April, 2011
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Tuesday,
- Allied Irish Banks declares €10.2bn loss – statement.
- Alliance Trust reports 16.2 per cent rise in net asset value — statement.
- Punch Taverns records annual loss of £325m after taking large exceptional charge — statement.
Further further reading
For the commute home, where low volumes signal a run to the beer market,
- Does slow stock trading signal a bear market?
- A few surprises in this list of public opinion on capitalism across countries.
The qualifier in Yellen’s speech
Most of Janet Yellen’s speech today about commodity prices and the economic outlook was about what you would expect, and we covered many of the same issues in our long discussion last week about inflation expectations.
“Gainful Employment” survives shutdown negotiations
And we’re not just talking about national zookeepers.
Here’s a Steve Eisman-friendly tidbit from the government shutdown negotiations, courtesy of the Higher Ed Watch blog on Saturday:
Higher Ed Watch has learned that the last-minute budget deal that the White House and Congress reached late last night does not include a controversial provision that would have blocked the U.S.
The market for sovereign default recoveries
Markets in everything, as Marginal Revolution might put it.
We’ll start with a problem that might not be hugely on the market’s mind right now, but is getting ever closer:
How much would investors recover if (when,
[FOW Amsterdam] When life gives you lemons trade agriculture commodities
By Theo Casey, a columnist at Futures & Options World, blogging on the back of FOW’s European Equity Options conference in Amsterdam.
The 2008/09 global interest rate dunk hit structured products hard.
A large dislocation in the repo markets
We all remember the Fed’s sort-of promise to abide by self-imposed System Open Market Account (SOMA) restrictions — supposedly, so as not to completely corner the US Treasury market.
Well, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Shyam S.
Pinewood, Peel and Michael Grade
This is Michael Grade.
FT Alphaville readers probably know him best as the chairman of Webvan 2.0 Ocado but he’s also chairman of Pinewood Shepperton, the film studio owner that revealed a takeover approach on Friday.
A little less Brent…
Ever wondered how much Brent there actually is in a barrel of Brent oil?
Answer: Not very much, and increasingly less.
The following chart from JBC Energy on Monday might be of interest to anyone who has recently repositioned from the WTI market and into the Brent contract instead:
Grossly unimpressed: Pimco shorts US government debt
Pimco is not amused with the political impasse in Washington.
From Reuters on Monday morning:
PIMCO has shifted to a short position in U.S. government-related debt in the world’s largest bond fund,
[FOW Amsterdam] Delta one: the special ops of equity trading
FT Alphaville moderated a panel on “The rise and rise of Delta One” at the FOW European equity options conference in Amsterdam on Friday.
There was an excellent range of speakers representing a good slice of the Delta one industry in Europe,
What Japan’s post-quake data say so far
Facts and figures on the Japanese economy have dribbled out since the March 11 disasters. The latest data release, on Monday morning, dealt with February figures and showed that Japanese core machinery orders fell a larger-than-expected 2.3 per cent in February from January.
Markets Live transcript 11 Apr 2011
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 11:34 on 11 Apr 2011. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT bryce.elder NHHola NHRabble NHand welcome to Markets Live
Quake watch: More rock’n'roll in Japan
Another day another quake… At least, it felt a bit like that when, exactly one month after the March 11 quake and tsunami devastated northeastern Japan, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit the northeast yet again and rocked Tokyo at 5.25pm on Monday.
HBOS remembered
We said earlier on Monday that only one bank came off badly in the interim report from the Independent Commission on Banking.
We were wrong.
There’s another bank that comes in for some criticism.
The UK’s Independent Commission on Banking report
The UK’s Independent Commission on Banking has published its Interim Report on Monday.
We’re going through it at the moment, but for now, we’ve put up in the Long Room and provided you with its conclusions.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Monday,
- Portfolio theory is dead, now what?
- Inside the currency boiler rooms.
- Goldman’s Alpha war.
- Global imbalances and the paradox of thrift.
- How much is a dragon worth?
- JP Morgan’s fiduciary duty questioned.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Monday’s FT,
Clive Crook: America’s ‘comic-book’ shutdown squabble
The world had better start paying attention to the US government’s inability to govern,
FTfm on AV
Some highlights from Monday’s FTfm.
Bank infrastructure funds struggle to raise money
Infrastructure investors, especially pension funds, have become concerned about conflicts of interest and are favouring independent houses instead — meaning banks such as Macquarie,
Further further reading
For the commute home, where… oh forget it, we’re sick of shutdown jokes too,
- Almost sick of them: the top 10 government shutdown pickup lines.
- Who destroys money?
- Well, a bunch of psychologists destroy money,
BarCap on oil-fuelled global inflation
There were several points of interest (defined as “stuff we did not know”) in a new BarCap note about the potential effects on global inflation if oil prices keep rising.
After the week of oil prices we’ve had,
A guide to economic data during a shutdown
Courtesy of Nomura’s US economics team, here’s a quick guide to the data that would and would not be disrupted by an ongoing shut-show in Washington.
This list is not exhaustive, but it does cover the main indicators.
Second thoughts on secondary markets [updated]
The WSJ on Friday reports that the SEC is looking to relax the regulations on share issuances by private companies. These attracted widespread attention following Goldman’s botched effort to set up a special purpose vehicle to purchase Facebook stock.
Dictator downfall derby
Aka an autocrat futures market. A snapshot from Intrade:
Agency shutdown slowdown
Looks like the SEC and CFTC will be on skeleton crew if the government shuts down, according to their contingency plans.
First the CFTC:
Of the 675 employees, 25 have been identified as excepted from the restrictions of the Antideficiency Act,