August, 2009
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Tuesday,
- Legal & General interim IFRS operating profit falls 92 per cent to £31m — statement.
- Northern Rock half-year underlying loss reduced to £269.9m — statement.
Stocks hit highest levels for the year
Global stock markets hit their highest levels of the year on Monday, buoyed by better-than-expected profits at HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank and growing confidence in economic recovery. The powerful rally in equities took New York’s benchmark S&P500 index above 1,000 for the first time since early November and drove Europe’s key share index to a fresh 2009 record.
ANZ to buy RBS Asia units
Australia’s ANZ on Tuesday agreed to buy part of Royal Bank of Scotland’s Asian banking assets for $550m in a deal which bolsters its strategy to become a “super-regional” lender, reports the FT. ANZ will buy RBS units in Taiwan,
BofA to pay $33m to settle case
Bank of America is to pay $33m to settle US regulators’ claims that it made “materially false and misleading claims” to shareholders about bonuses paid by Merrill Lynch last year. The SEC and Andrew Cuomo,
Blackstone shares surge 21%
The shares of private equity firm Blackstone Group rose 21% on Monday, a surge that some analysts attributed to investors buying on speculation about upcoming earnings, reports Reuters. Blackstone, which is scheduled to report Q3 earnings on Thursday,
FDIC to ‘move fast’ on private equity
The FDIC, the US bank regulator, is expected to move quickly to finalise guidelines on private equity investments in failed banks, possibly easing one of its most controversial proposals, reports Reuters.
Geithner loses cool with regulators
US Treasury secretary Tim Geithner blasted top US regulators in an expletive-laden tirade amid frustration over President Barack Obama’s faltering plan to overhaul financial regulation, reports the WSJ.
Google’s Schmidt quits Apple board
The close personal link that sealed an unusual alliance between Silicon Valley’s two most prominent companies was broken on Monday as competitive conflicts forced Eric Schmidt, Google chief executive,
AIG names former MetLife chief as CEO
AIG has named Robert Benmosche, a former head of rival insurer MetLife, as chief executive. The appointment of Benmosche, who left MetLife in 2006, fills half the void left when Ed Liddy, AIG’s current chairman and chief executive,
Leveraged loans hit 12-month high
The prices of the most traded risky European and US loans have reached their highest levels for more than a year, in a further sign of improving conditions in credit markets. Over the past week, European leveraged loan prices reached 89.11% of face value,
CIT sweetens offer on $1bn debt
CIT Group, the US small-business lender, on Monday sweetened its tender offer for $1bn of debt due this month after failing to win bondholders over with its original price. CIT, struggling to meet short-term liquidity requirements,
Spotify wins high-profile backing
Spotify, the digital music service seen as a potential challenger to the dominance of iTunes, is close to securing new investment of up to $50m from high-profile investors, including the charitable foundation of HK tycoon Li Ka-shing.
‘Cash-for-clunkers’ boosts US car sales
Car sales in the US surged by about 16% last month compared with June thanks to demand generated by car scrappage incentives. But year-on-year sales remained lower for most carmakers. GM and Chrysler, which have emerged from court-supervised restructurings,
Overnight markets: Surge
Asian stocks rose for a fourth trading day on Tuesday, paced by material producers, after commodities prices climbed and key companies including HSBC and Panasonic reported better-than-expected earnings.
BAC agrees to pay $33m to settle SEC Merrill case
A little out of nowhere comes the following from the SEC on Monday. Via Reuters:
Bank of America has agreed to pay $33 million to settle charges that it made false and misleading statements to investors about bonuses at Merrill Lynch,
Bailout CDS vs bailout stocks
From a recently-released BIS paper assessing the impact and ‘success’ of financial rescue programmes:
Those are changes in bank CDS after various government support programmes (in basis points) and changes in stock prices (percentage points).
Kaupthing’s Wikigeysir
In the same way that glaciers occasionally disgorge relics from earlier times, frozen and perfectly preserved, so the defunct Icelandic bank Kaupthing has thrown up an apparent curiosity – a document detailing who owed the bank serious amounts of money just before it finally imploded.
Just a little more off the top, Talf-man
So says, perhaps, the Federal Reserve with regards to the Talf programme’s haircuts.
Asset-Backed Alert reports:
The Federal Reserve is thinking about increasing the down payments it requires from investors that buy certain types of bonds with financing from its Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility.
GLG loses another trader
GLG, the London-based New York-listed hedge fund, with more than $20bn under management, has lost another of its star traders.
Robert Donald, a trader who dealt with European Industrials and basic resources at the firm’s £1bn European Long/Short fund,
Treasuries, of bidders and bulls
Last week was an absolutely massive one for US Treasury issuance and it produced some interesting auction results.
To wit, the below chart of indirect bidders’ participation in Tuesday’s 2-year auction,
Lunch Wrap
On FT Alphaville Monday morning,
- Barclays’ monoline burn.
- Recession over! Worst of the New York dating scene returns.
- Goldman’s visionary WTI performance.
- What markets should expect next.
Markets live transcript 3 Aug 2009
Markets live chat transcript for the chat ending at 11:52 on 3 Aug 2009. Participants in this chat were: Paul Murphy (PM) Izabella Kaminska, FT (IK) Tracy Alloway, FT (TA) PM:Hello there!
Doom, gloom, greed & fear: What markets should expect next
There’s no joie de vivre or bull sentiment behind their views but both CLSA’s Christopher Wood and Marc (aka Dr Doom) Faber are betting on a further continuation of the equity market rally.
Wood, writing in his weekly Greed & Fear newsletter,
Goldman’s visionary WTI performance
As we know, the epoch of getting things wrong is now behind Goldman Sachs:
Related links:
$30 per barrel by Feb say Goldman - FT Alphaville
HSBC’s fair value
HSBC’s 2009 interim results, the other set of today’s big banking earnings, are now out.
The highlights below:
HSBC HOLDINGS REPORTS PRE-TAX PROFIT OF US$5,019 MILLION
HSBC made a profit before tax of US$5,019 million,
Recession over! Worst of the New York dating scene returns
Kill us.
Fashion meets Finance – the New York-based social service that aims to match attractive but relatively poor women with relatively unattractive but rich finance professionals correct gender imbalances between New York bar scenes,
Further reading
Elsewhere on Monday,
- A little something about GDP revisions, and a little more.
- An artificial recovery?
- US hedge funds managers turn to gold.
- The crackdown on evil oil speculators is a good thing.