Posts from Friday Feb 22 2013

What took you so long, Moody’s?

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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| Feb 22 23:02 | Comment |

Worth reading the full Moody’s rationale for (finally) cutting its credit rating for the UK from Aaa to Aa1: Read more

Words of caution for China bulls

Masa joined the FT in 2009 and has worked on a number of desks across the paper, including Companies, Markets and Comment. She spent much of 2010 in New York covering the US equity markets. But earlier this year she finally saw the light and moved to Alphaville.

She started her career in the investment banking division at Lehman Brothers in the summer of 2007, timing it perfectly with the beginning of the credit crunch.

She studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University.

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| Feb 22 13:00 | Comment |

Last year’s worries about the Chinese economy suffering a ‘hard landing’ eventually proved to be misplaced. Or should that be, worries that the government wouldn’t be able to engineer a soft landing, proved to be misplaced. Yet, while the economy seems to be on a more stable footing these days, there may be too much optimism that this will continue.

The consensus is for growth of a touch more than 8 per cent this year, roughly in line with what Beijing itself is forecasting. Yet Zhiwei Zhang and Wendy Chen, economists at Nomura, argue this is too bullish, and offer five reasons why they think 7.7 per cent is more realistic, with growth slowing to 7.3 per cent in the second half of 2013. Read more

Deficits: good marketing in a time of austerity?

Lisa joined FT Alphaville in September 2011 after a tour of duty through the guts of the financial industry, having worked as an analyst at a bank and for a financial data company. She's now the Head of New Projects for FT.com.

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| Feb 22 12:15 | Comment |

Let’s take a moment for a high level overview of public debt-to-GDP ratios in the eurozone. If that’s not your idea of fun, well, you probably wouldn’t be reading FT Alphaville.

Courtesy of a note by Lasse Holboell W. Nielsen of the Economics Research team at Goldman Sachs (we may have added some kittens)… Read more

Are rates mispriced or are investors missing something?

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| Feb 22 11:39 | Comment |

The disconnect we’ve noticed between commodity fundamentals and forward rates appears to be popping up in other asset classes as well.

Priya Misra, rates strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, makes a very interesting point on Friday about what she sees in her sector. Read more

Markets Live: Friday, 22nd February, 2013

Paul Murphy is the founding editor of FT Alphaville.

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| Feb 22 11:01 | Comment |
This is a Markets Live transcript. Read more

Live markets commentary from FT.com 

The (early) Lunch Wrap

Masa joined the FT in 2009 and has worked on a number of desks across the paper, including Companies, Markets and Comment. She spent much of 2010 in New York covering the US equity markets. But earlier this year she finally saw the light and moved to Alphaville.

She started her career in the investment banking division at Lehman Brothers in the summer of 2007, timing it perfectly with the beginning of the credit crunch.

She studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University.

Learn more

Subscribe to Masa's posts
| Feb 22 10:45 | Comment |

Brussels turns up pressure over Libor || Relief over HP earnings buys Whitman time || Citi unveils pay plan for executives || Egyptian elections to start in April || ECB unveils €1.1bn profit on crisis bonds || US paints bearish outlook for grain prices || CFTC sues Nymex over information leaks || Markets: Growth-focused products are rallying Read more

Further reading

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| Feb 22 08:25 | Comment |

Elsewhere on Friday,

- How the eurozone crisis was about a buyer’s strike.

- Perhaps the singularity isn’t going to happen?

- European banks would be less scary if they were in the US. Read more

The 6am Cut London

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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| Feb 22 05:39 | Comment |

Asian stocks edge up || European Commission looms over Libor banks || Shareholder rebuff to Rothschild paves way for Bumi split || HP earnings buy time for turnaround || Bankia’s epic loss Read more