Cardiff Garcia
The Juncker statement
“What, you people thought I was joking about the €325 mil and a promise from Samaras not to renegotiate terms later? Then watch this.” – JC
Okay, that’s not what was said in the statement from Jean-Claude Juncker cancelling Wednesday’s meeting of eurozone finance ministers.
On the promise of exports
President Obama’s announcement, in January 2010, of his aim to double US exports in five years had the “benefit” of timing, coming so soon after the historic collapse of worldwide trade had just begun to recover.
Who’s the most imbalanced of all (EU members)?
Here’s a graphic designed to give one a headache (click to embiggen)…
To clear things up, it’s a projected scorecard from RBC Capital Markets representing the expected findings of the first EU report on economic imbalances,
Further further reading
For the commute home,
- New report on trade agreements in a post-Doha world.
- Tyler Cowen with more thoughts on banking and shareholder liability.
- The US housing bust in one chart.
- A secretive hedge fund legend prepares to surface.
Volcker defends Volcker
UPDATE: FT.com has just pubbed a Volcker op-ed, this one directly responding to European critics of his rule. A few lines:
There is a certain irony in what I read. In Europe, there are plans to introduce a financial transaction tax,
The Obama budget
It’s out, and you can find the overview here.
The highlights:
KEY BUDGET FACTS
– In the Budget Control Act, both parties in Congress and the President agreed to tight spending caps that reduce discretionary spending by $1 trillion over 10 years.
Further further reading
For the commute home,
- Dude, where’s my national mortgage settlement document? (Via Ryan McCarthy.)
- On recessions and job churn.
- Greek vote seen as a referendum on the euro.
- Earnings season is getting better.
US Markets Live transcript 10 Feb 2012
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 16:00 on 10 Feb 2012. Participants in this chat were: Cardiff Garcia Joseph Cotterill, FT Lisa Pollack, FT CGHello! JCHi there
Reminder: US Markets Live at 10am New York, 3pm London
Greece, the foreclosure settlement, um, Greece… we really have no idea what we’re going to talk about this morning. Watch us wing it at the usual place, starting in a few minutes.
Further further reading
For the commute home,
- The labour market in swing states has improved faster than in other states.
- Barry Ritholz on why @GSElevator is a fake.
- How to talk about the economy: a guide for elected officials and journalists.
Incremental housing help
The details of the foreclosure settlement this morning mostly reflected what had been reported late last night, and here was the final take from the FT’s Shahien Nasiripour and Kara Scannell:
Under the agreement, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Ally Financial will be forced to improve their mortgage procedures,
The foreclosure settlement
Click to open the generic state form (Word doc) sent out to US state attorney generals earlier on Thursday…
Thursday…
The main bits:
Under the agreement, the five servicers have agreed to a $25 billion penalty under a joint state-national settlement structure.
Further further reading
For the commute home,
- Gavyn Davies assesses the impact of QE. Short version: it’s working.
- S&P 500 valuation charted against NGDP.
- How many jobs has the app economy created since the recession started?
- Don’t put venture capital at risk,
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.
US Markets Live transcript 3 Feb 2012
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 16:05 on 3 Feb 2012. Participants in this chat were: Joseph Cotterill, FT Cardiff Garcia JCHello there JCAaargh slow ML start-up.
Reminder: US Markets Live at 10am New York, 3pm London
Perhaps inadvisedly, we chucked the kevlar and tin into the Hudson after we saw the jobs report. We’ll talk about whether we need to retrieve them, plus have some chatter about Glencore, the latest out of Europe,
Winter seasonality, employment report preview edition
Warning: we start by rambling about a bunch of stuff that may not interest anyone besides methodology geeks. If you want to jump straight to how this morning’s BLS employment report might be affected by seasonality issues,
Further further reading
For the commute home,
- Do groundhogs make better forecasters than economists?
- What Facebook can sell.
- The politics of political prediction markets.
- No one is ever wrong anymore.
- Why Europe really must pursue “structural reform”.
Seasonality bias in the ISM… fixed?
Wednesday’s ISM reading in the US was solid, but maybe the best reason to look favourably on it is that you can now trust the report more than you could in recent months.
We’ve previously written about
Bernanke: recovery now, thrift later, generic speeches in the meantime
Not much interesting in Bernanke’s testimony to the House of Representatives this morning, but given his many previous warnings that premature fiscal tightening could stifle the weak recovery, he probably hopes listeners will tune out this par…
Further further reading
For the commute home,
- Dodd-Frank in one graph.
- Is it safe to resume ignoring the prophets of doom?
- Daily Intel reports that Lucas Van Praag has been asked to leave.
- Free Exchange on why the Deutsche Borse-Nyse Euronext merger failed.
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.
Further further reading
For the commute home,
- An argument that weak labor demand is the primary explanation for prolonged unemployment duration.
- Felix Salmon on why bondholders of Greek debt would be better off lobbying the troika directly.
Are equity analysts getting better at their jobs?
That’s a stretch, but they’re having an unusually good earnings season thus far:
Some commentary from Nomura now that companies representing half the S&P 500 market cap have reported:
Although those companies that have missed or beaten the analysts’ consensus predictably garner the headlines,
A (temporary?) return to frugality
Toldjaso.
That’s the message of a note from RBC economists about this morning’s personal income and outlays report for December.
Having warned throughout the second half of last year that US consumption fuelled by a decline in savings was unsustainable,
The missing GDP
If you’re keen for yet another post comparing the US recovery against prior editions, we think this table sent by Credit Suisse on Friday is worth a quick look:
It shows the average contribution to real growth of each GDP subcomponent in the first ten quarters of the last five recoveries,
Weekender
This week on FT Alphaville,
- We pondered the meaning life, as one does during bonus season.
- … and puzzled over the constant demand for safe assets.
- We priced land on the interwebs.
- and speculated about rising prices on the eventual QE-exit.
Further further reading
For the commute home,
- IPO market showing signs of recovery ahead of Facebook.
- Is opacity an excuse?
- Fund managers tell Jason Zweig their investment philosophies in ten words.
- Euro decoupling continues,
Banking off the FOMC
The obvious place to start when discussing the impact of Wednesday’s FOMC meeting on US banks is with the downward pressure on net interest margins that will result from the extended period of low rates.