October, 2010
Over to you Mr Cable (updated)
The Takeover Panel has published its recommendations for an overhaul of the City’s Takeover Code.
Via Reuters.
- UK’S TAKEOVER PANEL SAYS CONCLUDED AMENDMENTS SHOULD BE MADE TO THE TAKEOVER CODE UK’S TAKEOVER
- PANEL SAYS HOSTILE BIDDERS HAVE BEEN ABLE TO GET TACTICAL ADVANTAGE,
Something for Mr Posen and his friends
Here’s something for Adam Posen and all those in favour of further quantitative easing to chew on; UK retail sales have fallen for a second month in a row according to the Office of National Statistics:
Holidays in accounting hell
This won’t do anything to dispel the notion that tour operators are low-quality businesses that have only been able to survive in the internet age through ambitious merger deals and aggressive cost-cutting.
Morgan Stanley gets risky
Morgan Stanley may have suffered a $91m loss on Wednesday, on slowing momentum in its trading business, but a significant chunk of its underperformance was also down to the firm’s so-called debt valuation adjustments (DVAs) — rather than trading itself.
On to Plan B already, George?
Related link:
Osborne enters unknown and cuts £81bn — FT Alphaville
That extended España RMBS
Think foreclosure complications are just a US phenomenon? Think again.
From Moody’s Investors Service — a timely report on litigation procedures for Spanish mortgages.
The premise here is interesting.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Thursday,
- A new investment-banking scorecard.
- Larry Fink: The ‘biggest mistake I ever made was…’.
- After Bretton Woods 2.
- What drives economic growth, really?
- Bankruptcy as economic stimulus.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Thursday’s FT,
John Gapper: China’s business elite is free enough
China was introduced to its likely next leader this week when Xi Jinping was named to a top military post at the Communist party’s annual plenum,
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Thursday,
- BAE Systems warns of a £150m hit related to Trinidad and Tobago offshore patrol vessel programme — statement.
- Credit Suisse Q3 net profit down 74 per cent — statement.
A non-shocker of a Beige Book
The Fed’s seventh Beige Book of the year is out, covering the end of August to early October, and although it mostly depicts the same plodding rate of growth as in the previous report, there are some improvements.
Walmart tops, err, bottoms Microsoft
We’ve updated this chart a couple of times before, and we may as well do it again:
It shows the continuing decline of investment-grade coupon spreads. These coupons have hit record lows this year,
Those ETF shorts
Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager — with $3,450bn under management according to figures released on Wednesday — puts out a regular quarterly review of the ETF industry.
And as usual, it presents some interesting factoids on all matters exchange-traded fund — be they product,
All aboard
There are some (relative) stock market winners from the UK government’s Spending Review 2010 — bus companies.
And the reason? The government’s decision to reduce its bus subsidy by only 20 per cent,
HM Abattoir (updated)
And so the axe falls. Click the image below for a full PDF copy of the UK coalition government’s spending review, setting out four years of fiscal cuts to the British state:
The FT’s got a handy summary of some key measures.
Morgan Stanley posts Q3 loss of $0.07 a diluted share
Apologies for being late in bringing you this.
Wall Street was already having a bad time of it this week, but the Q3 earnings report from Morgan Stanley after decent showings from Citigroup, JP Morgan,
China moves for potash
But not in the way you might think.
Statement via the Hong Kong Stock Exchange from Sinofert on Wednesday:
On 20 October 2010, Sinochem Macao [a subsidary of Sinofert] entered into the MOU with Canpotex International Pte.
Turn of the (MBS) trustees
Bank of New York Mellon may have been the other addressee in that Pimco, New York Fed, BlackRock et al letter regarding $47bn in RMBS — but it’s managed to escape much of the limelight shining on co-addressee Bank of America.
Those blemished Countrywide credit loans
So… since FT Alphaville was working on a special RMBS supplement;
We spoke with Scott Simon, head of MBS at Pimco last week — who gave us this quote:
“There’s been an amazing amount of things
Bondholders vs BofA, continued
Just a few additional items we’d like to record that might shed some light on the still-developing story that MBS investors were pressuring BofA to repurchase mortgages the bank had sold them.
First,
More gilt-free bloodshed
Here’s a bit more on why the UK government’s massive spending review has had, and will likely have, less than a massive influence on the market for its bonds.
In fact — the government is detailing its cuts amid gilt yields that have rarely been lower in post-war history.
Gathering storm: hedgies assess the future
It’s always nice to see hedgies on a philanthropic bent. Such are the self-proclaimed motives of a few enterprising industry types behind the publication – for charity – this month of “The Gathering Storm” ,
Markets Live transcript 20 Oct 2010
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 11:03 on 20 Oct 2010. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT bryce.elder NHHola NHand welcome to another session of ML
The end game approaches
Regular FT Alphaville readers will be familiar with Albert Edwards’ post bubble Ice Age thesis of Japanese style deflation writ large across the globe.
In this week’s Strategy Weekly, Edwards looks at the end game for his theory and it’s pretty apocalyptic stuff (again).
Gilt-free bloodshed
In public policy terms, this will probably be the most important day of this parliament, possibly of this decade…
– The Guardian.
George Osborne is polishing his scythe… The Chancellor must now try to kill the rapacious £155bn deficit by a thousand cuts…
Do you want to be a record borrower?
Oh dear, oh dear.
Not good ahead of Chancellor George Osborne’s highly anticipated UK spending review later on Wednesday.
The Office of National Statistics has just provided the following statement regarding the state of UK public finances:
Duking it out on the MPC
Finally, the three-way split into one hawk, one dove — and seven undecided — has occurred at the Bank of England.
From the minutes of the Monetary Policy Committee’s October meeting:
Seven members of the Committee (the Governor,
Ahead of the MPC minutes
What then has the City made of Meryn King’s “sober” speech to a gathering of business leaders in Wolverhampton on Monday?
The media has focused on the Bank of England governor’s warning that the international monetary system had become “distorted”.
Regal fades away (updated)
(Updating to reflect change in Timis shareholding and rig contracts detail)
It looks like the end is nigh for Regal Petroleum, the exploration company that launched the career of entrepreneur, businessman and charity worker Frank Timis.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Wednesday,
- How to do – and not to do – a Chinese IPO in the US.
- Bank trouble link-fest.
- The wit and wisdom of Judge Rakoff.
- Should Apple buy Facebook? Will it?
- After Osborne’s UK spending cuts…