January, 2011
Further reading
Elsewhere on Thursday,
- FCIC whitewash: the insiders’ tale.
- “We are now the East’s shipwreckers…”
- Is 2011 turning into 1989?
- The EFSF’s dirty risk-weighting secret.
- Russia’s super-duper SWF plan.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Thursday’s FT,
John Gapper: Take Fannie and Freddie off the road
What does a failed mortgage giant have to do to get some attention these days?, asks the FT columnist.
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Thursday,
- OFT will not refer equity underwriting market to the Competition Commission for investigation — statement.
- BSkyB delivers “outstanding” performance in H1 — statement.
Macro Live 5: US GDP edition
You didn’t think we’d given these up, didja?
This Friday (January 28) brings the advance release of the Q4 US GDP numbers. Therefore we think it’s about time for the next installment of Macro Live, our sporadic real-time chat about the US economy.
Further further reading
For the commute home, and to help you win the future,
- “A substantial divergence between employment and output growth has been the hallmark of the last three recoveries (1990′s, 2000′s, and the current episode).”
FOMC Statement
The language remained nearly identical to the December statement except for a (dismissive) mention of commodity inflation and, of course, no dissenters. Here it is.
Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in December confirms that the economic recovery is continuing,
Shadow inventory update
As we wrote in early January, we remain somewhat uncertain about the broader economic impact of the ongoing slowdown in new foreclosures (brought about by the added scrutiny on bank procedures).
But the impact on housing prices is a bit more straightforward.
A record deficit and the fiscal future(s)
The President gave the State of the Union on Tuesday night. You may have noticed that he mentioned the future. A lot. Something about “winning” it.
But with the speech having to cover all the bases and undergoing thousands of iterations it was almost inevitably short on detail.
Dear Sir John
Which anarchist added this to the list of public responses sent to the UK’s Independent Banking Commission? (H/T to the FT’s Paul Davies):
While again emphasising that this is a personal view, I do believe that in the interests of competition,
New home sales, and the monkey gets excited
From the Census Bureau, our emphasis:
Sales of new single-family houses in December 2010 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 329,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S.
Dodd-Frank vs Damien Hirst
Remember magic-eye pictures?
You know, the ones where you would stare, squint, relax your eye muscles and hey presto, a 3D picture emerges from a 2D psychedelic fuzz.
Well, we’ve been staring at the US Chamber of Commerce’s dotty guide to agency responsibilities for Dodd-Frank rules,
WTI’s upcoming ‘Keystone’ problem
If you thought the distortions in the WTI-Brent spread couldn’t keep going for much longer, you may be interested in the following.
TransCanada’s extension of its Keystone pipeline could see it pumping as much as an additional 156,000 barrels per day into Cushing,
Spain’s smallish, wrongish, non-Basel III, bank steps
By Tracy Alloway and Joseph Cotterill
Just how Basel III is Spain’s recently-announced bank recapitalisation plan?
Spain’s finance minister announced on Monday that Spanish banks would have to recapitalise by the end of September.
The new volatility FX carry trade
FT Alphaville wrote last year about how the Federal Reserve’s experimentation with quantitative easing — while managing to alleviate stress in money markets – may have unwittingly transferred volatility into the foreign exchange market.
Markets Live transcript 26 Jan 2011
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 12:26 on 26 Jan 2011. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT bryce.elder NHHola NHmarkets rabble NHwelcome to ML
Pursuit Dynamics and the ‘dodgy dossier’ [updated]
Many FT Alphaville readers won’t have heard of Pursuit Dynamics, a London-listed company that claims to have developed a sophisticated fluid processing technology.
But the firm is at the centre of an extraordinary battle between short sellers,
Klaus Regling, the record breaker
How unpleasant.
The sound of crowing from the eurozone following Tuesday’s ultra successful bail-out bond issue. From Wednesday’s Daily Telegraph.
It is the biggest order book ever. We will check before notifying the Guinness Book of Records but nobody can remember anything like that in the world,”
Searching for BoE credibility on inflation
From Deutsche Bank, the number of news stories that match three topical terms:
Related links:
King defends UK economic policy – FT
Has the King got new clothes? – Money Supply
Introducing Heritage Gas
The discovery of a major gas field of up to 12.3 TCF in-place with exceptional flow rates makes this one of the largest gas fields to be discovered in Iraq. This well has substantially de-risked the field so we have the confidence to accelerate the work programme on Miran.
Psst. Have you heard about the EU’s secret committee?
Well, it didn’t come from us (taps side of nose) but apparently the EU has a covert, conspiratorial — rather German — top-secret eurozone reform committee.
From the EU affairs specialist, EurActiv:
Further reading
Elsewhere on Wednesday,
- Davos is sickeningly obsessed with money, datapoint #3797.
- Handy financial crisis scapegoat list.
- The (muni bond) madding crowd.
- SOTU-onomics I, the speech…
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and offerings from Wednesday’s FT,
Martin Wolf: Why China hates loving the dollar:
“The current international currency system is the product of the past.” Thus did Hu Jintao,
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Wednesday,
- Heritage Oil makes major gas discovery in Kurdistan — statement.
- BG Group finds light oil in Brazil’s Santos Basin — statement.
- SAP lifts dividend;
Further further reading
For the commute home,
- Fun with interactive graphs: WSJ on US unemployment and Reuters on FOMC hawkery.
- Davos as positional good.
- If you own sovereign Greek debt and the government offers to buy it,
The biggish short — subprime student loans
“Hello, my name is Steven Eisman.”
“Hi Steve, we loved the Big Short. Thanks for your email — yes, let’s grab a coffee and discuss why you’re shorting the for-profit college industry.”* (*FT Alphaville translation.)
So goes the WSJ’s splash on hedge fund warnings about a fast growing,
A very messy Ambac lawsuit for JPMorgan
JPMorgan didn’t want this to be made public. You can kind of see why.
Quick background — the bank has been engaged in a legal battle with Ambac since November 2008. The monoline says EMC, Bear Stearns old mortgage-banking arm,
Hedging Europe, buying EFSF
RTRS-EFSF’s REGLING SAYS ASKED HIMSELF IF BOND WAS TOO CHEAP, GIVEN DEGREE OF OVERSUBSCRIPTION
RTRS-EFSF’S REGLING SAYS WANTED TO BE ON SAFE SIDE WITH PRICING OF BOND
And there could well be more than few denizens of Mayfair who’ll be thanking you very kindly for that tonight,
IMF: QE2 is not overheating the EMs
From the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook (emphasis ours):
At the same time, monetary accommodation needs to continue in the advanced economies. As long as inflation expectations remain anchored and unemployment stays high,