Archive for March, 2008

Tips Explode

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

The breakeven spreads on 10 year TIPs has exploded this morning and trades at 255 basis points currently. They seem to have come a bit "untethered" this morning. They are wider by about 5 basis points on the day. One dealer with whom I communicated noted that commodities prices are gapping ...

Muni Market Mayhem Made Manifest

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

I think as a way of raising the profile of this blog I should sponsor a public alliteration contest. Against that background I offer an invitation to visit the blog Accrued Interest for a wonderful exegesis of the above mentioned mayhem.

After ISM

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

 The non manufacturing ISM was stronger than expected and that is pushing Treasury yields higher and stock prices higher as well. The ealy gains in pass through MBS have faded as the tighter levels versus Treasuries attracted sellers. The basis is now better by 3 ticks after being 10 tighter ...

Early Activity

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

 In the early going I have spoken to dealers who have seen better selling in the 5 year sector of the Treasury market. Mortgages which received a pummeling of late, have stabilized and are about 8/32 better versus Treasuries. For some unknown reason hot money types have the buy tickets ...

Overnight Flow

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

 Some overnight flows: Bank sellers of 2 year notes outright and versus off the run issues. Central bank interest in the 7 year point on the curve. End users from Asia taking down 5 year notes and plain vanilla MBS.

March 05 2008 Opening Comments (Briefly)

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

 Prices of Treasury coupon securities are posting robust gains in overnight trading. There is no specific story which one can look to as the motivation for the buying. I suspect that some viewed the sharp afternoon sell off in bonds as a buying opportunity as the upcoming data will likely ...

An Interesting Articles From Econbrowser

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

Professor Hamilton from Econbrowser with an interesting and informative look at some recent economic data.

Some Morning Links

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

An article from the WSJ recounting a senior Fed official's admission they they might have gotten a few things wrong in the area of monitoring bank risk taking. Credit Agricole reported  that write down related to the credit crunch cost it nearly $5 billion  in Q4 .  Maybe the striking feature ...

Closing Commentary Mar 04 2008

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

 Prices of Treasury coupon securities have taken a wild course through a volatile and hazardous trading session. The market has traded against a backdrop and fear which I have delineated in earlier posts.What is the proximate cause of the fear and loathing of anything but the most liquid investment vehicles. ...

Weakness in Withholding Taxes

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

Weakness in withholding taxes points to some downside risk to the February labor report due out Friday,according to economists at JPMorgan. Here is their write up sans the chart. Now that the Daily Tax Statement (DTS) data for February is complete, it appears that withheld income and employment taxes—a noisy proxy ...