloom.bg/xcZPA0> There are a couple of things about the article I find most useful.  The first is that they seem less afraid of triggering a Credit Event and some even think it could […]

Bad AAPL, Good Fedo

Posted by on Jan 25, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

In spite of earnings that crushed it for Apple, broader indices struggled to show much strength overnight and slid on the back of some weak earnings out of Europe and growing concerns that few people at the Greek PSI negotiating table have a clue. The comments coming out of the ECB seem more absurd than […]

Daily Credit ETF and Index Summary (12.01.25) – Waiting For The Fed

Posted by on Jan 25, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

Finally back from vacation and getting this daily piece together again. Credit has performed very well over the past week, but all the credit indices are starting to (or continue to trade very rich).  IG17 is 7 bps rich, and HYG is trading more than 1% above NAV.  LQD is also close to 1% above […]

Everything You Wanted to Know About Credit Trading, But Were Afraid to Ask

Posted by on Jan 25, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

Markets have become far less volatile than last year, but many investors remain focused on the Credit Markets for signs and cues as to the next move.  With so many people looking to moves in credit markets and trying to determine how successful an auction has been, I thought it would make sense to go […]

Hmmmm…CDX Indices

Posted by on Jan 24, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

CDX indices have been closing at 4 pm sharp, but today every index trader seems to have stuck around for Apple and made markets that were tighter than the close. Since Apple has I-Zero debt outstanding, that strikes me as particularly peculiar and smells like the street has used whatever limited power to position management […]