April, 2011
El-Erian: A warning for the US, and for the global economy
Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive and co-chief investment officer at PIMCO, responds to Standard & Poor’s latest action on US debt.
________
S&P reaffirmed this morning the AAA rating of the US but,
Who’s afraid of Comex gold delivery?
The answer is the University of Texas Investment Management company.
Via bullion brokers Goldcore’s daily note on Monday:
$1 Billion of Gold Bars Taken Delivery of by Pension Fund Due to Risk of COMEX Default and Shortages
Although the dispatch is actually based on the following story from Bloomberg:
Markets Live transcript 18 Apr 2011
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 11:24 on 18 Apr 2011. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT bryce.elder NHHola rabble NHand welcome to Markets Live
Bid hopes fade for Smith & Nephew
No prizes for guessing one of the biggest fallers in the FTSE 100 on Monday morning.
It’s Smith & Nephew, which has slipped 4 per cent after it emerged that Johnson & Johnson wants put its $28bn cash pile to work in Switzerland by acquiring a medical devices company called Synthes.
Bwin.PartyGaming dealt winning hand
Finally some good news for shareholders of the absurdly named Bwin.PartyGaming Digital Entertainments (BPDE).
Its shares have rallied hard on Monday morning after the US Department of Justice moved to shut down several US facing power sites – namely Pokerstars,
Smoke, mirrors, and Greek maturity swapping
A confusing morning for Greek debt restructuring watchers on Monday, with CDS spreads up to 1,220 bps at pixel time, Markit said.
From the Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia, meanwhile:
The Greek government has asked the IMF and the EU about increasing [the maturity of] the total debt.
Disaster Petroleum finds oil [updated]
At last the plucky Falklands explorer has found some of the black stuff.
Unfortunately, it did’t find very much – two oil shows over a 1-metre section – and that means the game is almost up for Desire.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Monday,
- Do we need informationally-insensitive debt?
- What is informationally-insensitive debt anyway?
- It’s the (German) banks, stupid!
- The double Irish and the Dutch sandwich tax dodge.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Monday’s FT,
Wolfgang Münchau: Europe’s long road of tears to fiscal union
I think I now understand how the European Union is planning to resolve the crisis,
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Monday,
- Synthes confirms takeover talks with Johnson & Johnson — statement.
- Philips to divest TV business – Q1 profit below expectations — statement.
- Arkadiy Abramovich acquires 26 per cent stake in Crosby Asset Management – statement.
FTfm on AV
Some highlights from Monday’s FTfm.
ETF providers attack systemic risk warnings
Exchange traded fund providers have hit back at regulators’ claims that “synthetic” ETFs could pose a threat to the stability of global financial markets after alarm bells were rung last week in separate reports from the Financial Stability Board,
Further further reading
For the commute home,
- Those Xtranormal videos are getting meta.
- Yikes: “Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should.”
- Dan Drezner rounds up the latest on China’s mounting internal difficulties.
A rouble re-run
It’s also central bank run, of sorts.
Belarus news specialist The Telegraf reports that the nation’s central bank has stopped exchanging gold for Belarusian rubles. That’s after the National Bank of Belarus said the volume of gold and foreign exchange reserves dropped by $68m to $5,512m last month ahead of a widely-expected devaluation.
US Markets Live transcript 15 Apr 2011
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 15:02 on 15 Apr 2011. Participants in this chat were: Cardiff Garcia John McDermott LorcanRK Neil Hume, FT Izabella Kaminska CGGreetings from New York
Reminder: US Markets Live starts in 20 minutes
As usual, we’ll be kicking off promptly at three minutes late, or 10:03am EST, 3:03pm GMT.
Topics du jour will include the slew of economic data out of the US, BofA earnings, Chinese GDP, Google’s miss,
The other (missing) side of risk retention?
Risk retention is all about ‘aligning the incentives’ of various securitisation players.
But CreditSights analysts reckon regulators may have grabbed the wrong end of the securitisation stick, so to speak,
Hedge commodities in euros from Monday
Olivier Jakob, at Petromatrix (who we know we quote a lot, but only because he really does constantly come up with interesting points) alerts us to the fact that from Monday onwards investors will be able to trade euro-denominated contracts on certain Nymex energy products.
The Greek-out! Dissected
Thursday’s Greek debt restructuring panic — an enigma inside a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. And, as BNP Paribas puts it, maybe tied with a Gordion knot to boot.
A Die Welt interview with Wolfgang Schäuble kicked things off.
Markets Live transcript 15 Apr 2011
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 11:15 on 15 Apr 2011. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT bryce.elder
NHRight then
NHwe are back
NHand that looks much better
One step from junk
Moody’s has cut Ireland’s sovereign rating by two notches to Baa3 on Friday and with the outlook on negative the Irish find themselves one step from junk.
From Moody’s:
Frankfurt am Main, April 15,
China’s new, wider, financing measure
Back in February, the People’s Bank of China’s Sheng Songcheng was busy arguing that “society-wide financing” could act as a better guide for monetary policy than new bank loans. Just two months later and the first step towards that process — creating a new financing measure — is here.
Goldman reiterates bearish call on commods (again)
Yikes.
This is the third bearish commodity note from Goldman Sachs in one week.
They must really be keen on the view, eh?
And, dare we say it, the latest note sounds rather panicky — entitled as it is “Growing conviction in NT downside,
Further reading
Elsewhere on Friday,
- Some deep thoughts from Michael Burry.
- Announcing the CPI-F.
- “The biggest problems at Moody’s may have been cultural.”
- How quants think.
- Office space can influence your mind.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Friday’s FT,
Gillian Tett: Can we believe Geithner’s patter on debt?
Don’t panic. That, in a nutshell, was the soothing message of Tim Geithner, US Treasury secretary,