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’Those haircut-heavy credit claims [updated with more haircuts]
Update — apologies for a rather disorganised (and long) post… but we’ve finally gained information from all seven eurozone central banks who’ll accept additional credit claims under the ECB’s new rules…
Ireland returns to the bond market [updated]
Some extra blurb:
IRELAND ANNOUNCES BOND SWITCH
The National Treasury Management Agency will announce switch terms from 4% Treasury Bond 2014 to a new 18 February 2015 bond. The announcement of terms will take place at 14.00 GMT today,
That’s not a bazooka…
*This* is a bazooka.
Not a €2,000bn bazooka… a €5,000bn bazooka to repair the eurozone, according to Peter Boone and Simon Johnson, writing for the Peterson Institute where they are both fellows.
Looking at the eurozone through a NIIP prism
Whichever way you look at it, the eurozone crisis is ugly.
But looking at the overall indebtedness of peripheral economies instead of focusing solely on their public sector debt offers an interesting perspective on the problem,
Sprechen Sie Deutsch?
Friday’s quote du jour comes from German paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and its interview with Irish prime minister Enda Kenny.
First question – “Mr Irish prime minister, do you speak German?”
Dicing with debt, EFSF edition
If the thing set up to borrow for the eurozone can’t borrow then the eurozone is screwed.
That was the lament from the market when the EFSF decided to postpone on Wednesday its ‘no-grow’ €3bn 10 year deal to finance Ireland’s next bailout loan tranche due November 11,
RBS – encouraging results?
Revenues below consensus, expenses higher than consensus, impairments significantly below consensus. Result: figures that please the market.
Well, that how we’re reading Friday’s third quarter results from state-controlled RBS:
The EFSF’s funding funk
Casualty of “market conditions” on Wednesday – the EFSF’s latest bond issue.
The EFSF had mandated Barclays Capital, Credit Agricole and JP Morgan on Monday to price off a ‘no-grow’ €3bn 10 year deal to finance Ireland’s next bailout loan tranche,
Greek lessons from John Major, Latvia and Ireland
So, bondholders (if they “agree”) will give Greece more of a fighting chance to tackle its debt burden. But Greece will also have to pull its own weight.
Without its own currency, what is the best course of action? John Major,
Negative pledge — a periphery tour
Further to recent events in Greek foreign-law bonds and Finnish demands for collateral…
Portugal (€5bn Euro Medium Term note programme):
Italy (Medium Term Note programme):
Spain’s more complicated:
Czech these periphery write-downs out
Only in a stress test, but still…
From the Czech central bank’s August stress-testing of its banks, published on Monday:
The Recession stress scenario assumes a drop in economic activity as a result of a renewed recession in the Czech Republic’s main trading partner countries,
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Monday,
- Vodafone confirms in talks with Wind Hellas on possible business combination — statement.
- Gazprom posts RUB 1,317bn revenues in first quarter — statement.
Scraping the bond-buying barrel
We almost feel embarrassed for the European Central Bank. Almost. Its reputation for applying constructive ambiguity in the service of deploying immense firepower is under severe pressure anyway.
A short time ago,
That eurozone summit draft — annotated
Via the Telegraph — a complete, but draft, statement from the euro summit being held on Thursday. Seems an official version is still long off but this is well worth filleting in the meantime. Update — PDF copy via the FT here as well.
Inside Ireland’s secret liquidity
A tidy scoop from RTE, who’ve uncovered key Irish government documents setting up Emergency Liquidity Assistance to banks:
…Mostly.
But it’s largely all there, focused on the critical period leading up to and after Ireland’s bailout,
Moody’s downgrades Ireland to Ba1 from Baa3
As goes Portugal, so goes Ireland, which is now in junk territory.
The ratings agency cites implementation risks to Ireland’s austerity programme but the main reason — like with its 6 July Portugal downgrade — is the presumed involvement of private creditors as a precondition to a second bailout.
No, the ECB can’t prop up Italy
We won’t know if it really did happen, not until next week’s figures on Securities Markets Programme purchases. (Current total: €74bn)
But since there was plenty of rumour on Tuesday that the European Central Bank (via the Bank of Italy) intervened to buy Italian bonds from a terrified secondary market,
The same crisis, again and again
Here’s a great collection of charts from Société Générale on Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and the short-term treadmill that binds them all (click to enlarge):
No sooner had the Greek parliament said yes to the Medium-Term Fiscal Strategy (MTFS),
The face of Ireland’s new bank
Yes, Anglo Irish and Irish Nationwide have been stitched together to make… the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation. It will take about a decade to ‘resolve’ them.
Although we’re sure readers can think of a better name.
That was the Irish housing boom that was
A big hat-tip to Lorcan for this — the Irish 2011 census, which includes a nice chart of increases in housing stock, 2006-2011:
Over the period, Ireland’s housing stock expanded by 13.3 per cent,
Another Danish bank falls into a fjord of failure
Finansiel Stabilitet har indgået overdragelsesaftale med Fjordbank Mors A/S
Som det fremgår af Selskabsmeddelelse nr. 12 af d.d. fra Fjordbank Mors A/S, har banken indgået aftale om, at bankens aktiver og en del af passiverne overføres til en ny bank under Finansiel Stabilitet A/S.
IMF to Europe: could you try TAF please?
In this context, it will be essential to bring the unproductive debate about debt re-profiling or restructuring to closure quickly.
We were so distracted by the IMF’s pragmatic controversial application of the word ‘unproductive’ in its Article IV consultation on the eurozone…
Shouting Greek rollover, whispering Brady bonds
In which FT Alphaville once again asks, what kind of fiscal transfer does Europe really want for Greece?
Since some way or other, a transfer it will have to be.
Monday’s answer from the Eurogroup sidestepped the issue,
The lesser-spotted variegated burdensharing for senior bondholders
So Ireland has been busy threatening to throw senior bank debt investors under a bus. Again.
Earlier this week, Irish finance minister Michael Noonan announced plans to force “substantial” burdensharing for investors in the senior debt of Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide .
The debt dark side
Picturesque reflection du jour on Thursday’s twin threats to Greek debt and European senior unsecured bank bonds, courtesy of an IFR analyst:
Quite.
UPDATED: Going off the bailout script, Greek-Irish style
[UPDATE: Courtesy of Reuters, Papandreou has announced in a recorded statement that he will reshuffle his cabinet and request from Parliament a vote of confidence for his new government. Journalist Matina Stevis is also reporting that finance minister Giorgos Papaconstantinou could be replaced in the reshuffle and that the vote will take place Sunday at 2200 BST.]
Or,