July, 2010
Wednesday front-loading reservations
Front-loading time is upon us.
For today is the start of the European Central Bank’s new maintenance period.
Eurozone banks all have reserve requirements which they have to fulfil with their local central banks for every 21 to 42-day maintenance period — and the latest one starts Wednesday,
Further reading
Elsewhere on Wednesday,
- Cape contango.
- How to cure an economic depression.
- Citigroup breakout!
- A diamond glut on its way?
- How to build a pay wall.
- A case study on cash.
- BP’s only support may be coming from short sellers.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Wednesday’s FT,
Martin Wolf: Three years and new fault lines threaten
It is nearly three years since the world became aware of the coming financial tremors.
The 6am Cut – a special offer!
Some of you won’t like this. Charging is (partly) upon us.
From next Tuesday (July 20) you will have to be a fully-fledged subscriber to FT.com in order to continue receiving the 6am Cut briefing service.
A Greek/Estonia swap?
Estonia received the final okay from eurozone finance ministers on Tuesday to enter their currency union next year. It will become the 17th European Union member to do so when it joins on January 1, 2011.
Goldman really likes its new iPad
Apple’s stock took a beating on Tuesday, after reports that the iPhone 4′s ‘death grip’ issue is a hardware problem sparked pressure for a product recall:
Unlucky timing then for what was a frankly ecstatic note on the same day from Goldman on the stock market implications of the iPad.
Ocadon’t
As we wait for chairman Michael Grade and his PR advisers to set the record straight on the flotation of Webvan 2.0, another piece of negative pre-IPO research has landed in the FT Alphaville inbox.
Same old song at the MPC
It’s four years since Andrew Sentance was appointed by Gordon Brown, then Chancellor of Exchequer, as a member of the monetary policy committee. And he’s decided to mark that date by explaining why he voted for a small rise in interest rates to 0.75 per cent last month in a speech to the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce in reading on Tuesday.
Just what is the BBA smoking?
Further adventures in Twitter transparency from the British Bankers Association:
Ingenious social media masochism strategy, or just plain odd? Er, pass.
The tale of the Shadow Banks
Here’s a scary story to recount at finance campfires.
It’s the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s monograph on the rapid growth — and collapse — of the shadow banking system. It’s also 81-pages of acronyms (think CDOs,
Prime custody, and the business of collateral
No, it’s not a prison for hedge funds.
Rather, it’s a model that is (re)-springing up amongst traditional prime brokers and custodians all over in the wake of the Bear Stearns and Lehman crises. It’s called prime custody and fuses the roles of custodian and prime broker together into one entity.
Hedgies are better off in Asia … or are they?
Within the big wide world of Asia-focused funds, some interesting trends emerge via recent research from Singapore-based consultancy GFIA.
As the FT reports on Tuesday, Asia-based hedge fund managers have been generating higher returns than those outside the region running similar strategies,
Markets Live transcript 13 Jul 2010
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 11:22 on 13 Jul 2010. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT Bryce Elder NHole NHit’s 11.03 am NHand time for another Markets Live
Transparency in banking
Any PR is good PR, eh? From the British Bankers Association’s Twitter feed:
The BBA (chair: Angela Knight) is holding its annual conference on Tuesday. Tim Weber is the BBC’s online business editor.
Frank is back and bigger than ever
Forget the vodka, Frank Timis will be ordering Bollinger on Tuesday morning. The irrepressible entrepreneur, who also does a lot of good work for charity, has tempted a second Chinese company to invest in his Tonkolili iron ore project in Sierra Leone.
Quant-ifying the HFT effect in stock movements
Here’s something for critics of high-frequency trading (HFT) — and lovers of Markov/Gauss/Mandelbrot minutiae — to pull out for their next dinner party conversation:
It’s a quantitative analysis of 14 NYSE- and Nasdaq-traded stocks between the start of 2002 and the end of May 2009 — including HFT favourite GE .
Accounting for European stress
Doth the reception of the European banking stress tests now hinge on an accounting quirk?
Last week the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS) released some details of the stress tests, results of which will be published on July 23.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Tuesday,
- Introducing ‘Prime Custody’.
- Crude oil supply update.
- The economics of a college degree.
- Is the market 40 per cent over valued?
- Are Fannie and Freddie getting legal?
- Don’t bet on a BP,
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Tuesday’s FT,
Gideon Rachman: US business sours on China
Were it not for the power of big business, the relationship between the US and China might have gone sour years ago,
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Tuesday,
- BP installs new spill cap, warns success “cannot be assured” — statement.
- Frank Timis’ African Minerals gets $1.5bn strategic Chinese investment – statement.
Seven reasons to sell sterling
Here’s a bold call from UBS — sterling to end the year at $1.35.
Now, cable is currently trading just over $1.50 and last touched $1.35 in August 1985.
So what makes UBS so sure it will revisit those levels? According to Mansoor Mohi-uddin there are seven very good reasons.
The gold contango trade, charts du jour
We theorised on the possibility of some investors playing the contango trade in gold — perhaps from the moment they realised that financing costs would become low enough to make the trade profitable.
And while we stress this is just a theory – here are some interesting charts from Bloomberg showing a big contraction in the spread between the first month contracts and the second month contracts,