This week on FT Alphaville,
- The $100bn FX hustle.
- The S&P is heading for 800.
- Commercial real estate - work it out!
- World Cups good for tourism, bad for industrial production, BofAML says.
It’s being billed as an outrageous piece of behind the scenes lobbying by Big Finance. Moves are afoot to overlay the Financial Accounting Standards Board, which sits inside the SEC, with a new “oversight board” - a regulator’s regulator,
Proponents of the theory that there has been a secular shift in the American psyche — away for a culture of consumerism and toward a new-found frugality — will be heartened by the latest consumer credit data from the Federal Reserve.
Markit’s Gavan Nolan wrote this CDS report
The monthly US non-farm payrolls report always has the potential to move markets. No matter that it is a lagging indicator; the state of the US labour market is an important gauge of the world’s largest economy and has knock-on effects on consumer confidence.
The following snaps flashed up on Reuters on Friday:
RTRS-U.S. SEC ENFORCEMENT CHIEF KHUZAMI SAYS SEEING SIGNIFICANT EXPANSION AS TO WHERE GALLEON/HEDGE FUND PROBE IS LEADING
16:48 06Nov09 RTRS-KHUZAMI SAYS SOME HEDGE FUND BUSINESS MODELS,
Just look at that yen go:
It seems bad US jobs numbers have reassured investors that the “mother of all carry trades” is completely tenable and that because liquidity won’t be removed from the US or the UK any time soon,
Buccaneers hassling your fleet around the seven seas? Time to hire some muscle.
Interdealer broker ICAP are said to be amassing ducats introducing worried ship owners to pirate slaying mercenaries.
And for a small fee you too can be “briefed in anti-piracy preparation and drills”,
Extend and pretend. Kicking the can. Fake it till you make it. Band-aided.
Any one of those expressions could be used to describe the latest loan modification technique from Wells Fargo.
Dow Jones,
The epic third quarter Interim Management Statement from the new, transparent RBS is proving to be something of a treasure trove.
Here’s the bank explaining the dismal performance of its to-be-divested insurance business,
In the early days of banking, liability was not just unlimited; it was often as much personal as financial. In 1360, a Barcelona banker was executed in front of his failed bank, presumably as a way of discouraging generations of future bankers from excessive risk-taking…
US non-farm payrolls fell by 190,000 jobs in October, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Friday. That compared to a general consensus figure for a loss of 175,000 jobs, according to Reuters.
Figures for September,
For those wondering what happened to the adventurous idiotic folk who dabbled in pink sheet-traded Lehman shares in the run up to the anniversary:
Related link:
[The Lehman Anniversary] Day of the dead - It lives! - FT Alphaville
European insurers are having trouble adjusting to life in the land of Zirp.
While 2008 insurance results were all about impairments, the latest round of Euro insurer figures show a growing preoccupation with yield.
Q: What’s not a government bond or cash but has a zero-per cent risk capital weighting?
A: A bond sold as part of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program.
(A big hat tip to Reuters columnist Rolfe Winkler for spotting the below).
On FT Alphaville Friday morning,
- The new (ahem) transparent RBS.
- Taking out the trash at RBS.
- Gilty opportunism?
- Dollar rise *alert*.
- Why Asia may shake off an S&P correction.
- UBS,
The UK taxpayer is now the proud owner of £19.8bn worth of monoline exposure.
And £39.1bn worth of commercial real estate.
RBS’s just-released third-quarter results have a bit more detail on just what is going into the Asset Protection Scheme - the UK government’s plan to insure state-owned banks against credit losses.
Markets live chat transcript for the chat ending at 12:10 on 6 Nov 2009. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT (NH) Miles Johnson, FT (MJ) NH:good morning NH:and welcome to Markets Live
Want some reassuring commentary that all is well and good in the world of equity valuations?
Well, here’s a pretty bullish bubble-bashing view from UBS, suggesting arguments for a big imminent correction are unwarranted.
Here’s a curiosity.
In RBS’s interim statement, released on Friday, Stephen Hester, CEO of the bank shortly to be 84 per cent owned by the British taxpayer, makes a commitment to transparency. As he states in his third-quarter commentary (our emphasis):
It is almost a year since BHP Billiton abandoned its $62bn pursuit of Rio Tinto and…
people are starting to speculate.
Earlier this week, the Australian Financial Review asked whether BHP might bid again if the proposed iron ore joint venture (IOJV) between the two companies collapses.
The risk of the biggest US equities correction since the March low on the S&P500 has increased over the past week — but Asian economies, after a comparatively resilient year, are better placed than usual to resist an S&P-correlated correction,
Here’s a thought from Monument Securities’ Marc Ostwald.
The UK’s Office for National Statistics has just published a consultation on proposed changes to the measurement of mortgage interest payments within the Retail Prices Index — one of the main inflation rates in the UK;
Yup that’s right.
Talk of the end of dollar hegemony may be premature. The latest contrarian ’smart-money’ bet, partly fuelled by commentary from the likes of Nouriel Roubini and Martin Wolf on what might happen when the “mother all of carry trades”
Hidden away in British Airways’ half-year results is this tidbit:
That means British Airways NAPS pension liabilities now stand at a whopping £2.66bn — more than twice the £1.17bn reported at the end of last fiscal year.
Elsewhere on Friday,
- The dollar as a funding currency.
- Thermodynamics and US executive pay.
- A dollar shortage in China?
- What’s up with the UUP Dollar ETF?
- Lessons for the foreign exchange market from the global financial crisis.
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Friday’s FT,
Mohamed El-Erian and Ramin Toloui: How to fill the gaps left by dollar decline
It has become fashionable to speculate on the future of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency,
On FT Alphaville late Thursday,
- Fannie Mae lost how much?
- Goldman, the interest-rate hedging king.
- Sun shareholders left swinging.
The Galleon insider case multiplied in size,
- For the background to the case,
Breaking pre-market news on Friday,
- RBS reports Q3 proforma net loss of £1.8bn - statement.
- Hannover Re swings to Q3 profit, boosts 2009 target - statement.
- Corporate: British Airways,
US prosecutors on Thursday intensified their crackdown on Wall Street insider trading, revealing criminal charges against 14 people which are related to the case last month against Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon hedge fund,
Citigroup is poised to relaunch a unit containing its troubled hedge fund operations after nearly two years of poor performance and internal strife. Citi executives wanted to change the name of the unit ? which has $14bn under management and includes private equity operations ? from Citi Alternative Investments to Citi Capital Advisors,
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