April, 2010
FSA slams Northern Rock for misreporting mortgage arrears
The world’s toughest regulator just got even tougher.
On Tuesday, the FSA announced it had banned the former deputy chief executive and the credit director of Northern Rock for misreporting nothing less than ‘mortgage arrears’.
Markets Live transcript 13 Apr 2010
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 10:47 on 13 Apr 2010. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT Bryce Elder NHgood morning NHhola NHetc
The grind higher, dissected
That’s the ‘UBS Flow Sentiment’ indicator, which pulls together six factors (including sector positioning and hedge fund exposure) to show how clients of the Swiss bank feel about the European equity market.
Is BoJ-bashing about to inflate the world?
They’re at it again.
The Democratic Party of Japan, Japan’s ruling party, had a few swift words for the nation’s central bank on Tuesday. A study group of DPJ lawmakers is advocating a government-set inflation target of 2 per cent,
Iceland’s bank-berg, what lurked beneath (part II)
Continued from part I, in which FT Alphaville first discusses a portion of the investigative report into Iceland’s banking collapse written by Mark J Flannery.
In 2006, something very worrying for the Icelandic banking system took place.
Iceland’s bank-berg, what lurked beneath (part I)
In a word — quite possibly insolvency.
The full English version of the investigative report into Iceland’s banking collapse is not yet available on the special committee’s website, due to “unexpected difficulties.”
Further reading
Elsewhere on Tuesday,
- More of Lehman’s creative business practices.
- ‘The lessons of Magnetar are the basic lessons of the financial crisis’.
- GWF Hegel versus Bank of America.
- ‘It is obvious that the recession is over’.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Tuesday’s FT,
Slawomir Skrzypek: Poland should not rush to sign up to the euro
The writer, late president of the National Bank of Poland, submitted this article before he died in the Smolensk air crash on Saturday.
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Tuesday,
- Fortis to liquidate sub-holding to simplify structure – statement.
- Tullow Oil makes new Uganda finds – statement.
- Telecom Italia cuts growth target – Bloomberg.
Tome time at Bernstein
Just in case you were short of investment research, Bernstein have started pulling their analysts together globally and asking each of them to come up with one idea that he or she believes has the best chance of generating alpha over the next 6-12 months.
A Chinese trade deficit? ‘Tis but a flesh wound
Waiting for China’s long-awaited, long-controversial decision on the renminbi’s value is getting to be like waiting for Godot.
Oh, well. Here’s an interesting $7.24bn-sized diversion to ponder while we wait: how to interpret the trade deficit China has now posted for March,
Britain’s Labour party banks on, er, bank regulation
Labour — they’re the red ones, we think — published their manifesto to remain as the UK’s governing party on Monday, ahead of elections in May.
And surprise, surprise, there’s a bit of bank bashing.
Boringness of central banks to blame for bubbles
As former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan argues that the pre-financial crisis bubble was the result of mortgage rates megabanks subprime expansion a global savings glut simply (uncontrollable) appetite for risk,
The DTA dodge
Are you a bank with a Deferred Tax Asset (DTA) problem?
As you may be aware, regulators want to ban the use of DTAs, portions of which can currently be included in Tier 1, from future regulatory capital.
Markets Live transcript 12 Apr 2010
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 11:20 on 12 Apr 2010. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT Bryce Elder NHGood morning NHand welcome to Markets Live
Cadbury’s fudge (updated)
Proposals by the Labour Party to put “some grit” into the UK Takeover Code have met with a predictably furious response in the City on Monday morning.
From Financial News:
Some of the City of London’s best-known dealmakers from firms including Goldman Sachs,
The Greek dead cat bounce
The weekend’s eurozone loan plan put a spring in Greece’s step in debt markets on Monday — as these snaps from Reuters show.
GREEK 2-YEAR GOVERNMENT BOND YIELD FALLS OVER A POINT TO AROUND 5.9 PCT – TRADER.
Iceland’s theatre of financial horror
Is this the most boring theatrical production in the world?
Or a valid way to take the financial crisis to the masses?
Reykavik City Theatre has announced it will be ‘performing’ a 2,000-page report on Iceland’s banking collapse,
Robbing Pedro to pay Paul (of Greece) …
A variation of the old English idiom might spring to mind when reading details of the eurozone’s loan to Greece, as announced on the weekend.
The rescue package consists of a €30bn “non-concessional”
Further reading
Elsewhere on Monday,
- It’s morning again in America.
- Except for the pain of household deleveraging.
- And adventures in the jobless recovery.
- Mind the house price recovery, too.
- Magnetar,
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Monday’s FT,
Wolfgang Münchau: A Greek bail-out at last but no real solution
The FT columnist asks will the deal announced over the weekend stave off Greek insolvency? It is important to distinguish the near-term insolvency as a result of the failure to roll over existing debt,
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Monday,
- UBS pre-announces Q1 pre-tax profit of at least CHF 2.5bn – statement.
- Ladbrokes agrees sale of Italian retail business – statement.
- Corporate: BAA, XP Power,
FTfm on AV
Some highlights from Monday’s FTfm.
US investors finally catch Ucits bug
The Madoff fraud and the lack of liquidity during the financial crisis have spurred interest in the European regulated vehicles.
The latest Ponzi, doing God’s work (no really)
And so to some fresh SEC action:
From at least 2005, Defendants Farah and Dodge, acting through their businesses FRM and CLM, operated a fraudulent ponzi scheme that defrauded at least $20 million from at least 150 investors.
CDS report: The moment of truth for Europe
There was a certain inevitability that a week marked by volatility should end with a session riddled with rumour and wild spread movements. And it was little surprise that Greece was again the culprit.
Futures fright – Hollywood balks at market plot
Look at the list of Tinseltowners queuing up to spike the plans of Cantor Fitzgerald and Veriana Networks to set up exchanges that would allow speculators to bet on the performance of movie releases.
From a letter dispatched to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission:
Spanish infrastructure alchemy
This week saw Spain unveil a €17bn infrastructure spending plan to be implemented with the help of private investments — in other words, a public-private partnership.
For governments, the great advantage of PPP arrangements of this type is that they immediately push much of the associated spending off-budget.
Breaking Greece cognitive dissonance news
First — Fitch downgraded Greece to BBB- with a negative outlook on Friday. Reuters:
15:29 09Apr10 RTRS-FITCH CUTS GREECE’s FOREIGN LONG-TERM ISSUER RATING TO ‘BBB-’ FROM ‘BBB+’
15:30 09Apr10 RTRS-FITCH SAYS GREECE’S OUTLOOK IS NEGATIVE
15:32 09Apr10 RTRS-FITCH SAYS GREECE’S TWO-NOTCH DOWNGRADE REFLECTS INCREASED INTEREST COSTS,
Greece and French banks: pas de problème — d’accord?
Christian Noyer wishes to remind everyone: France’s banking system really isn’t that exposed to Greece.
The Bank of France governor said on Friday that he had ‘no particular worries’ over ‘relatively small’ French holdings of Greek sovereign debt.