A Couple Of Questions To Start The Day….

Posted by on Jan 10, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

On Sunday we had Occupy MetLife Stadium where the 99% happily watched the 1% on the field and in the stands.  Last night we had a decent college football championship and are sure to see several of the players play on Sunday, which leads to the first question. What is higher, the percentage of NFL […]

Spirale Di Morte?

Posted by on Jan 9, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

UniCredit shares are getting crushed today on the back of their rights offering.  Mediobanca shares are also down.  Mediobanca is the largest shareholder of Unicredit (as we sent out last week).  Mediobanca has underwritten 10% of the rights offering.  When will Mediobanca need to do its own rights offering?  Will their biggest shareholder (UniCredit) underwrite […]

Daily Credit ETF and Index Summary (12.01.09)

Posted by on Jan 9, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

European indices, MAIN, SNR (fins), and SOVX are all right around flat to a touch wider. HYG and JNK attracted close to $750 million of new money last week.  That many new shares were created, yet the funds were down on the week.  The premium has shrunk for the indices.  At these levels, they are […]

I Remember When The Dynamic Duo Was Batman And Robin

Posted by on Jan 9, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

The market is essentially frozen ahead of yet another Merkozy press conference.  I have lost count of how many of these press conferences they have had.  I haven’t lost count of how many resulted in anything particularly useful – zero is an easy number to remember. So what are we going to get? Renewed commitment […]

(BN) Espirito Santo Issues 3-Year Debt Guaranteed by Portuguese State

Posted by on Jan 6, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

I haven’t found the bond details yet, but guess there is no rush when you issue it to yourself and send it straight to the ECB.  I can’t imagine there was massive actual demand for this.  Portugal itself cannot issue bonds to the market.  Its 2 year debt yields more than 13%.  So why exactly […]

So 200 Was Pretty Much Priced In?

Posted by on Jan 6, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

So it looks like 200 was pretty much what the market had priced in.  It felt like the market had priced in a pretty nice number, and I thought it would take more than 200k to get a serious, lasting, pop in risk assets, but this muted reaction is pretty surprising.  The bulls have a real […]

Daily Credit ETF and Index Summary (12.01.06)

Posted by on Jan 6, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

Main is 1.5 tighter so far, XOVER is 7 tighter.  SOVX seems about unchanged, but it also seems to be a product on the verge of death.  Volumes seem abysmal and the liquidity matches that. HYG and JNK have attracted over $500 million of new money this year.  Yet they are down.  The premium to […]

Mediobanca And UniCredit  

Posted by on Jan 5, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

So, according to this, Mediobanca is the largest shareholder of UniCredit.  I guess it could be custodial, but does explain why they are part of the underwriting group that backstopped the deal.  If you combine the Central Bank of Libya, Libyan Investment Authority, and Libyan Foreign Bank holdings, then they are actually bigger than Mediobanca. At the risk of making […]

Daily Credit ETF and Index Summary (12.01.05)

Posted by on Jan 5, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

A couple of obvious stories and follow-ups. HY17, which we liked the most yesterday, significantly outperformed HYG and JNK.  That trade may have a bit of room to run so wouldn’t take it off yet, but is encouraging to see about a 0.5% move in that convergence. HYG and JNK were both down marginally yesterday.  […]

Spain Guarantees Spanish Bonds

Posted by on Jan 5, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

Made you look 🙂 Although the headline is obviously too bizarre to be true, I bet that a lot of people see it, and wonder for at least a moment what Spain is up to now.  That moment of doubt, that thought that a country could be guaranteeing its own debt is a key to […]