June, 2011
Tap tap tap – covered bonds on a drip
Hidden in the €144.2bn of euro-denominated covered bonds issued so far this year is a number.
€18.2bn.
About 13 per cent of total covered bond supply this year came not from new issuance, but from increases in existing benchmark covered bonds.
Markets Live transcript 24 Jun 2011
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 11:19 on 24 Jun 2011. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT bryce.elder NHHola rabble NHwelcome to ML NHsorry we are late
Speculators, slapped
The US doesn’t like high oil prices. Neither does it like the speculators it thinks exacerbates them.
So why not take aim at both?
On Thursday the International Energy Agency announced it would release 60m barrels of oil from emergency stockpiles in response to the Libyan crisis (which,
Postcard from the Pyrenees
Bears are endangered and misunderstood. Here in the French Pyrenees, with only some 20 left in the wild, the authorities have been trying to introduce some Slovakian bears to the mountains to beef up the population.
Stall speed
FT blogger (and Markets Live contributor) Gavyn Davies recently raised the question of whether the growth rate of the US economy had dropped below stall-speed and was heading back to recession.
He concluded it wasn’t,
The SPQR
Introducing the SPQR: the Special Petroleum Quantitative Reserve.
Some 36 years in the making, specifically designed to provide the US (and via that global markets) with vital oil supplies if and when an emergency strikes,
The popping of Southsea
This piece of news slipped most of the world by…
A court order has been made to place Southsea Mortgage and Investment Company into the Bank Insolvency Procedure and appoint BDO LLP as the bank liquidator.
Who will roll-up, roll-up – to the Greek roll-over?
Roll-over, roll-over send … no one right over?
Citi argues on Friday that getting the holders of shorter-term Greek debt to roll-over their holdings into longer-term bonds will be no easy feat, even as the eurozone seems to be pressing ahead with the plan.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Friday,
- The case for cash.
- Compulsory capital will hurt arbitrage.
- Mortgages, lies and statistics.
- Has Google got too much power?
- Imagine Bernanke after a few drinks.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Friday’s FT,
News analysis: Greek crisis puts future of CDS in doubt
Earlier this year a eurozone finance minister telephoned a senior executive at one of the region’s biggest banks and told him that a credit event – or pay-out in credit derivatives in the event of a Greek default – must be avoided at all costs,
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Friday,
- Management offer to take Rab Capital private at 10p a share — statement.
- Prada shares edge higher on market debut — report.
- Berkeley Group announces £1.7bn share cash return — statement.
Further further reading
For the commute home,
- The dark side of the oil release.
- John Paulson, Quarterback.
- T-Bill yields… went negative.
- Calpers reveals the performance of its PE and VC funds.
- Is it 1995 or 1999 in tech land?
- Tyler is showing off (but we’re still in awe).
Goldman’s history lesson on oil releases
Exchange or sale?
That’s the question the Goldman Sachs commodities research group is waiting for the US to answer before making a call on how today’s IEA announcement will ultimately affect oil prices through next year.
Citi joins the European stress-test jamboree
Roll(over) up, roll(over) up, for the latest unofficial European bank stress test.
For previous editions see here, here, and here.
This week’s contestant: Citi.
And it has given us two for the price of one:
Dick Bove solves Europe’s debt crisis in 407 words
Diagnosis:
Misusing Savings
Recent statements by some central bankers and interested observers suggest to me that the reality discussed in Rochdale Securities comment entitled Pressure on Bank Stocks Continues dated June 20,
HSBC’s £10bn of ring-fence fears for UK banks
That ring-fencing idea — it’s just posturing, right? Right?
No?
We don’t know but a report out Wednesday by HSBC says we should take it very seriously given its broad political support.
And it looks like the markets are also doing so on Thursday:
El-Erian: On governments as portfolio managers
From the ranks of FT Alphaville’s own AAA-list comes Mohamed El-Erian with a post about the three phases of governments’ involvement in global markets since the crisis.
————
Understandably,
Comedy comes to Greek CDS
For the benefit of our American readers (the clip doesn’t seem to work in the UK, unfortunately, though the tech-savvy among you might try an end-around)…
A secret Magnetar management deal?
Somewhat lost amongst the JPMorgan/Magnetar news on Tuesday, was a name.
Edward Steffelin.
Steffelin, the SEC says, was in charge of the team at GSCP that helped select the investment portfolio for the Squared 2007-1 synthetic CDO — parts of which were infamously shorted by hedge fund Magnetar.
Things fall apart, afternoon markets edition
Thursday update — the euro is burning:
While the Greek CDS curve appears to be levitating:
And the IEA just said it will release 60m barrels of oil from emergency stockpiles:
Phantom indices
Themis Trading — ever-alert for structural weaknesses in markets — have a new paper.
It’s about ‘phantom indices’ — or the idea that widely-followed indices such as the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average or the Nasdaq 100 don’t actually track all of the shares traded intraday.
Mervyn Maradona
The Bank of England governor is a rule-breaker, just like Argentinian football star Diego Maradona.
So says Malcolm Barr over at JPMorgan:
One of Mervyn King’s most memorable analogies in explaining the conduct of monetary policy was his reference to Diego Maradona’s two goals against England in the semi final of 1986 World Cup.
China and the magic financing (soy)beanstalk
Whoah…
Did you think commodity collateral shenanigans had been rumbled and stopped by China’s authorities?
Well, seems you’d be wrong.
Bloomberg is out with a cracker of a story on Thursday,
Markets Live transcript 23 Jun 2011
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 11:40 on 23 Jun 2011. Participants in this chat were: bryce.elder Neil Hume, FT BEGood morning, folks. BEAnd welcome to another Markets Live
Europe’s big box-ticking exercise
Interesting Q&A over at UBS earlier this week, concerning a voluntary roll-over of Greek bonds:
Question [from an emotional anonymous]: … this business of a voluntary versus a mandatory default seems to me kind of silly.
Clegg’s great UK banking give away
Our instinctive reaction to deputy prime minister Nick Clegg’s brainwave to give every British voter shares in the state-owned banks Lloyds Banking Group and RBS is that it’s an ill-thought out populist move that would be a logistical nightmare to execute.
Bernanke has other ways of acting
All this debate about whether or not we will see another round of quantitative easing in the US, and yet, in his latest comments, Ben Bernanke has hinted more strongly than ever that if the Fed does act it might do so in a very different manner.
Greek black hole [updated]
Seller beware and all that, but there’s (totally-unconfirmed) talk of a €3.5bn black hole in Greece’s austerity plan.
Now, were are not taking it too seriously.
REPEAT WE ARE NOT TAKING IT TOO SERIOUSLY.
Margins and money markets – oh my! [updated]
Meanwhile in Europe … Money markets are also moving.
Recent bidding patterns at the European Central Bank’s seven-day funding operation below:
€102bn on June 8. €136bn on June 15. And a whopping €187bn just on Wednesday.