May, 2010
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Friday,
- RBS returns to profit in Q1 – statement.
- Munich Re says profit goal “increasingly ambitious” – statement.
- BP says Mexico oil spill clean-up to take 3 months – statement.
Election Night on AV transcript 7 May 2010
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 01:07 on 7 May 2010. Participants in this chat were: Paul Murphy Neil Hume, FT
PMHi there
PMHere we are
PMWelcome
Krona watch
Lots more of this in prospect over the coming days – cable volatility.
You can see when the first exit polls arrived (soon after 9pm BST), sending sterling first higher and then sharply lower, and then somewhat higher again.
Dow factoids
Courtesy of Dowjones.com
DJIA, down 347.80 points, or 3.20% to 10520.32
Biggest point drop since February 10, 2009.
Biggest percentage drop since April 20, 2009.
Down three straight days and four of the last five.
NYSE Euronext says there were ‘a number of erroneous trades’
Via Bloomberg:
NYSE Euronext said “there were a number of erroneous trades” during an almost 1,000-point plunge in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
“There were a number of erroneous trades,” said NYSE spokesman Rich Adamonis.
Emergency Markets Live session – transcript 6 May 2010
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 20:20 on 6 May 2010. Participants in this chat were: Paul Murphy Neil Hume, FT Stacy-Marie Ishmael, FT Joseph Cotterill
PMHello there!
Emergency Markets Live session – now!
Join Paul Murphy and Neil Hume (as soon as he gets to a terminal).
Mayhem on Wall Street..
Mayhem on Wall St
Dow cracks, mends, partially
Okay. Fast moving situation. The Dow Jones dropped below 10k a few moments ago. Now off 500 points.
This isn’t just contagion from Europe.
We have unconfirmed details of a fat finger or technical screw up involving Procter &
BNP Paribas calls for EURUSD parity by Q1 2011
Hot off the embargoed presses at BNP Paribas, a bold call for the Mighty Drachmark vs the dollar. Emphasis FT Alphaville’s:
We have revised our EURUSD projection sharply lower and now expect a decline to parity by Q1 2011.
In which Wall Street collapsed…and bounced back
FT Alphaville has stopped staring at screens for just long enough to post the following:
That plunge in the chart above? That was the Dow going from -500 to -1000 in the space of seconds. We’re investigating.
What happens when the risk-free rate isn’t risk free?
“Corporate finance is built on the idea that companies are more likely to go bust than governments.” Discuss.
According to the thinkers at the Economist, it is time to rethink the notion that the risk-free rate can always be used as a basis for pricing other assets:
Tin hat time: European analysts declare ‘meltdown’
As the Mighty Drachmark slid toward parity with the US dollar and global markets tumbled for another session on Thursday, European analysts appeared to be donning their tin hats en masse.
Here’s a sample of the research notes that hit the FT Alphaville inbox on Thursday,
CDS report: It’s getting worse…
Markit iTraxx SovX WE at 168bp, a record wide
Greece at 875bp (+50), Portugal 450bp (+20), Ireland 285bp (+41), Italy 235bp (+50)
Spain at 290bp (+60) despite successful bond auction
Banks suffering,
Presenting ‘The Mighty Drachmark’
RTRS-EURO NOW DOWN 4.8 PCT VS DOLLAR THIS WEEK, DOWN MORE THAN 11 PCT IN 2010
Someone pass the tin hat and send for the un-rally monkey.
Head in the sand at the ECB (updated)
European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet’s performance at his press conference in Lisbon on Thursday did not win many plaudits, in the face of the eurozone’s debt crisis.
Evolution’s Gary Jenkins argues that Mr Trichet’s head seemed stuck in the sand:
ECB clashes with Greece on proposed cash ban
According to an ECB document made public on Wednesday, the Greek finance ministry sought advice from the European Central bank on a draft law it hopes to introduce to restore fairness in taxation, and which would also address tax evasion.
No change at the ECB
Nothing to see here? The European Central Bank kept its benchmark refinancing rate unchanged at 1 per cent in its policy statement on Thursday.
Flashes, via Reuters:
RTRS-ECB SAYS LEAVES BENCHMARK REFINANCING RATE UNCHANGED AT 1.0 PCT (REUTERS POLL 1.0 PCT)
RTRS-ECB SAYS LEAVES BENCHMARK MINIMUM BID RATE UNCHANGED AT 1.0 PCT,
[MoneyTech] The hedge funds are watching us…
Okay, maybe not ‘us’ as in FT Alphaville, but they are watching some other financial blogs.
From Tim Human at the Cross Border Group:
Data firm monitoring influential blog sites Hedge funds are testing out a data feed produced by monitoring a group of financial commentators that includes bloggers.
Some good sovereign debt news
What’s this? Could this be some good news on the sovereign debt front, for once? It surely can.
On Wednesday the US Treasury quietly announced it would be cutting back the size of its bond auctions,
Chinese property developers begin price war
Hat tip to the FT’s Jamie Chisholm for directing our gaze over to Thursday’s sizeable 4 per cent market slide in Shanghai:
All of which is supposedly linked to jitters emanating from this Shanghai Securities News story,
Markets Live transcript 6 May 2010
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 11:21 on 6 May 2010. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT Bryce Elder NHHola NHit’s 11.03am NHand time for Markets Live
A party political broadcast on behalf of the Conservatives
From an email doing the rounds in the City of London on Thursday morning:
Pru/AIA – a whiff of death
The price action in Prudential shares on Thursday morning.
Clearly the market is delivering its verdict on the likelihood of the $35.5bn acquisition of AIG’s Asian arm going ahead.
The thinking,
A Spanish bond auction litmus test
Spain went to the bond markets for a five-year issue on Thursday, in one of the first tests of demand for the country’s sovereign debt after Greek contagion fears swept markets — and after S&P cut Spanish ratings to AA.
Some things are still going right for Goldman
At least some things are going right for Goldman – and for China’s mainland stock market, which on Thursday saw off three robust IPOs, including the most expensive IPO price on record for a Chinese stock.