Archive for October, 2008

Morning Miscellany

Friday, October 10th, 2008

Swap spreads are no longer stable as they were earlier. Two year spreads are wider by 9 basis points and 5 year spreads are wider by 4 ¼ basis points. Ten year spreads are out 4 ½ basis points and 30 year spreads are tighter by 2 ½ basis points.As ...

More Thoughts on Treasury Market Weakness

Friday, October 10th, 2008

In my opening comments this morning I launched into a diatribe which suggested that the preeminent position of the Treasury bond market was about to fade away. I have spoken with friends and read some emails which I receive from the street and that exercise leads to a different but plausible ...

MBS

Friday, October 10th, 2008

Mortgages got smoked this morning as mutual funds and money managers engaged in what one dealer described as "panic selling".   At one point mortgages had underperformed swaps by nearly a point. There seems to be some stability and improvement now but it would not be difficult to engender another sell ...

IG 11

Friday, October 10th, 2008

IG 11 gapping wider and is now 225/233.

Corporate Bonds

Friday, October 10th, 2008

The IG 11 is north of 200 and a recent quote was real but very wide at 201/211.  I do not recall where it closed yesterday but I believe it opened 24 hours ago at 176 1/2. The IBM 10 year which I wrote about yesterday is underwater. It is 400/395. ...

Opening Comments October 10 2008

Friday, October 10th, 2008

Prices of Treasury securities are registering mixed changes in overnight trading. "Mixed changes" in this environment is somewhat puzzling and even a bit troublesome. The US market has always represented the ultimate safe haven venue yet this morning according to my screen at about 700AM New York time the yield on ...

Libor Opening

Friday, October 10th, 2008

   *OVERNIGHT STERLING LIBOR RISES 39 BASIS POINTS TO 5.81%     *LIBOR-OIS SPREAD WIDENS 11 BASIS POINTS TO 365 BASIS POINTS         *THREE-MONTH DOLLAR LIBOR 4.82% VERSUS 4.75%,                                    BBA SAYS*OVERNIGHT DOLLAR LIBOR ...

Jargon

Thursday, October 9th, 2008

Traffic on this blog has exploded over the past month. I welcome all of the new readers and thank those who have loyally visited since I began in January.With the new readership I have experienced an increase in complaints about my use of jargon. I use the jargon because I ...

Libor Tomorrow

Thursday, October 9th, 2008

Libor for tomorrow has recently traded at levels which imply an opening around the 4.75 percent level which is where it was set today.  My money market source thinks that the severity of the equity crash as well as the general credit instability will result in a Libor setting above 5 ...

Addenda

Thursday, October 9th, 2008

In my closing comments I began by saying that prices of Treasury securities had plummeted. That was true at the outset but not at the finish. The yield on the 2 year note declined 2 basis points to 1.53 percent. The yield on the 5 year note climbed 4 basis ...