Archive for February, 2008

Agency Market Close

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

 Agency spreads tightened by 2 basis points to 3 basis points today as the still ebullient stock market fostered a mindset that risky assets at least for today are not as toxic as they had seemed quite recently. There is still some concern regarding the earnings of Freddie and Fannie ...

Another Update

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

 Treasury traders report some real money buying in the belly of the curve on dips as well as flows emmanating from the deep dark mysterious machinations of syndicate desk managers pricing new deals.

Lack of Confidence

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

 Consumer Confidence plummeted to 75 from a revised 87.9 The consensus forecast called for 82. The present situation component tumbled to 100.6 and expectations dropped to 57.6 from 69.3. Bloomberg notes that the expectation component has not been this low since the beginning of the Gulf War in January 1991.

Midday February 26 2008

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

 In the world of corporate bonds there is some issuance activity today and as I look it seems to be growing. It is a smorgasbord of industrial and financial names thus far with Suntrust, Fifth Third (which is my favorite bank name) McDonalds and Honeywell leading the list. Spreads are ...

Home Prices

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

 The Case Shiller Index declined 9.1 percent YoY in December following on the heels of a 7.7 percent decline in November. All 20 cities in the index posted declines. As an indication of the extent and speed with which the former bubble is bursting I note the 3month annualized rate ...

PPI

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

 The Commerce Department released the monthly PPI data and it was not pretty. In fact one could argue that it was lugubrious. Here are the details. Headline PPI jumped 1.0 percent in January (consensus 0.4) and posted a Jimmy Carteresque Y0Y gain of 7.4 percent. (The virulent inflation of that ...

Treasury Flows Overnight

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

 Some overnight Treasury details: Vol sellers in the 5year sector. Swap desk selling in 10years. Bank portfolios and hedge funds buying 10years. Portfolio selling in 1 year sector. Swap desk buying in 2years. Asian buyers of agencies.

February 26 2007 Opening Comments

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

 Prices of Treasury coupon securities are posting very small mixed changes in a quiet overnight session. Prices had registered gains,albeit modest ones, earlier in the session but surrendered those gains following the release of the German IFO number which was stronger than expected for the second month in a row.Yields ...

One More News Item: Foreclosures

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

Foreclosures.

Some Overnight News

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

German IFO stronger than expected. Andrew Cuomo discovers that the horse has left the barn and changes the lock. European equity markets pop as financials firm. Growth business. And a shrinking business faces change and transformation.