September, 2009
Da, Goldman, da
Goldman Sachs. North Korea. Russia.
It sounds like a conspiracy theorist’s dream, but after placing a big fat (albeit theoretical) ‘buy’ on North Korea on Monday, the investment bank has on Tuesday,
Markets live transcript 22 Sep 2009
Markets live chat transcript for the chat ending at 12:11 on 22 Sep 2009. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT (NH) Bryce Elder (BE) NH:Hello NH:Good morning NH:and welcome
A golden hold’em
It’s not every day you see a correlation quite like this:
Indeed, as the chart’s providers, RBC Capital Markets, noted on Tuesday — net speculative long positions on Comex reached a new all-time high of 28.5 MMoz last week,
Bob’s back
RBS’s chief strategist Bob, ‘The Bear’, Janjuah has returned from his summer travels and he is as bearish as ever.
In fact his latest missive is at times almost apocalyptic:
I do however think that we are VERY MUCH in the tail end of the correction of the Oct 07 to Mar 09 bear move,
SWFs and the Noble chase for commodities
Forget unprofitable investments in western financial groups. The scramble is on among Asian sovereign wealth funds for a big piece of the commodities action. As the FT reports on Tuesday, China Investment Corp has agreed to take a 15 per cent stake in Noble Group,
Boiling oil into backwardation
As can be seen in the chart below from Stephen Schork of the Schork Report on Tuesday, the contango in the WTI Nymex crude market has weakened over the last few months quite substantially:
A weakening contango,
Palm reading
Something put a rocket under the share price of the smartphone maker on Monday night.
Trading volumes were also heavy.
There was also unusual activity in Palm’s call options.
From Schaeffer’s Options Centre (see the last entry).
Further reading
Elsewhere on Tuesday,
- Airlines rethink first class.
- The Option ARM Armageddon.
- Banks to bailout the government?
- And take over the media industry?
- Amaranth is coming back to court.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Tuesday’s FT,
Gideon Rachman: Germany retreats to old certainties
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, might have been excused had she decided to skip the G20 summit in Pittsburgh later this week.
AV after dark
On FT Alphaville late Monday,
- The Pandora’s box of Wells Fargo and commercial real estate.
- US real estate markets still weak, data show.
- Glencore discovers ETFs.
- North Korea:
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Tuesday,
- Rio Tinto sells Alcan Composites to Schweiter Technologies for $349m – statement.
- Ofcom says ITV network licence is no longer sustainable by 2012 – statement.
Dell to buy Perot Systems
Dell on Monday made its long-awaited move into the IT services business as the world’s second-biggest PC maker launching a $3.9bn agreed cash offer to buy its Texas neighbour Perot Systems. The move follows the return of Michael Dell,
Cadbury tries to force Kraft’s hand
Cadbury has approached the UK Takeover Panel to ask Kraft to either make a formal takeover proposal or walk away for six months on its unsolicited £10.2bn takeover offer made three weeks ago. Kraft’s offer was initally valued at 745p per Cadbury share.
Three bodies to regulate EU finance
Three new pan-European supervisory agencies will draw up and help enforce a common rulebook for banks, insurers and securities markets under laws to be unveiled by the European Commission on Wednesday. The proposals will include the creation of a new “European Systemic Risk Board” to track financial stability issues and the establishment of pan-EU supervisory bodies in the banking,
FDIC may borrow funds from banks
America’s Federal Deposit Insurance Corp may ask healthy US banks to lend billions of dollars to restore the health of the depleted fund that safeguards bank deposits, reports the NYT. The initiative,
Santander in $7bn Brazilian sell-off
Santander of Spain, the eurozone’s biggest bank, on Monday unveiled details of a $6.4bn-$7.3bn share offering by its Brazilian subsidiary, confirming predictions that the issue would be one of the world’s largest IPOs this year.
BofA seeks to repay aid
Bank of America on Monday announced several measures to reduce its reliance on federal aid, reports the NYT. The moves are likely to presage a wider effort to repay the many billions of bailout dollars that propped up the bank during the worst of the financial crisis.
China SWF invests in commodities
China Investment Corp, the nation’s sovereign wealth fund, bought a 15% stake in Noble Group as the Singapore-listed, Hong Kong-based commodity supplier benefits from China’s demand for coal, iron ore and soybeans,
Vivendi may decide to sell NBC stake
Vivendi, owner of the world’s largest music company, may decide at an Oct 14 board meeting to sell its stake in NBC Universal, reports Bloomberg. Vivendi may choose to sell the 20% stake because the unit is not performing as well as the company’s majority-owned operations,
Banks liquidate CDOs
Billions of dollars’ worth of the complex securities at the heart of the financial crisis are being liquidated, enabling banks, insurance and other investors to clear toxic assets from their books. Market participants say the unwinding is occurring in the market for collateralised debt obligations,
Deutsche Bank spy saga grows
Deutsche Bank chairman Clemens Börsig had more-detailed knowledge of the bank’s 2006 effort to spy on a litigious shareholder than previously known and was briefed on the operation, reports the WSJ, citing a confidential report into the matter by law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.The 150-page Cleary report deviates from Deutsche’s official representation of the affair on two key points:
Overnight markets: Up
Asian stocks rose for the first time in three trading days on Tuesday. Futures on the S&P500 gained 0.2% after the gauge fell 0.3% to 1,064.66 on Monday amid speculation a six-month rally in stocks has outpaced prospects for profit growth,
The pandora’s box of Wells Fargo and commercial real estate
As part of FT Alphaville’s ongoing reporting on commercial real estate, and because we’re always up for a challenge, we posed a series of questions to Wells Fargo on the topic.
Wells, primarily through its acquisition of Wachovia,
SEC fines Regions Bank $1m for alleged role in fraud
In an unusual twist to your run-of-the-mill financial fraud, the US Securities and Exchange Commission said on Monday it had fined Regions Bank for its role in an offering fraud that targeted investors in Latin America.
Glencore discovers ETFs
Exchange-traded commodity funds backed by physical assets as opposed to financial derivatives are, as we have noted before, increasingly the rage among both retail and institutional investors.
Gold,
North Korea: ‘Buy’
Okay, okay, not really an investment recommendation, but a research curio from Goldman Sachs: an assessment of North Korea risks, examining the chances (and costs) of integration between North and South.
US real estate markets still weak, data show
A slew of data released on Monday suggest US commercial and residential markets are still in the throes of dysfunction.
Reuters – citing data ‘obtained exclusively’ from Equifax, the credit bureau – reported US mortgage delinquencies hit a record in August (emphasis ours):
Is MetroPCS the real Deutsche Telekom target?
The whiff of M&A in the US mobile market returned on Monday.
In fact it was more than a whiff: usually knowledgeable sources are convinced that Deutsche Telekom is in full-throated discussions to combine its T-Mobile business in America with its smaller,