May, 2011
The underlying trend in UK house prices
Another day, another piece of gloomy data from the UK economy.
This time it’s real estate.
The Halifax house price survey for April:
As usual the Halifax’s Martin Ellis takes the Panglossian view:
Kicking the Greek debt can further down the road
The price action in Greek government bonds on Monday morning:
Volatile huh? But probably unsurprising as we still don’t really know what was discussed at Friday’s mysterious meeting by eurozone finance ministers,
Playing collateral games in the Portugal bailout
€35bn worth of Portguese-government guaranteed bank bonds is probably heading straight for the European Central Bank’s repo facilities.
But don’t expect that to do much for Portugal’s banking system.
Commodities on Monday, just a bad dream?
Was it all just a bad dream? Signs on Monday that commodities prices are at least stabilising amid positive economic news from the US, China and Europe might come as a relief markets after last week’s rout wiped a whopping $99bn off the overall market value of commodities prices,
Further reading
Elsewhere on Monday,
- Fill in the blanks, the commodities-rout song remains the same.
- Why FX reserves are so big.
- Three economic things that do not exist.
- Fed watch – a wild week leaves policy intact.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and offerings from Monday’s FT,
Wolfgang Münchau: The political causes of a not-so-secret meeting
They cannot even organise a private meeting, notes the FT columnist. How, then,
FTfm on AV
Some highlights from Monday’s FTfm.
Basel III to hit money fund sector
The $4,400bn global money market fund industry could end up becoming one of the biggest losers from the post-crisis regulatory
The return of … The Weekender
We’re going back — waaayyy back, into FT Alphaville history to resurrect “The Weekender” — a round-up of the week’s most entertaining, most enlightening, or simply most relevant, blog posts.
You know,
Further further reading
For the commute home, have a great weekend,
- “Breaking stride to pick up a penny, if it takes more than 6.15 seconds, pays less than the federal minimum wage.”
- Across numerous topics and formats (including plenty blogs) Conor Friedersdorf chooses the best nonfiction of 2010.
The (possible) future of US manufacturing
Even as it was becoming clear that first-quarter growth had decelerated, there were plenty of signs that the manufacturing sector remained an exception.
Factory production in the first three months of the year grew by 9.1 per cent (annualised),
Greek-out culminates in talk of eurozone exit [updated]
All those Greek-out! leaks — recent reports suggesting the Hellenic Republic was gearing up towards a debt restructuring — seem to have reached a final, dizzying (and totally unconfirmed) pinnacle.
But first,
Some more standard deviations in commodities
Sean Corrigan at Diapason Commodities sends us this chart on Friday:
It shows the value of London Metal Exchange Lead inventories over two decades.
As Corrigan notes, the more visible inventory there is,
More on the April employment report
Our takeaway from the April employment report is that its two surveys — of households and of establishments — finally converged a bit, as was probably inevitable.
For many months now, the household survey had been painting a much better jobs picture than the establishment survey,
Deutsche chimes in on the commodities rout – it’s the QEnding
Still pondering possible reasons behind the recent commodities rout?
Deutsche Bank says it’s all because of the coming QEnding, or the end of the Federal Reserve’s second bout of quantitative easing,
Covering RBS funding, quietly
In an otherwise static RBS funding base for the first three months of the year…
… There was really only one type of security taking up a bigger share of financing the world’s biggest balance sheet than at the beginning of 2011 — covered bonds:
Payrolls crush consensus, grow 244,000 in April
Consensus had been for around 185,000, and there was a big upward revision for the February number, from 194,000 to 235,000. The unemployment rate ticked up to nine per cent.
We’ll be back with analysis in a bit,
Honey, I broke the repo market
If you’re a money market fund manager, you’ll already be aware (plus possibly extremely concerned about) that general collateral rates are approaching zero. If you’re not, then read on.
As a reminder,
There’s still room for more oil slides, Goldman says
Just what everyone has been waiting for!
The latest thoughts from Goldman Sachs’ energy gurus on the most recent commodity mega-slide.
And don’t forget: they did predict it.
First… what they think caused it:
Commodities VaRy extreme right now
Hark — the standard deviation devils sing (again).
As Reuters columnist John Kemp pointed out yesterday, recent swings in the commodities complex have produced some impressive probabilities figures.
Markets Live transcript 6 May 2011
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 11:26 on 6 May 2011. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT bryce.elder NHMorning rabble NHwelcome to Markets Live
What drove the commodities rout?
The quick answer is… nobody knows.
Although JBC Energy has come up with a helpful summary of points that they feel could be behind the Thursday rout.
Here’s the list:
-”disappointing global economic headlines”
Helphire heads for intensive care
And today’s UK small cap disaster is…
That’s the share price of ambulance chaser Helphire.
As you can see it’s in need urgent medical attention after warning on profits and revealing this accounting nasty:
Fall-out from the imploding commodities complex
It was inevitable that Thursday’s commodites rout would claim some victims … just as Friday’s further slide in commodities prices will inevitably cause more casualties.
The FT’s Lex column, describing the sell-off as an “epic rout”
Compare and contrast, RBS and Lloyds
Where Lloyds goes, RBS follows.
Not in terms of a socking great provision for PPI mis-selling (RBS says it can’t estimate the cost, but reckons it could be significant) but those increased Irish impairment charges.
Here we go again
Related link:
Commodity sell-off 2011: is this it? – FT Alphaville
The Irish pain of RBS, charted
Ulster Bank Group accounts for 10% of the Group’s total gross customer loans or 9% of the Group’s Core gross customer loans. The impairment charge of £1,294 million for Q1 2011 was £135 million higher than the £1,159 million impairment charge for Q4 2010.
There’s always a silver lining…(even in a commodity rout)
And on Thursday that lining was apparent in the gasoline market.
As Stephen Schork of the Schork Report noted on Friday:
You know it has been a bad day when a 6.84 per cent drop can be described as the best performance of the complex,
Further reading
Elsewhere on Friday,
- The silver scandal of today.
- On systemic risk.
- Is the commodity bull market over?
- What really caused the flash crash?
- QE3 and the silver entry point.
- HFT is no longer the ‘in thing’.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Friday’s FT,
Gillian Tett: Why ETFs give an uneasy sense of deja vu
When the Financial Stability Board was established a couple of years ago, it declared that one of its goals was to produce better “early warning” systems of looming financial trouble spots,