Archive for January, 2008

Stocks: Imitating The Moribund Feline?

Monday, January 28th, 2008

Stocks dropped sharply following the release of the Home Sales data. They have since recovered and the S and P  is better by almost 5 points. This is the first time in recent memory that the stock market has chosen to ignore bad news. It will be interesting to see if ...

New Home Sales Plummet

Monday, January 28th, 2008

New homes dales data for December were just released and it is not a pretty picture. Sales dropped to 604K from a revised 634K.  The median and mean sales prices also received healthy batterings. The median sales price dropped 10.4 percent from a year ago to $219.2K from $245.9 K in ...

2 Year Note Auction Today

Monday, January 28th, 2008

Former Goldman Sachs Chairman and current Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson will visit the market to raise $24 billion via the sale of 2 year notes today. This is the largest offering of 2year notes since April 2005. My conversations with market particioants leaves me with the thought that the street ...

Opening Comments Monday January 28,2008

Monday, January 28th, 2008

Prices of Treasury coupon securites have jumped in overnight trading as pervasive global equity market weakness stimulates demand for the safety of Treasury paper.  The Nikkei and the Hang Seng  each fell by about 4 percent and in China shares fell by more than 7 percent.  European equities are posting losses ...

Monday Morning News

Monday, January 28th, 2008

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/58bab83a-c984-11dc-b5dc-000077b07658.html http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/248ee024-cd42-11dc-9b2b-000077b07658.html http://www.ft.com/cms/s/106230b0-cd29-11dc-9b2b-000077b07658.html

History

Sunday, January 27th, 2008

Last week brought the lowest yield ever recorded for a 30 year bond (4.10 percent) in my three decades of observing daily interest rate movements. Similiarly,the yield on the 2 year Treasury slipped below the 2.00 percent level. The last time that issue traded that low in yield was in the ...

Treasury Recap

Friday, January 25th, 2008

Prices of Treasury coupon securites surged today in response to the crack in the equity markets. Fear was ascendant as the market was rife with rumors of hedge funds in trouble and write downs at foreign banks. Benchmark issues rallied in unison and most observed their yields falling by 14 ...

Corporate Bonds

Friday, January 25th, 2008

High grade corporate bonds moved in concert with the gyrations of the stock market. One trader with whom I spoke remarked that the market remains very thin and very illiquid in secondary space. He suggested using the IG9 as a proxy for corporate spreads. In the panic which was Tuesday ...

Agency Market

Friday, January 25th, 2008

The recurring theme in agencies is the volume of paper being called by the agencies as rates stay low. The exercise of the option by the issuer leaves many clients with a gaping hole in their portfolios and a need for replacement paper. One trader with whom I conversed said ...

Poutpourri

Friday, January 25th, 2008

It has been an active day in the mortgage market. There has been a cross section of accounts buying and they have taken FNMA 5s about 4 basis points tighter to the swap curve on the day. Mortgage servicers have been active establishing curve flattening positions via the swap market ...