February 6th, 2012
Further further reading
For the commute home,
- How the business of international banking has changed over time.
- Calculated Risk calls a housing price bottom: March of this year.
- US economic conditions improving.
The unemployment exit race and structural impairment
We found a couple of items from a Credit Suisse note commenting on Friday’s jobs report to be interesting and worth discussing in some detail.
First is a bit of commentary explaining that a higher number of unemployed have dropped out of the labour force since 2009 than have found new jobs.
January effects in credit
It’s been a rather optimistic sort of January. S&P financials are finally trading above book value (but with wide variations between individual banks), junk bond issuance is full steam ahead with flows to high yield funds,
Freight rates go negative
Negative bond yields, negative repo rates, and now… negative freight rates. At least route-specific ones.
Bloomberg has the story here (our emphasis):
Glencore International Plc (GLEN) hired a commodity ship with the operator of the vessel earning nothing and contributing to some of the fuel costs after freight rates for hauling raw materials had their worst-ever start to a year.
You either love it or you hate it, Morgan Stanley edition
This Bloomberg Markets headline (koan?) attracted puzzlement on Monday:
Gorman Embracing Vegemite in New Wall Street’s 15% Bogey at Morgan Stanley
The anecdote behind the headline is just as off-the-wall:
The currency pair league table
$/€ races ahead of $/£, $/¥ and $/SFr, but $/AUD has made a strong run from behind…
Actually, the thing that jumps out from Table 4 of the most recent FX trading survey from London’s Foreign Exchange Joint Standing Committee is that none of the columns — April 2011 thru October 2011 — are ranked consecutively.
China’s hard landing odds, updated
Remember Nomura last year estimated there was a 1-in-3 chance of a hard landing in China?
Anyway, they’ve updated the index on which it was based. Nomura’s chief Asia economist, Rob Subbaraman, says the 1-in-3 odds indicated by the China Stress Index remain,
Markets Live transcript 6 Feb 2012
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 12:07 on 6 Feb 2012. Participants in this chat were: Paul Murphy Bryce Elder/FT
PMMORNING
PMMorning
PMsorry for shouting
Otto’s revenge
- Parachuted in by the great powers of the time
- Specifically, parachuted in by the great powers of the time to ensure Greek payment on their sizeable official loans
- Subordinating Greek sovereignty to a German budget commissioner
- Ordinary Greeks taxed to the hilt,
That statement-in-full from EFG-Hermes…
Unexpurgated:
The company learnt yesterday that Mr. Yasser El Mallawany, the Chief Executive Officer of the company was banned from traveling.
That’s it. Not even a contact number.
EFG-Hermes, of course,
Further reading
Elsewhere on Monday,
- Go to the gym and stop reading the doomers.
- Though… Krugman on jobs: “no, things are not O.K. — not remotely O.K.”
- Theorising January’s jobs report.
- So, we can blame ETFs,
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Monday’s FT,
Edward Luce: The reality of American decline
Something puzzling just happened in Washington: a liberal American president who opposed the invasion of Iraq endorsed one of its chief neoconservative advocates,
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Monday,
– Giants defeat Patriots – story
– Full year figures down 27 per cent at Julius Baer – Bloomberg
– China bans airlines from taking part in a European Union carbon-emissions system designed to curb pollution,