Helen Thomas
Lex: High-frequency trading
The suspicious thing about financial conspiracy theories is they are all alike….
But it is worth distinguishing between the illegal and the irritating. Frontrunning — or trading ahead of customer orders — is the former.
LEX: Xstrata/Anglo American; kickstarting CMBS
Anglo’s response has been typically grumpy – and it’s not clear that Xstrata can pay enough to win it over.
If overlapping businesses were combined, logistics shared and Anglo’s bloated head office subsumed into Xstrata’s mergers and acquisitions boutique,
Lex: Let bickering commence on US regulatory reform
The 90-page white paper on US regulatory reform has something for everyone – to argue over, that is.
Elsewhere, the white paper wades into classic US schisms – including the separation of banking from commerce (possibly signalling the end of retailers’ store cards,
History made. A short comes clean – but why?
At midday precisely, Elgin Capital confessed:
RNS Number : 1668X
Elgin Capital LLP
20 June 2008
TR-3 : Disclosure of Disclosable Short Position relating to Securities
which are the subject of a rights issue
1.
Capitulation in banking
Merrill has called time on the US regional banks.
Over the past seven weeks, the BKX Bank Index is down 26%, and bank stocks now appear to be in capitulation mode, which means they could trade below fair value in the near-term as 1) emotion,
Call the FSA!
Fundamentals or short-selling skulduggery?
Bradford & Bingley, -6.6%, 67.25p, rights price 55p
HBOS, -3.54%, 286.25p, rights price 275p
RBS, -2%, 220p, rights away (phew)
Barclays, -1.35%, 311.5p,
Icahn: the first reponse
Now be nice, people.
He may not have the snappy prose or the irreverent wit of a seasoned blogger, but then most seasoned bloggers haven’t made billions of dollars (and aren’t constrained by rank upon rank of lawyers).
Market meddling, Chinese style
It must seem so obvious in hindsight. Chinese regulators have been wringing their hands over the plummeting mainland stock market. They’ve delayed approvals for initial public offerings, exerted pressure on domestic fund managers and brokers to buy shares and considered a range of other options to keep the Shanghai Composite Index from hitting their perceived bottom line of 2,000.
Snap news
The latest on Friday,
- Icahn blogs!
- Balfour Beatty is buying German rail engineering group Schreck-Mieves for €36m in cash – statement
- Santander considering buying Dresdner – Reuters story
Credit creep and the monoline monsters
The impact of monoline downgrades on banks’ Q2 numbers is back in focus. Monolines, full stop, are back in focus.
But no sooner had CreditSights done their run down of the prospect for damage among the European banks,
HBOS’ not so resilient performance
The good:
Trading continues to be satisfactory and remains in line with the Group’s expectations.
The quality of our Treasury portfolio remains strong, comprising predominantly AAA rated securities.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Thursday,
- “We started with the Grimm Brothers’ famous fairy tale, Little Snow-White, and morphed it into a modern academic context. Thus, we dispensed with the nasty and wicked Queen,
Mishaps in valuation, MS edition
Morgan Stanley: EPS of 95 cents, vaguely in line with expectations – at least, at headline level.
Boring, say some.
Net revenues in fixed income sales and trading down 85 per cent to $414m. Loss in credit products after “continued dislocation”
Markets live transcript 18 Jun 2008
Markets live chat transcript for the chat ending at 12:07 on 18 Jun 2008. Participants in this chat were: Helen Thomas (HT) Neil Hume (NH) HT:Hello HT:and welcome to Markets Live
Another measure of housing misery
For Countrywide Financial. Or Bank of America, as it is due to become. Michelle Leder points to this site, which tracks foreclosures at Countrywide and the prices at which they’re on offer.
Her comment:
The FSA’s short form
So that’s what all the fuss is about. The form. TR-3.
Someone’s been pretty busy with the table function in Word. Shame they didn’t turn off the spell check for appearances’ sake.
For those left unappeased by the regulator’s list of FAQs,
Further reading
Elsewhere on Wednesday,
- Live-blogging Goldman.
- “Beer is many things, but it is not, unfortunately, a matter of national security.”
- “They call him The Fourth.”
- Will “regulators will let MBIA,
Snap News
The latest on Wednesday,
- Sanofi-Aventis is making a $2.57bn counterbid for Czech drugs maker Zentiva – statement, Reuters
- Dreamworks is close to a deal with Reliance ADA Group to form a new movie venture - WSJ
- Sainsbury expects the environment will remain challenging – statement
- While Woolworths remains “cautious”
Ramping up the risk at Goldman
Goldman outshines its peers yet again. But that lustre comes with some serious elbow grease.
Leaving aside the $500m mystery loss on hedges, the bank is swallowing ever-greater levels of risk to maintain its untarnished facade.
Lunch Wrap
On FT Alphaville this morning,
- In defence of shorting, or lending.
- More zombie-securitisation
- The Bank brings back letter writing.
- Inflation, the FSA and the media, in Markets Live.
Letter writing to make a come-back
Hardly a win for traditionalists.
…each monthly rise in food, energy and import prices will, by pushing up the overall price level, affect the official twelve-month measure of inflation for a year.
Stop Trichet! An inflationary round-up
Inflation is the theme du jour.
There’s the debate in the US, where Robert Novak in the Washington Post has posited that speculation that the Fed is poised to embark on inflation-fighting rate rises is misplaced.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Tuesday,
- The Bear Stearns graphic novel (via Blogging Stocks)
- Live-blogging Lehman.
- “That fallout from the housing bubble is just beginning to hit its stride in terms of mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures.”
[Bud & Becks] What price a bear hug?
Affection can be costly. The InBev approach to Anheuser-Busch, after being rudely rumbled in late May, is ticking along.
The intention was to send a “private letter” to the US icon, and to follow up with a stronger letter to the board should (as expected) the response be lacking in enthusiasm.
Lunch Wrap
On FT Alphaville this morning,
- Now talk us through that again – The Barclays saga.
- And what think the Asian SWFs?
- Was ‘originate and distribute’ all just a juggling act?
- Barcap spin in Markets Live.
BlueBay on a half-full basis
No surprise really that a specialist credit fund manager is having problems (especially as NAVs are published weekly on the website).
Performance fees at BlueBay, the asset management group which listed in November 2006,
Further reading
Elsewhere on Monday,
- “No one should fear sovereign wealth funds — quite the opposite,” says… Barclays.
- “One evening last autumn a group of about 10 artist managers, including representatives for the pop stars Kylie Minogue and Robbie Williams as well as an executive who oversees the Beatles catalog,
Markets live transcript 13 Jun 2008
Markets live chat transcript for the chat ending at 12:00 on 13 Jun 2008. Participants in this chat were: Helen Thomas (HT) Neil Hume (NH) HT:Morning all HT:Mr Murphy is still in Norway – so I’m in the chair
Asymmetric shorts
Not a fashion trend for summer. A response to the FSA’s Friday edict on short-selling and transparency.
Why, if the requirement for disclosure on the long side is set at 3 per cent, has the FSA opted to place the threshold at which at short-seller is obliged to disclose their interest at a measly 0.25 per cent of shares in issue?
Or put another way,
Cleaning up the shorts, FSA-style
An FSA response to dastardly short-sellers, or bank robbers as they’re known in some quarters, has arrived. The trouble is that the HBOS/bank robber incident happened before the bank, and some of its peers,