Posts from Monday Jul 16 2012

The Closer

| Jul 16 2012 22:09 | Comment |

ROUND UP

US stocks stumbled in low-volume trading. The S&P 500 fell 0.23 per cent after the third month in a row of weak retail sales data (Reuters). Read more

Spain’s banks are IM-F’d

| Jul 16 2012 18:05 | Comment |

Click through the chart confirming what we all knew for the latest IMF Global Financial Stability Report, released this morning…

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“Lower lows ahead”

Cardiff writes mostly about US macroeconomic issues, with daily excursions into other topics about which he claim no expertise. Before Alphaville, Cardiff spent a little more than two years as a reporter at Dow Jones Financial News covering investment banking, asset management, and private equity. Along the way he has written freelance pieces on a variety of other topics from behavioural psychology to Muay Thai, the latter also being a personal interest that involves frequently getting kicked in the shins (and torso, and head).

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| Jul 16 2012 17:53 | Comment |

That’s the title of a Barclays note predicting that yields on the US 10-year will hit 1.25 per cent in Q3. (At pixel time they’re at 1.45 per cent.)

The rationale given in the note (emphasis ours): Read more

Jerry at the select committee [update: and the FSA]

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Jul 16 2012 16:18 | Comment |

“I passed the instruction, as I had received it…”

Click the pic for the feed from the Wilson Room in Porticullis House: Read more

The IMF, raining on Britain

David joined the FT in 2011 as a Marjorie Deane fellow. He covered emerging markets, equities and currencies before making the jump over to FT Alphaville in May 2012.

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| Jul 16 2012 14:54 | Comment |

The IMF’s cut its growth forecast for the UK by 0.6 percentage points for both 2012 and 2013 compared to previous estimates… Click through the pic to get the full IMF World Economic Update doc:

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Barton Biggs dies aged 79

David joined the FT in 2011 as a Marjorie Deane fellow. He covered emerging markets, equities and currencies before making the jump over to FT Alphaville in May 2012.

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| Jul 16 2012 14:14 | Comment |

Barton Biggs, investor, global strategist and founder of Morgan Stanley Investment Management, died on Saturday after a short illness. He was 79.

James Gorman, Morgan Stanley’s chief executive, revealed the news in a memo to staff on Monday: Read more

Citi’s Q2

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Jul 16 2012 13:35 | Comment |

Net income down 12 per cent to $2.9bn, a sombre investment banking performance – equities revenue down 29 per cent on the year – while in releasing loan loss reserves…

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‘Hi, please can you help us with our front-running. Ta!’ (Updated)

Kate is FT AV’s Asia Correspondent. She joined FT Alphaville in mid-2011 after carrying out various roles in the FT’s London office since 2005: interactive editor, companies reporter, and founding editor of the FT’s Energy Source blog.

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| Jul 16 2012 12:07 | Comment |

From the New York Times, a Gretchen Morgenson report into an apparently widespread practice of Wall Street analysts giving private equity clients and hedge funds a heads up into their thinking, via the hedgies’ monthly or quarterly “questionnaires”:

The funds say they ask only for public information, but in at least four cases, documents from Barclays Global Investors, now a unit of BlackRock, state the goal is to receive nonpublic information. Two documents state that the surveys allow for front-running analyst recommendations. Read more

Markets Live transcript 16 Jul 2012

Bryce is the FT's UK equities reporter.

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| Jul 16 2012 11:01 | Comment |
This is a Markets Live transcript. Read more

Live markets commentary from FT.com 

The (early) Lunch Wrap

| Jul 16 2012 10:46 | Comment |

Good morning New York…

FT ALPHAVILLE Read more

A Funding For Lending estimate

David joined the FT in 2011 as a Marjorie Deane fellow. He covered emerging markets, equities and currencies before making the jump over to FT Alphaville in May 2012.

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| Jul 16 2012 10:19 | Comment |

Aka: an attempt to fill in the missing pieces of the underpants gnomes’ collateral swap, details of which were revealed last week.

First a reminder of how this will work, from Claire Jones over at Money Supply: Read more

The bail-in Spain — ECB edition

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Jul 16 2012 09:01 | Comment |

Banking crisis U-turn of the year?

From the WSJ’s Gabriele Steinhauser and Brian Blackstone: Read more

Further reading

Kate is FT AV’s Asia Correspondent. She joined FT Alphaville in mid-2011 after carrying out various roles in the FT’s London office since 2005: interactive editor, companies reporter, and founding editor of the FT’s Energy Source blog.

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| Jul 16 2012 08:04 | Comment |

Elsewhere on Mondoay,

- Of bail-ins and sunk costs. Read more

The 6am Cut London

Kate is FT AV’s Asia Correspondent. She joined FT Alphaville in mid-2011 after carrying out various roles in the FT’s London office since 2005: interactive editor, companies reporter, and founding editor of the FT’s Energy Source blog.

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| Jul 16 2012 05:34 | Comment |

The ECB  has voiced support for imposing losses on the senior bondholders of Spain’s most damaged banks — a significant change of sentiment for the central bank, albeit one that was rejected by Eurozone finance ministers. The WSJ cites people familiar with the discussions who said ECB president Mario Draghi made the position clear at the eurogroup meeting last week. The ECB had previously opposed such bondholder haircuts during the 2010 bail-out of Ireland’s banks. The chief reason ministers rejected such a move was the Irish precedent, in which taxpayers bore the burden of repaying bondholders in the country’s failed banks. (Wall Street Journal)

The 9% “temporary buffer” capital ratio for European banks will become permanent, says the European Banking Authority chairman. Andrea Enria told the FT “We want the banks maintaining this capital level and gradually moving to the Basel III full implementation. We will be asking the banks to develop capital plans to get there.” (Financial Times) Read more