Guest writer
Guest post from OWS: Too Big to Fail is Too Big to Ignore
The note below has been prepared by the Alternative Banking Working Group of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. As with the prior note published on FT Alphaville, we present it — without comment — as a document for understanding the aims of OWS.
Guest post: While Rome is burning
From Alberto Saravalle, managing partner at Bonelli Erede Pappalardo
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What happens to M&A while Rome is burning? In the past few months Italy has been in the midst of a political, economic and financial crisis.
The Occupy Wall Street bank
Presented below is a note prepared for the December 4th meeting of the Occupy Wall Street General Assembly by its alternative banking working group. We present it – without comment – as a document for understanding the aims of OWS (as per John Gapper’s recent column).
Guest post: El-Erian on central bank action
Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive and co-chief investment officer at PIMCO, submits this guest post to FT Alphaville in reaction to this morning’s coordinated announcement.
Risk markets love liquidity injections,
Guest post: Thinking the unfolding — the break-up of monetary union
Many in the market are now thinking through the consequences of any one country (or all 17 member states) changing currencies on departing the euro. Gilles Thieffry, a Partner at GTLaw, Geneva, has perhaps been thinking it through earlier than most.
The ETF wash rule
FT.com reporter Jason Abbruzzese submits this guest post for FT Alphaville.
They say nothing in life is certain apart from death and taxes. But, as it turns out, if you’re trading exchange traded funds the latter is becoming increasingly more questionable.
El-Erian: A disappointing G20 communiqué
Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive and co-chief investment officer at PIMCO, responds to the outcome of the G20 Cannes summit.
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With a generally underwhelming communiqué, the G20 has missed an important opportunity to address mounting concerns about the dimming prospects for global growth,
The No Free Deliciousness Principle
Guest post by Emanuel Derman
Foods with equal deliciousness should sell for equal prices per ounce.
Who can argue with this? Not homo economicus. It seems completely reasonable: if that weren’t the case,
What baseball can tell us about financial crises
FT.com reporter Jason Abbruzzese submits this guest post for FT Alphaville.
Yogi Berra, 1973:
“It’s not over til it’s over.”
Timothy Geithner, 2006:
“In the financial system we have today,
Leveraged ETFs: not for retail investors
FT.com reporter Jason Abbruzzese submits this guest post for FT Alphaville.
These things always seem to start with the best intentions.
Leveraged ETFs are becoming an industry whipping boy,
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.
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Understandably,
Guest post: Four fiscal deals—would any matter?
By David Gordon, Sean West and Helen Fessenden of Eurasia Group. The views expressed are strictly their own.
With all eyes on the Gang of Six, naïve hopes of a deficit deal are blossoming in Washington.
El-Erian: Implications for global markets of Bin Laden’s death
Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive and co-chief investment officer at investment fund PIMCO responds to Sunday’s news that Osama bin Laden, was killed near the Pakistani capital of Islamabad following a “targeted operation” by US forces.
Guest post: ETFs – what’s the fuss about?
Paul Amery, editor of IndexUniverse.eu, a specialist publication devoted to index-based investing and exchange-traded funds, considers the recent assault on the market.
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Last week’s three-pronged attack from the super-regulators of the world’s financial system — the G20 Financial Stability Board (FSB),
El-Erian: A warning for the US, and for the global economy
Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive and co-chief investment officer at PIMCO, responds to Standard & Poor’s latest action on US debt.
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S&P reaffirmed this morning the AAA rating of the US but,
[FOW Amsterdam] How to make a dividend sandwich
By Theo Casey, a columnist at Futures & Options World, blogging on the back of FOW’s European Equity Options conference in Amsterdam.
It’s been fun, Alphaville. The sun has set on our Dutch adventure.
[FOW Amsterdam] When life gives you lemons trade agriculture commodities
By Theo Casey, a columnist at Futures & Options World, blogging on the back of FOW’s European Equity Options conference in Amsterdam.
The 2008/09 global interest rate dunk hit structured products hard.
[FOW Amsterdam] The Bernanke 1×2 Call Spread
By Theo Casey, a columnist at Futures & Options World, blogging live from FOW’s European Equity Options conference in Amsterdam.
Presenting the best trading idea of the conference…
The Bernanke put,
Guest post: Wanted – a new carbon sheriff
Last month Europe’s carbon trading industry was rocked by a series of cyber thefts — including the stealing of €10m worth of European Union emissions allowances (EUAs), which took place in Prague. Daniel Butler,
Guest post: Quanto-fied, a sovereign CDS tale
Markit credit analyst Lisa Pollack discusses the evolution of the sovereign CDS market, and the growing importance of the ‘Quanto spread’ in eurozone CDS.
Are these the same credits I used to know?
Sovereign CDS have had a long history in the credit derivatives markets.
Guest post: Why part of the CDS market is stuck in time
Markit credit analyst Lisa Pollack investigates why 2007 is still haunting a number of CDS index products when it comes to off-the-run volumes.
According to ISDA, there were $62,000bn of credit default swaps (CDS) at the end of 2007. What exactly is this number though? First,
Guest post: Speaking volumes with credit indices
Markit credit analyst Lisa Pollack explores what trade volumes might tell us about credit spreads.
Weekly bond purchases by the ECB under the Securities Markets Programme (SMP) have seen a revival of late. Remember this from the December 2 press conference?
“Question:
[Wilmot's PMI tour] Postscript
Credit Suisse’s economists publish an excellent Global PMI chartbook, with details of all the different components, that is easy on the eye and highly informative.
It should be out later today. [here it is - ed.] But for me,
[Wilmot's PMI tour] Alexander Hamilton on Shadow Money and the Euro
Our shadow money analysis relies in part on a belief that government debt can substitute for money in order to meet demand for liquidity.
This is a surprisingly old idea.
In his 1790 Report on Public Credit (source courtesy of George Washington University),
[Wilmot's PMI tour] The new proletariat
Here’s a heretical thought to sign off with.
Some day, and perhaps not in the very far future, robots will become the low cost producers in global manufacturing. Displacing and replacing a high percentage of human workers,
[Wilmot's PMI tour] Sovereign risk – beyond the numbers
Last April we attempted to grade sovereign sustainability risks across the major economies.
No surprise the laggards were (starting from worst) Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain.
After those four,
[Wilmot's PMI tour] Lest we forget
Here is the final heat map for November 2008.
And the final heat map for 2010.
Global warming!
[Wilmot's PMI tour] Shadow money and inflation
Two years on from Lehman’s spectacular demise, global investors’ expectations for future US inflation are – still – all over the map, or at least fabulously fat-tailed.
Some fear runaway inflation;
[Wilmot's PMI tour] That will do nicely
So that’s it: US ISM new orders are out and fell by 2.3 points to 56.6, following last month’s 7.8 point jump.
We were expecting a 1.5 point drop, the most typical outcome after huge jumps. So that’s marginally weaker than we expected.