July, 2010
So how did the stress test go, Atebank?
Although it’s not just Greek banks in focus — El Pais is reporting caja failures too.
Back to the future with UK GDP (updated)
ConDem austerity? Bah! Volcanic ash? Bah!
These were the rather strong preliminary second-quarter UK GDP figures on Friday:
RTRS-UK PRELIM Q2 GDP +1.1% QQ, HIGHEST SINCE Q 1 2006; +1.6 & YY, HIGHEST SINCE Q1 2008 (FCAST +0.6%,
HMT’s very own synthetic CDO
It exists.
And it’s detailed in the first ever annual report from the UK’s Asset Protection Agency (APA).
It covers the period from December 2009 to the end of March 2010, and features some great bits of detail on the UK government’s Asset Protection Scheme (APS),
Norway doesn’t need no stinkin’ stress tests
The European Union’s banking stress tests cover 91 banks in 20 countries.
Seven of those financials are Nordic — but none of them are Norwegian.
Norway is of course, not a member of the EU, but it keeps close ties,
The Stress Test Guide
Stress test Friday is upon us.
At 5pm London time/6pm Central European time, the Committee of European Banking Supervisors is scheduled to publish an aggregate summary of the results of the European bank tests.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Friday,
- Building a ‘science of economics’ for the real world.
- Grantham: a five-minute rundown on global warming.
- Is now a good time to buy gold?
- Krugman vs Ferguson, Round II.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Friday’s FT,
Jean-Claude Trichet: Stimulate no more – it is now time for all to tighten
The acute fiscal challenges across all industrial economies are no surprise.
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Friday,
- Vodafone reiterates full-year outlook – statement.
- BP says relief wells suspended due to storm Bonnie – statement.
- De Beers says H1 profit surges, CEO to step down – Reuters.
[MoneyTech] All hail the (tiny) predictive power of FT Alphaville
We’re not quite sure how to take this particular compliment:
FT Alphaville Disproportionally Interesting Compared to General News in Predicting Stock Returns
That’s from Recorded Future, a young firm specialising in something called “temporal and predictive analytics.”
The incredible restructured stress test
Analysts are down to their last gasps of stress-test commentary before we finally get the official results on Friday. Credit Suisse had a useful contribution on Thursday, tackling the queasy ‘everyone’s a winner!’ hints that politicians have been dropping.
What does Spanish bank stress look like in real life?
Here’s some reality-based European banking stress to consider ahead of Friday’s theoretical test announcements, courtesy of some results from a Spanish lender.
Step forward, Banco Sabadell.
On the face of it,
Welcome to ‘synthetic warehousing’
John Kemp, at Reuters, continues his sterling work on how contango in commodity markets is impacting trading strategies across the board — and to what degree the ‘cash-for-commodity’ strategy might by now be getting crowded.
Jargon alert: banks and their ‘platforms’
In light of the emergence of yet another ‘platform’-based product on Thursday — Deutsche Bank’s platinum Ucits platform, in connection with Paulson & Co’s retail fund offering — we thought it probably best to explain something to the banking community.
Explaining the Baltic Dry sell-off
FT Alphaville, and others, watched the Baltic Dry’s recent 60 per cent tumble, which took place over a run of 35 consecutive days, with particular interest.
Some, after all, suggested that it meant the index was no longer a valid economic indicator.
Buiter can’t believe it’s not traditional European central banking
Some, cool, if frankly brain-melting, stuff from Citigroup chief economist Willem Buiter on the plight of the European Central Bank on Thursday.
Or as we should perhaps call it instead — a ‘quasi-fiscal actor’.
Goldman’s Q2 really was ‘exciting with risks’
Does anyone remember Goldman Sachs’ 2010 Outlook?
The bank’s year-ahead piece, which carried the title “The Outlook for 2010/11: Exciting, with risks!”, is being given a second life after its December 2009 publication.
Markets Live transcript 22 Jul 2010
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 11:25 on 22 Jul 2010. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT Bryce Elder NHHola NHit’s 11.03am NHand time for Markets Live
So, is it really another lost decade for equities?
Are we going Japanese? No doubt fed-up with being asked that question in client meetings, Citigroup strategist Robert Buckland has set out to find the answer.
He has examined the Japanese bear market,
Spurs 1 – Autonomy 0
The curse of the Premier League strikes again.
Just weeks after signing a deal to have its name emblazoned on the shirts of Tottenham Hotspur, shares in FTSE 100 software company Autonomy have dropped following the publication of half year results:
Stress-test rumours and reality
We’re sure things are very – err, stressful right now at the London headquarters of the Committee for European Banking Supervisors, ahead of the Friday publication of stress test results for 91 financial institutions across Europe.
I’d rather have a go at Cocoa Jobs…
From page three of Thursday’s appointments section in the FT:
(H/T John Kemp)
Some stressful reading for the CEBS
Is the CEBS reading this little paper ahead of Friday’s stress tests?
The Information Value of the Stress Test and Bank Opacity
Donald P. Morgan
Stavros Peristiani
Vanessa Savino
Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports
It’s a look at investor reaction to the results of the 2009 US bank stress tests,
A Dutch machine with a fat finger
A possible culprit has been found for Wednesday’s sharp movement in cable — which saw the GBP/USD exchange rate drop to 1.5181 and recover in the space of a few minutes. A(nother) tradebot.
To be specific,
Nomura thinks you should be more bearish on Hungary
Are you worried about Hungary? Why not?
According to analysts Peter Attard Montalto and Olgay Buyukkayali at Nomura, policymakers and investors are a tad complacent about the outlook for the troubled European country.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Thursday,
- The league table of failed IPOs.
- Oil spill, meet muni bonds.
- Is the Fed choosing deflation?
- And more on opportunistic deflation.
- And the loneliness of the long-distance hawk.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Thursday’s FT,
Jeffrey Sachs: Sow the seeds of long-term growth
The striking feature in the current debate about austerity and stimulus has been the lack of attention to investment,