Posts tagged 'OMT'

Kafka at the ECB

David joined the FT in 2011 as a Marjorie Deane fellow. He covered emerging markets, equities and currencies before making the jump over to FT Alphaville in May 2012.

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| Mar 08 12:41 | Comment |

M. found himself waiting for Draghi surrounded by fellow journalists. He passed on a short piece of the conversation (we’ve protected the imaginary sources, naturally):

But we do often speak about the OMT, which I’ve never seen; you know D. doesn’t like me and never let me look at it, still its appearance is well known in the ECB, some people have seen it, everybody has heard of it, and out of glimpses and rumours and through various distorting factors an image of the OMT has been constructed which is certainly true in fundamentals. But only in fundamentals. In detail it fluctuates, and yet perhaps not so much as the OMT’s reality.

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ECB transparency, €100bn of Italian bonds edition

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Feb 21 15:00 | Comment |

Click to enlarge — details (finally) of the sovereign bonds held by the European Central Bank’s inactive Securities Markets Programme, released on Thursday: Read more

European bank debt is attractive again (but not *that* attractive)

Kate is FT AV’s Asia Correspondent. She joined FT Alphaville in mid-2011 after carrying out various roles in the FT’s London office since 2005: interactive editor, companies reporter, and founding editor of the FT’s Energy Source blog.

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| Nov 28 2012 11:57 | Comment |

Things have gotten so good recently for European banks that the idea of them repaying their LTRO cash early is getting more attention as the first date at which they can do so — January 2013 — creeps up. And there’s certainly more bank debt being issued, even by the peripherals:

Peripheral bank debt issuance since January 2012 - FT/Datastream/Thomson Reuters Read more

Is Rajoy considering an IMF-only bail-out?

Masa joined the FT in 2009 and has worked on a number of desks across the paper, including Companies, Markets and Comment. She spent much of 2010 in New York covering the US equity markets. But earlier this year she finally saw the light and moved to Alphaville.

She started her career in the investment banking division at Lehman Brothers in the summer of 2007, timing it perfectly with the beginning of the credit crunch.

She studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University.

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| Nov 15 2012 14:05 | Comment |

A report in the Spanish paper El Confidencial says that the Spanish government is considering asking just the IMF for aid in an attempt to bypass Eurogroup conditionality.

It seems quite an unlikely option (and no sources are cited) but it may nevertheless be an indication that the government is feeling increasingly anxious about its ability to hold out on asking for a bailout. Read more

Spain’s fantastical deficit forecasts

Masa joined the FT in 2009 and has worked on a number of desks across the paper, including Companies, Markets and Comment. She spent much of 2010 in New York covering the US equity markets. But earlier this year she finally saw the light and moved to Alphaville.

She started her career in the investment banking division at Lehman Brothers in the summer of 2007, timing it perfectly with the beginning of the credit crunch.

She studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University.

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| Nov 08 2012 17:53 | Comment |

Spain’s fiscal management seems to increasingly be a case of plugging holes, watching new ones appear, ignoring them, then relenting and also plugging those… all while delaying a clearly inevitable request for assistance from Brussels.

On the positive side, the auction on Thursday marked the completion of the country’s planned funding for this year (€86bn, but there’s also €10bn in private placements issuance). On the negative side, the €4.7bn debt sale saw unenthusiastic demand, which has helped spook investors and driven 10-yr yields up. Read more

Spain’s funding problems are over

Masa joined the FT in 2009 and has worked on a number of desks across the paper, including Companies, Markets and Comment. She spent much of 2010 in New York covering the US equity markets. But earlier this year she finally saw the light and moved to Alphaville.

She started her career in the investment banking division at Lehman Brothers in the summer of 2007, timing it perfectly with the beginning of the credit crunch.

She studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University.

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| Oct 25 2012 16:02 | Comment |

Eurozone officialdom routinely sees the eurozone itself through a rose-tinted lens.

Just listen to Francois Hollande, or any number of Spanish officials, such as Inigo Fernandez de Mesa, the country’s Treasury minister, who was talking to Reuters on Wednesday (emphasis ours):

“As we speak, my funding needs for this year are almost covered, at 95 percent, and my intention is to start funding the Treasury for next year so that we can start the year with our homework done,” said Fernandez de Mesa, who reports to Economy Minister Luis de Guindos.

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Foreign buyers and the OMT

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Oct 19 2012 19:08 | Comment |

Compare:

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Spanish bonds are feeling positively Moody

David joined the FT in 2011 as a Marjorie Deane fellow. He covered emerging markets, equities and currencies before making the jump over to FT Alphaville in May 2012.

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| Oct 17 2012 08:23 | Comment |

That’s Spain’s 10yr spread over German Bunds dropping below 400 points for the first time since the start of April:

Spanish 10yr fell to 5.547 with Bunds touching 1.5864.

Probably something to do with Moody’s qualified endorsement: Read more

Tantalising glimpses that Spain might be ready to jump through well-positioned hoop

Lisa joined FT Alphaville in September 2011 after a tour of duty through the guts of the financial industry, having worked as an analyst at a bank and for a financial data company. She's now the Head of New Projects for FT.com.

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| Oct 16 2012 08:58 | Comment |

This, for Draghi’s (and everyone else’s) eyes only, from Tuesday’s FT:

A senior official within the Spanish ministry of economy said Spain did not require any money from the European Stability Mechanism, the eurozone’s state rescue fund, but would be comfortable making a request for a credit line only in order to satisfy the conditions of the ECB to begin buying bonds.

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OMT is so 2013

David joined the FT in 2011 as a Marjorie Deane fellow. He covered emerging markets, equities and currencies before making the jump over to FT Alphaville in May 2012.

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| Oct 10 2012 14:54 | Comment |

That call might not come this side of New Year.

The market has been waiting for Spain to request its very own Enhanced Conditions Credit Line for quite a while now. It’s the road to OMT. And for a (very) little while just last week while it appeared we were only a weekend away.

But it’s now looking increasingly like we are not gonna get to see any OMT buying at all in 2012. Sad. Read more

A German sloowww doowwwnnnn

David joined the FT in 2011 as a Marjorie Deane fellow. He covered emerging markets, equities and currencies before making the jump over to FT Alphaville in May 2012.

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| Oct 04 2012 12:37 | Comment |

If you think Germany’s response to the crisis has been less than lightning swift so far…

JP Morgan’s Alex White argues that the German policy motor may be about to properly slow down, and with it the response to the eurozone crisis which usually moves at Germany’s speed: Read more

Buiter on good news, bad news

David joined the FT in 2011 as a Marjorie Deane fellow. He covered emerging markets, equities and currencies before making the jump over to FT Alphaville in May 2012.

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| Sep 24 2012 13:39 | Comment |

Citi’s Willem Buiter has gone all good idea/bad idea on us.

= the introduction of the ECB’s Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) facility, the decision of the German Constitutional Court to allow German participation in the ESM with small additional conditions, and the strong performance of centrist, pro-European parties in the Dutch election. Read more

Faust and the German aversion to debt

Kate is FT AV’s Asia Correspondent. She joined FT Alphaville in mid-2011 after carrying out various roles in the FT’s London office since 2005: interactive editor, companies reporter, and founding editor of the FT’s Energy Source blog.

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| Sep 19 2012 09:23 | Comment |

Poor Jens Weidmann.

After weeks of macro-economic sniping following his isolation at the European Central Bank over its new bond-buying policy, Jens Weidmann on Tuesday resorted to Goethe’s Faust to make his point. The classic play highlighted, he argued, “the core problem of today’s paper money-based monetary policy” and the “potentially dangerous correlation of paper money creation, state financing and inflation”. Read more

The OMT and ‘limits’

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Sep 18 2012 17:03 | Comment |

Well, this is good news… Reuters have corrected their copy on what had sounded like confusing remarks made on Monday by Luc Coene, Belgian central bank governor, about the maturities of the debt the OMT will buy. (It had certainly confused us, in an earlier version of this post – sorry.)

He also said parts of the new programme’s design meant there were built-in limits to how much it could spend. Read more

The OMT, and the plumbing

David joined the FT in 2011 as a Marjorie Deane fellow. He covered emerging markets, equities and currencies before making the jump over to FT Alphaville in May 2012.

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| Sep 13 2012 16:02 | Comment |

Charts on a certain broken transmission mechanism are popping up everywhere.

First, a chart from Exotix — ECB data from March show that 42 per cent of small businesses in Greece couldn’t get the loans they asked for: Read more

Volatility and the OMT

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Sep 11 2012 16:50 | Comment |

How much longer does this go on?

Spanish 2-year bond yields at 2.9 per cent – down from 6.6 per cent when we first said there was something to what Draghi was saying about convertibility risk. The Italian 2-year’s at 2.3 per cent. Longer-maturity debt has also rallied, despite falling outside the remit of the European Central Bank’s OMT purchases. Read more

Sterlisation (or not) in Brazil

David joined the FT in 2011 as a Marjorie Deane fellow. He covered emerging markets, equities and currencies before making the jump over to FT Alphaville in May 2012.

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| Sep 10 2012 19:40 | Comment |

As the ECB’s OMT threatens to maybe start, Jonathan Wheatley over at the FT’s beyondbrics has picked up on an interesting case of sterilisation going awry.

From Wheatley: Read more

Seniority, the SMP, and the OMT

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Sep 06 2012 17:39 | Comment |

“Was today the day that the Portuguese PSI began?,” Macro Man asks, of the OMT.

They’re noting something curious about ECB seniority in light of Thursday’s revelations about the OMT. The ‘technical features’ confirm that the OMT will receive equal treatment with ordinary bondholders if a eurozone sovereign restructures its debt. But, in the Q&A, Draghi also confirmed that the old SMP bond holdings will remain senior. It will be first in the queue, ahead of bondholders and the OMT. Read more

OMT!

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Sep 06 2012 14:03 | Comment |

Here are the full ‘technical features’, which Mario Draghi read out at Thursday’s press conference. Three big things stick out:

- The ECB will apparently make a ‘legal act’ to confirm that its bond holdings under “Outright Monetary Transactions” are pari passu, not senior. Legislation signals a welcome precommitment, but a nasty fudge here: 200 billion euros of bonds held under the SMP (which programme has now been terminated) will not come under the pari passu rule. Read more