February 1st, 2012
Become Facebook’s friend
The strangest thing just appeared in our Facebook…
We think it might have something to do with the preliminary prospectus the social networking company just filed in relation to its much-anticipated IPO.
Morgan Stanley’s most mysterious footnote — Part 2
In Part 1, we looked in and around Morgan Stanley’s mysterious little footnote about how the bank had reduced net exposure to Italy from $4.9bn to $1.5bn with a restructuring that settled in the early days of 2012.
Morgan Stanley’s most mysterious footnote — Part 1
(7) On December 22, 2011, the Company executed certain derivative restructuring amendments which settled on January 3, 2012. …
This mysterious little footnote announced to the world that in the fourth quarter,
Breaking up is hard to do — but here goes, anyway
From Jonathan Tepper, economist, chief editor of Variant Perception and co-author with John Mauldin of Endgame: The End of the Debt Supercyle…
A thirteen point guide to breaking up the euro.
Those countries that opt to remain in the euro will,
US unemployment “progress”
A chart via Nomura to keep in the back of your head as you eagerly anticipate this Friday’s BLS employment situation report in the US:
In the grey line, Nomura economists have adjusted the unemployment rate for the number of discouraged workers who have left the labour force and therefore count as unemployed in this alternative measure.
Let there be credit claim collateral… just not everywhere
Turns out that not all the national central banks of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) are so keen on widening collateral criteria, especially the idea of taking on more bank loans (tweaking the eligibility of credit claims) in exchange for central bank lending.
FT Alphaville asks the bloggers
We submitted three questions to the latest quarterly survey of economics bloggers by the Kauffman Foundation. Click to open the pdf and see how our comrades from around the interwebs responded (note: they really like NGDP targeting)…
We want negative Treasury yields
Interesting exchange in the latest minutes of the TBAC – Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, which brings together primary dealers and US Treasury officials… (Hat-tip Bondscoop)
The question was asked if it made sense for Treasury to permit bids and awards at negative interest rates in marketable Treasury bill auctions.
Gangster economics
Struck by a recent report about how the Italian mafia was now Italy’s largest ‘bank’, Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at ConvergEx Group, has decided to take a closer look at what one might call “off the grid”
Blimey, Bill Gross has been on the Virginia Woolf…
Presented without comment:
Where do we go when we die?
We go back to where we came from
And where was that?
I don’t know, I can’t remember
Virginia Woolf, “The Hours”
I don’t remember much of this life,
Crunch de crédit continu (et collateral)
There’s a new ‘how is sovereign debt hurting you?’ question in the European Central Bank’s regular bank lending survey…
… which presents an interesting break-out of collateral concerns .
Just under one-third of banks said that sovereign pressures had affected funding between December and January.
Sino-Forest’s diminishing returns
Here it is, and only a day past deadline: the Sino-Forest independent committee’s final report into the company’s assets and relationships between various poorly-understood entities.
[We looked at the independent committee a while back.]
So,
Markets Live transcript 1 Feb 2012
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 12:06 on 1 Feb 2012. Participants in this chat were: Paul Murphy Bryce Elder/FT PMMorning PMWelcome to markets Live
China’s not so amazing PMIs
China’s official PMIs went to 50.5 for January, but European markets were not that impressed.
The HSBC/Markit Economics PMIs, meanwhile, were an uninspiring 48.8, compared to 48.7 in December.
Societe Generale’s Wei Yao says that,
The NBBO flutter
Oh the weird and wonderful charts of Nanex.
Here’s the latest one from the market data analytics firm (click to enlarge):
In Nanex’s opinion this is one of their most amazing and clear images yet.
The Iron Lady
Meet Gina Rinehart.
She’s the richest person in Australia, and if the iron ore price holds, the daughter of Australian mining pioneer, Lang Hancock, could soon be the world’s richest woman — a position currently occupied by the Wal-Mart widow Christy Walton.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Wednesday,
- Europe’s massive shipping exposure.
- Adam Curtis on the rise of the modern cruise ship industry.
- Projections from the Congressional Budget Office.
- And how a deficit drop will threaten economic stability.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and more from Wednesday’s FT,
Martin Wolf: Europe is stuck on life support
Economic decision-makers are more optimistic than two months ago, mainly because of the ECB’s actions,
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Wednesday,
– IMPs in line — Imperial Tobacco
– Less activity at ICAP – statement
– BHP Billiton goes ex-titanium minerals – statement
– Production report from ENRC – statement
– Johnson Matthey IMS – statement
– FAGS Q4 — statement
– Afren presentation