Archive for February, 2008
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
Life has intervened and I have not been a frequent poster today nor will I be for the rest of the afternoon. I will return to my work station tomorrow morning.
The market remains fixated on the mess in the municipal market. The steepening of the yield curve has taken on ...
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Midday Commentary
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
Initial jobless claims fell to 348K from a revised 357K in the prior week. Claims at this level are indicative of nascent economic weakness and point to another month of paltry job growth. The 4 week moving average continued to climb and is now at 347.25K. It has risen from ...
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Miscellany
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
Prices of Treasury coupon securities are registering mixed results in overseas trading. Those results have marginally reversed the ongoing steepening of the yield curve which made the 2 year note bullet proof and the 10 year note very vulnerable yesterday. In the overnight session the yield on the 2year has ...
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Opening Commets
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
I had a conversation with a friend yesterday and we arrived at the conclusion that the credit crunch has become so severe and financial company balance sheets so impaired that the political class would need to entertain a radical solution. In the 1990s the Federal government established the Resolution Trust ...
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Socialize the Problem
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
UBS will not support its piece of the auction rate securities market.
UBS posts Q4 loss as expected and provides new details of its financial condition.
Happy days are here again for the equity markets.
Upbeat Japan.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Overnight News
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
The subprime debacle has spawned a series of crisis. Here is the latest news:
German bank bailout
FT on muni squeeze
Reuters on the same topic
A CMBS deal needs some very wide spreads to clear.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on More on the “The Crisis”
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
Prices of Treasury coupon securities posted mixed results today in a market in which fear is truly ascendant. The easy way to describe the price movements is to note that if you owned something beyond the 2 year note ,then you had a problem. The 2 year note is closing ...
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Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
Plain vanilla MBS suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune today as the FNMA 5s lagged swaps by 5 basis points. The consistent flow from MBS clients today was the purchase of protection. Servicers were oberved buying high strike payers and low strike receivers of various tenors against 10year ...
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on MBS Addendum
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
I engaged in a long conversation with a former client today about the condition of the MBS market. That market is in disarray and disrepair. There is no liquidity and bonds trade by appointment. If you buying something even slightly esoteric ,one should plan on a long holding period as ...
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
Agency spreads are a basis point wider today in very light trading. An agency trader with whom I spoke for this posting noted that the market is fragile and tenuous and there was an underlying fear in the marketplace. (I believe his reference was to the entire market and not ...
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Agency Recap