September, 2010
Markets Live transcript 15 Sep 2010
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 11:22 on 15 Sep 2010. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT Bryce Elder NHTesting NHTesting NH1
What next for the yen: ‘A lot of fake movements’
Here’s the latest on Tokyo’s long promised (or should that be, threatened) intervention in the FX markets, as of about 6pm Tokyo time (10am BST).
The Bank of Japan is said to have sold a total of about $11-$12bn worth of yen into the market on Wednesday to buy dollars,
Retailer price inflation
Another day and another reason to expect that Bank of England governor Mervyn King will be writing another Dear Chancellor letter later this year.
Next, one of the UK’s biggest clothing retailers, has reiterated its warning that prices will have to rise significantly because of rising cost pressures around the globe.
Guess who? QE edition
Competition time.
Who said the following at an investor Q&A on Tuesday?
Our view remains that the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will once again ease monetary policy via unconventional measures in late 2010 or early 2011.
The gold de-hedging effect is back
Just when some were beginning to warn about gold producers’ exposure to a fall in gold prices, because of their stubborn reluctance to re-start hedging programmes…
The price of a troy ounce of bullion does this:
Japan intervenes — at long last
Japan on Wednesday finally intervened in the foreign exchange market for the first time since 2004, bringing the yen to as low as Y85 to the dollar after it reached Y82.88 early in the day.
The move followed weeks of pledges to take “appropriate action”
Further reading
Elsewhere on Wednesday,
- Is everyone (really) bored with Nouriel Roubini?
- Hedge-fund man finds inner lion.
- Real exchange rates in emerging markets.
- World FX heatmap: dollar bloodbath.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Wednesday’s FT,
Martin Wolf: Basel, the mouse that did not roar
To celebrate the second anniversary of the fall of Lehman, the mountain of Basel has laboured mightily and brought forth a mouse,
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Wednesday;
- Anglogold to raise $1.2bn via equity issue and convertible bond offering to eliminate hedging position — statement.
- First Quantum Minerals starts legal proceedings against ENRC over Kolwezi tailings project — statement.
Quality assurance test at CME Group goes awry
A strange occurrence earlier Tuesday at CME Group, reports the FT:
CME Group, the world’s biggest futures exchange, mistakenly placed orders on active energy and metals markets as it was undertaking a quality assurance procedure.
The Boomer Solution
Call it the Baby Boomer Legacy Promotion Tax.
Or at least that’s what Michael Kinsley seems to be calling for in the October 2010 issue of Atlantic Monthly (our emphasis):
It’s not too late for a generational gesture,
What Volcker rule? Credit Suisse acquires stake in York Capital
Just out on the wires, from York flaks:
Credit Suisse announced today that its Asset Management division has agreed to acquire a minority interest in York Capital Management (“York”), a leading global hedge fund manager,
Ten years later
Unlike Roubini & Bremmer, we doubt the recent crisis has produced an “irreversible” setback from which developed economies will never recover.
But that doesn’t mean the current pain will be short-lived or easy to bear.
UBS expects a 25bp rate rise from the SNB
Never underestimate the Swiss National Bank, says UBS.
Going out on a bit of a limb, the bank’s analysts are predicting the SNB may deliver as much as a 25bp hike this week, while all other forecasts are predicting no change.
Has Harbinger sold out of Tate & Lyle?
That rather amateurish photo (taken with a Nokia 6303) is the Indications of Interest (IOI) page on Bloomberg for Tate & Lyle, the UK sugar and food ingredients company.
(We would have used the ‘Grab’ function,
Keep your credit, buy our stuff
We’ve written before about the difficulty of knowing whether the decline in small business lending is a problem of supply or demand.
The answer matters not just to the health of small businesses, but for knowing whether the Fed’s easing measures have been successful in circulating credit throughout the economy.
Lehman homage in Afghanistan (of sorts)
Writing the day before the second anniversary of Lehman Brothers’ fall, Gideon Rachman argues that ’9/15′ might matter more to America in the long run than 9/11.
While you can argue with that, there is now another parallel of sorts between the two dates,
The Fed, and what to do about MBS
Not that the Fed has ever been a model of clarity and decisiveness, but the announcement in August that it would re-invest proceeds from its MBS holdings into long-dated Treasuries left open a few questions:
(H)ARMless bid rumours
It seems somebody doesn’t believe Apple, Intel, Samsung or some other big company is going to launch a cash offer for the UK chip designer.
That somebody is actually several Arm executives and a handful of non-executive directors who have just declared the sale of around 725,000 shares.
Europe’s social model rules OK — er, for now
Looks like Société Générale’s economics team has some new members:
That’s because the bank has taken to trumpeting the virtues of liberté, égalité, fraternité — or more prosaically, Europe’s welfare statism — for having made the European recession less nasty than it might have been.
Markets Live transcript 14 Sep 2010
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 11:18 on 14 Sep 2010. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT Bryce Elder NHHola NHand welcome to Markets Live
Japan: Hold the ‘Kan can’ jokes please
So the fat lady has sung – or rather, the sumo wrestler has grunted – and Japan’s latest political circus is over (for now).
Naoto Kan has retained his somewhat battered position as the country’s prime minister,
The largest arbitrage ever documented
National Bureau of Economic Research research claims to have documented the largest ever arbitrage.
It’s contained in a great little paper published earlier this month and it isn’t a fancy, schmancy accessible to high frequency traders only type of trade.
Dear Chancellor…
Is more letter writing in prospect for the Bank of England governor Mervyn King? A glance at Tuesday’s CPI figures suggest he could soon be putting pen to paper.
August consumer price inflation was forecast to come in 2.9 per cent (year-on-year).
Charts du jour – FX edition
Parity for the Swiss franc:
Meanwhile, the US dollar has fallen to a 15-year low against the Yen:
And sterling has picked up in the wake of Tuesday’s stronger than expected inflation data:
Jim O’Neill’s valedictory
So farewell Jim O’Neill.
Goldman’s Mr BRIC is moving on to head the bank’s asset management business – FUM $802bn — and here (via Zerohedge) are some excerpts from his farewell letter.
In it the lifelong Manchester United fan — none of us are perfect — argues the BRIC and N11 story (next eleven) is far from played out:
Irish government debt needs you
Via Barclays Capital’s Laurent Fransolet, here’s an interesting sidelight on Ireland’s sovereign liabilities, amid continued fear in the market that the government’s bailout of the banking system will increase them markedly.
Kan’s still Japan’s man in land of the rising yen
Such is the state of Japanese politics that it’s big news these days to be able to report that Japan’s prime minister is still Japan’s prime minister.
Naoto Kan on Tuesday afternoon fended off the most serious challenge to his hitherto short and intense leadership of the ruling DPJ from the controversial Ichiro Ozawa.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Tuesday,
- Presenting the Hemline Index.
- World landgrab: the backlash begins.
- A walk along Oliver Stone’s Wall St.
- US taxes: the buy-out barons win again.
- Blaming the French.