Gluskin Sheff’s David Rosenberg hit out at Jim Paulsen of Wells Capital Managment in his Monday missive. Why?
Here’s an extract from Paulsen’s latest monthly newsletter:
We believe the recession has ended,
Standard & Poor’s freshly published comparison of global banks’ risk-adjusted capital (RAC) adequacy made for gripping reading on a chilly Monday morning in New York.
The report contains 22 pages of data,
Last Friday, what many in the energy market had long suspected might happen, happened.
Valero, the largest independent refiner in the US, was forced to close another 200,000-plus barrel-per-day refinery — this time,
Fresh news from the 3rd Seminar on Banking Services and Export in Tehran: Iran gained $5bn by reducing the portion of dollars in its oil currency basket, according to Mahmoud Bahman, head of Iran’s central bank.
Markets live chat transcript for the chat ending at 12:17 on 23 Nov 2009. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT (NH) Miles Johnson, FT (MJ) NH:hello there NH:It’s 11.03am
Demands for higher capital at financial companies and a growing risk of national protectionism will act as a drag on the real economy, warns John Tiner, former head of the Financial Services Authority.
Alright, blindingly obvious is a tad harsh. But it surprised us that the proposals for improving mortgage underwriting standards made by John Dugan, US comptroller of the currency, were not already in force.
Markets live chat transcript for the chat ending at 12:14 on 20 Nov 2009. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT (NH) Bryce Elder (BE) NH:right NH:it’s 11.03 NH:and time
Duh duh duh!
The yield on some short-term Treasuries, T-bills, turned negative on Thursday. That means that investors are piling into Treasuries to such an extent that they’re now willing to effectively pay the government for the benefit of owning them.
The hate-fest surrounding Japan appears to have “risen to new highs in recent weeks”, says CLSA’s Damien Kestel in his weekly newsletter Bits & Pieces. In fact, he cites the Oxford (American) dictionary’s word of the year,
Our friends at the Daily Telegraph sent us into something of spin on Wednesday evening, when they published this:
What they didn’t mention was that the Societe Generale cross asset research study in question was published more than a month prior.
Unless you’ve had your head buried in the sand, you’ll know high frequency trading stormed onto the mainstream agenda this summer, catching the critical eye of the international press, public and regulators alike.
On Wednesday bond insurer Ambac stunned investors with what looked like good news.
Ambac Assurance Corp., the main operating branch of the Ambac Financial Group, had been expected by many to reveal a breach of its minimum capital requirement when the company published its third-quarter 8-K this week.
Late on Wednesday Brazil — land of impressive football and interest rates — announced a further development in its controversial capital controls.
From the Wall Street Journal:
BRASILIA—Brazil’s government will apply a tax on Brazilian stocks traded as American depositary receipts,
Markets live chat transcript for the chat ending at 12:15 on 19 Nov 2009. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT (NH) Miles Johnson, FT (MJ) NH:good morning NH:and welcome to Markets Live
…and a few words.
There was, to put it mildly, an unusually high level of interest in Colgate Palmolive on Wednesday night.
Both in its shares:
And in its November and December call options:
Elsewhere on Thursday,
- SocGen on how to prepare for the global economic collapse.
- “Is gold going to $6,300?”
- 2009 vs 1982 stock market rallies.
- Kass on the quant bubble.
- Krugman on the unintended consequences of the AIG bailout.
By way of a resuscitated campaign to have Ben Stein sacked from his various writing and promotion jobs, Felix Salmon at Reuters discusses a story about US consumers being deceived by dodgy online sign-up pitches and leads us to this: the relevant full blown staff report for Senate commerce committee chairman Jay Rockefeller.
Here’s something which hasn’t happened before.
The New York Fed received requests for federal loans to purchase new-issue CMBS in its latest Talf subscription:
This is likely down to the CMBS deal mentioned last week,
Oops.
From a report by the US Government Accountability Office –the Congressional watchdog charged with investigating how taxpayers money is spent:
In GAO’s opinion, SEC’s fiscal years 2009 and 2008 financial statements are fairly presented in all material respects.
So, Hershey has entered the fray.
From RNS on Wednesday:
The Hershey Company (”Hershey”) notes the recent press speculation regarding a potential offer for Cadbury. Hershey confirms that it is reviewing its options and at this stage there can be no assurance that any proposal or offer from Hershey will be forthcoming.
Markets live chat transcript for the chat ending at 12:19 on 18 Nov 2009. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT (NH) Bryce Elder (BE) NH:good morning NH:it’s 11.03am
Minutes from the Bank of England’s last policy meeting on November 4 and 5 have been released. And there are number of points to pick over.
The most interesting is that the MPC was split three ways in voting to extend asset purchases by £25bn.
It’s over.
As the FT revealed overnight, ITV has finally found a chairman: failed MP former Asda and Energis boss Archie Norman.
And the broadcaster is making the most of Norman’s CV, with a detailed biography in Wednesday’s press release:
In further signs of the financing pressure facing the shipping industry, DryShips , an Athens-based commodity-focused operator owned by Greek shipping tycoon George Economou, announced late on Tuesday it had signed a waiver agreement with Deutsche Schiffsbank on $117.5m of outstanding debt.
It was portrayed as both a godsend for Morgan Stanley and something of a coup for Mitsubishi MUFJ Group, Japan’s biggest bank, when in October 2008 it emerged that MUFG would take a 20 per cent stake in the US bank for $9bn.
UBS outlined a bold set of growth targets on Tuesday, including ambitions to generate SFr15bn ($14.8bn) of pre-tax profits within three to five years, as the troubled Swiss bank sought to take back the initiative after weeks of bad news encompassing regulatory fines and deep losses.
On FT Alphaville Tuesday morning,
- Goldman Sachs is innocent, ok?
- The uncomfortable position of UBS.
- Cazenove, the broker that got brokered.
- The Regal report.
- A Kinder Surprise for Kraft?
- Not-so-much blood on Wall Street.
A European central bank is reportedly looking to take advantage of the recent bond market rally to offload something pretty special: Lehman-originated RMBS.
From Bloomberg:
The central bank of Europe’s largest economy [Germany’s Bundesbank] hired Morgan Stanley and structured finance advisory firm AgFe Ltd.
Markets live chat transcript for the chat ending at 12:23 on 17 Nov 2009. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT (NH) Miles Johnson, FT (MJ) NH:Good morning NH:It’s 11.03am
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