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’The NBBO flutter
Oh the weird and wonderful charts of Nanex.
Here’s the latest one from the market data analytics firm (click to enlarge):
In Nanex’s opinion this is one of their most amazing and clear images yet.
Marc Faber on why equities are better than ‘safe assets’
Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom, Boom and Doom report, tells Bloomberg TV on Friday (our emphasis):
I wouldn’t say they are particularly attractive but, look, I am in Switzerland at the moment. The 10 Year government bond yields is 0.7% and you can buy quality companies and they have a dividend yield of maybe 3%.
Essar fail
Essar Energy shares trade in London at 108p. It’s down as much as 37 per cent on the day, making it a contender for the worst FTSE 100-eligible flotation ever.
(At pixel time.)
Essar Energy stepped straight into the FTSE 100 after floating in May 2010 at 420p (and had to cut its original price at the time).
Everything’s not lost in a lost decade
The dreaded lost decade that is staring the developed world in the face might not be so bad after all. At least according to Citigroup’s glass-half-full equity strategy team.
Lost decades, defined as 10-year periods of painfully slow growth (circa 1 per cent per annum), are always painful for the wider economy but they need not be for equity investors.
Indie v sell-side research and a UniCredit spam alert
Turn on your spam filters. UniCredit is on fire:
This email torrent was prompted by the bank’s decision to merge its loss-making western European equity-research unit with new partners Kepler Capital Markets (a French brokerage and independent provider of equity research).
Long EM, short G10: FX hedge edition
Tin hats at the ready. If the eurozone trouble deepens, emerging market equities could once again overshoot fair value in a wave of deleveraging.
So it’s time to put a value on them hedges…
Let’s look at FX plays for now.
A tale of two stock markets
US equities could be in line for a secular bull market as soon as next year, but European stocks should be handled with care.
That is a synopsis of the latest thinking from Citi. For more details read on:
And the G20 total returns winner is…
Something to take G20 Cannes delegates’ minds off Greece…
How’s this for evidence that the emerging markets growth story is overblown? Of all the G20 countries, the US would have given you the greatest equity returns over the past year,
The Papandreou plunge
Ten- and 30-year US Treasuries yield below two and three per cent, respectively…
The German 10-year now under 1.8 per cent…
And the Italian 10-year now trades below 90 cents on the euro with a 6.3 per cent yield.
Through the looking glass, (another) markets edition
Several commentators have in recent days drawn attention to the extremely overbought market.
Cullen Roche at Pragmatic Capitalism, for example, notes that 95 per cent of the S&P 500 is trading above its 50-day moving average.
A historian’s view of the UK stock market
FT Alphaville has a soft spot for historians.
Not only because of their services to tweed and elbow patches, but also because they offer refreshingly long-term views (a welcome change from the short-termism of many market commentators).
Cheap China
China is cheap — at least on a price-to-book basis.
At 1.58x the P/BV of the MSCI China is still below the 2008/09 lows of 1.64x. At this level China is among the cheapest countries in the MSCI universe (Russia and Hungary are the cheapest) .
The 15:00, 15:50 and 15:59 effect
Anyone following the markets will know that end-of-day volatility has been a problem since at least the 2008 crisis.
Despite that, it’s only in the last month that mainstream pundits have begun to look more closely at the issue,
Time to revisit/rethink EM equities?
Investors are making tentative steps back to emerging market equities.
Last week EM equity funds reported positive flows, on aggregate, for the first time in three months — fund flow data from EPFR Global showed a net inflow of $667m for the week to Wednesday October 19.
Fund management woe – redux
Another grim update from UK fund management sector. This one’s from Ashmore.
The emerging markets specialist, which recently joined the FTSE 100, has revealed a big fall in assets under management and a Paulsonesque performance from its recently acquired equities business.
UBS trade execution(s)
RTRS-UBS SAYS LEADERSHIP CHANGE IN UBS INVESTMENT BANK’S GLOBAL EQUITIES BUSINESS
RTRS-UBS SAYS FRANCOIS GOUWS, YASSINE BOUHARA, CO-HEADS OF GLOBAL EQUITIES, RESIGNED FOLLOWING RECENT UNAUTHORIZED TRADING
The Buffett bottom
Maybe “looking on as your shares break under $100,000″ is the new “having an idea in the bath”…
Berkshire Hathaway Authorizes Repurchase Program
OMAHA, Neb.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Your new safe havens are in Japan
And that would be not for currency, but property and equities.
If the low yields of Treasuries and Bunds are becoming too tedious for words, take a look at this in the FT:
Industry officials say US investment funds managed by large groups including Blackstone and Fortress Investment,
Eurofright
OK, volumes are seriously low and it’s Labor Day in the States. On the other hand…
Banks bore the brunt at pixel time with the Italian banks again suspended for excessive volatility. Anyone remember
Beware of low-flying bund yields
Did you know? 10-year bund yields just fell to a record low of 2 per cent. As the below chart from German financial consultant Achim Duebel points out — it’s very much a changed trading world:
Eurozone wars, or vigilante vs vigilante
Bond vigilantes — per James Carville — are intimidating things.
And no more so than in Europe. Rising bond yields in the region have managed to force austerity onto places like Greece, and are currently testing political will in Italy.
Phew…
The Dow Jones is back in positive territory for the year, after rising to about 11,669 at pixel time on Wednesday morning, according to Bloomberg. It closed around 11,577 at the end of last year.
“Dangerously close to recession” — earnings edition
Or, earnings recession risk, and still not getting it in equities.
Interesting spot from Morgan Stanley’s European equities analysts, following the bank’s major downgrade of global growth forecasts and its belief that Europe in particular is “dangerously close”
Staring recession in the face
The 6 per cent Kospi drop overnight was a warning…
And a look via Reuters at Europe’s biggest fallers at pixel time shows plenty of blue-chips getting smashed. Financials were bearing the brunt too with Italian banks suspended limit down this morning already.
The Tobin tax lives on – part two
Yesterday the Merkozy plan for a Financial Transaction Tax caused some hefty damage for London-listed exchanges and brokers.
Not a surprise really. The analysts at Adam Smith Institute were hopping mad on Thursday:
The price of JGB-isation
Japanese history lesson by Citi rates strategist Mark Schofield — probably you can guess the subject:
It is tough to just look at the price action in Japan as the policy process was so long and drawn out.
Stock market Richter scale
In the natural world a magnitude 9.0 earthquake equals widespread devastation.
If you equate standard deviations with the Richter scale, it looks like in 2008 we experienced something in the region of a 9.2 event.
Insiders are buying at fastest pace since May 2008
Everyone is selling and yet insiders have stopped offloading their equities and have begun buying instead. Buying at the fastest pace since May 2008, no less.
According to Trimtabs, an investment research firm,