April, 2011
A Greek farce
Now — far be it from FT Alphaville to tell the Athens public prosecutor what to do, however…
Greece’s finance ministry has blamed a bank trader’s email for spreading rumours that the country will default this weekend.
Greece vs Citigroup
We have a name! Greece didn’t identify the bank they’re investigating for allegedly spreading rumours that it will restructure debt this weekend. (Which was a daft conjecture indeed.)
The Guardian has just identified which bank:
Let them eat wheat price inflation
An interesting, vaguely Easter-themed chart by Barings Asset Management, via Paul Mason’s Idle Scrawl blog:
It shows the changes in wheat prices in the years before both the 1848 Spring of Nations and this year’s Arab Spring.
Guest post: ETFs – what’s the fuss about?
Paul Amery, editor of IndexUniverse.eu, a specialist publication devoted to index-based investing and exchange-traded funds, considers the recent assault on the market.
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Last week’s three-pronged attack from the super-regulators of the world’s financial system — the G20 Financial Stability Board (FSB),
If you prick a sovereign, why do they not bleed?
You all know we’re absolute suckers for anything with ‘sovereign vulnerability’ stamped all over it. So…
… Presenting Rabobank’s latest Sovereign Vulnerability Index:
Yeah, the US and Japan are pretty prominent.
Markets Live transcript 21 Apr 2011
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 11:25 on 21 Apr 2011. Participants in this chat were: bryce.elder Tony Tassell BE*NOKIA 1Q REPORTED EPS EUR 0.09; ANALYST EST. EUR 0.51
Political risk, elections edition
We saw some ‘political risk’ last weekend — when Finnish voters elected a number of politicians from the euro-skeptic True Finns party into office. It is feared that any resulting political coalition with the True Finns included could threaten to throw the eurozone’s bailout plans out of whack.
Greece is gonna get those restructuring whisperers
Someone’s in trouble.
Wednesday’s market whispers — that Greece was going to announce a restructuring of its debt as soon as this Easter weekend — have spurred a response from the country’s finance ministry.
Say goodbye to Anglo Irish
Dubliners out and about on Thursday, might notice that Anglo Irish has disappeared. The nationalised bank has removed signage from its offices ahead of a planned rebranding.
Barber-ians at the (Greek) gate
We’ve been here before.
Now that talk of Greek debt restructuring has once again reared its head we’re starting to get those ‘who holds Greek bonds’ notes (again) . And here’s a nice one from Citi’s Greek banking team.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Thursday,
- On US reserve rates and new technologies.
- Macondo, one year on.
- SLV is now hard to borrow.
- Sixteen questions for Ben Bernanke.
- A big silver inventory change for Scottia Mocatta.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Thursday’s FT,
John Gapper: Two chiefs can be wiser than one
Goldman Sachs publicly pooh-poohs the idea but thoughts are turning to who will succeed Lloyd Blankfein as its chief executive,
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Thursday,
- Dollar index hits three-year low – Reuters
- Gold at all-time high of $1,508 an ounce for fifth straight session – Reuters.
- SVG Capital posts 11 per cent growth in NAV in first quarter – statement.
Further further reading
For the commute home, where per-capita beer consumption is about to explode,
- “We’re still in the early days of this trend, whereby countries slowly converge in terms of per-capita beer consumption.”
The sanctions dodging Tunisia-Libya oil swap
Reuters’ Jessica Donati and Emma Farge on Wednesday spot some odd goings-on in the Tunisian port of La Skhira:
Oil trading and shipping sources said at least 120,000 tones of gasoline had arrived so far this month at La Skhira for ship-to-ship transfers,
QEnding: rates and fates
A lot of people have been hard at work lately disputing the Pimco-nian idea that the end of QE2 will lead to an inevitable climb in yields.
Bloomberg, in a story about the continued demand for off-the-run Treasuries,
Tightening: not when, but how fast
In a previous post we looked at how the futures markets were pricing in the eventual beginning of Fed tightening.
Yeah, we know — it’s way too premature to be discussing this.
But stick around, because recently we came across an interesting paper by RBS that says the when matters a lot less than the how of tightening — referring specifically to the speed.
Are you an insider trader?
That’s a question Reuters’ Matthew Goldstein asks in a special report published Wednesday on how the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) is helping the SEC investigate white collar crime.
From the report:
The rambling chairman
It is a sadly rare opportunity to find financial statements that really tell shareholders what management is thinking.
Thus without too much further comment… (H/T Bryce Elder)
The latest missive to investors from the pen of Andrew Perloff,
Uranium markets, the post-Japan view
Given the scale of the original reaction to troubles at Japan’s Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant, it’s interesting to see the degree to which uranium ore prices have stabilized since March. Especially since the crisis itself is doing anything but.
Between Greek default and dodgy Russians
Cyprus. An endlessly fascinating case study in the contagion risk from Greece defaulting.
And now with an offshore tax twist.
Standard & Poor’s cut Cyprus to A- on 30 March (one day after cutting Greece further into junk).
A whisper of restructuring
A vague and no doubt silly rumour on Wednesday that Greece will default this weekend. (Would they really? It’s funny timing). Anyway, no surprises who has taken damage:
Some smart – but conflicted – routers
A block trade, born in a US-based pension fund, is traveling the electronic execution highway.
The trade — let’s call him Benny — is sent to the fund’s broker for execution. That broker, now sitting in his office in New York,
The coming QEnding
Or, supply dynamics in quantitative easing. Required reading for a quiet Wednesday, really.
Remember how QE works. The Federal Reserve buys US Treasuries from investors in the hopes of pushing them into things like corporate credit,
Markets Live transcript 20 Apr 2011
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 11:24 on 20 Apr 2011. Participants in this chat were: bryce.elder Tony Tassell BEGood morning BEAnd welcome to Doublethink Live
What is the fair value of a Vix future?
What is the fair value of a Vix future? In truth, it’s actually pretty hard to say.
This is a point FT Alphaville has raised before of course — whilst pondering some other volatility-related issues,
Royal Wedding markets, then and now
And so it begins. The first Royal Wedding investment-related PR research.
It comes from Fidelity Interanational, who say they’ve found some “striking similarities” between the market situation now,
QEased credit – but maybe not for long
It’s money money everywhere and not that much to buy.
Citigroup credit strategist Matt King has a nice note out on Wednesday attempting to delve into the ‘cash on the sidelines’ notion — or the idea that there’s a wall of money just waiting to be invested.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Wednesday,
- Thoughts from Bill Gates’ energy tutor.
- And adventures in copper trades.
- “If you don’t recognize the pattern you haven’t been paying attention.”
- That US ratings agency downgrade meeting.