Archive for December, 2013

December 10 2013 Opening

Tuesday, December 10th, 2013

Prices of Treasury coupon securities have edged lower in overnight trading. As I pen this electronic missive the yield on the benchmark 10 year note rests at 2.822. That is a decline in yield of 1.5 basis points. At that level the 10 year note has recouped all of the ...

Luca Brasi Reference

Monday, December 9th, 2013

Earlier I wrote a post with the title "Number Series and a Bow to Luca Brasi". Why Luca Brasi? Well in the opening scene of the first Godfather movie we find Don Corleone on the occasion of his daughter's wedding handing out favors to various supplicants.Luca Brasi was the Don's ...

More Volcker Rule

Monday, December 9th, 2013

In this piece from the FT Barney Frank exalts in the death of the filibuster in the Senate. Frank thinks challenges to Dodd Frank will fail as they wend their way through the judicial system because the overturning of the filibuster will pack the Court with liberal progressive types. (I ...

Finalizing Volcker Rule

Monday, December 9th, 2013

Via the WSJ: Dec. 9, 2013 4:48 p.m. ET *Volcker Rule Will Bar Compensation Arrangements That Reward Proprietary Trading, Rule Text Says *Rule Will Exempt Foreign Sovereign Debt From Proprietary Trading Ban, According To Rule Text Reviewed By Wall Street Journal *Volcker Rule Will Apply To Foreign Banks With Operation In U.S. *Market Making Language ...

Fisher on Monetary Policy

Monday, December 9th, 2013

Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Fisher spoke today and offered some comments on monetary policy. He will be a voter in 2014 and he is clearly against anymore QE.  The money quote is that "the Federal Reserve has supplied more than sufficient liquidity to fuel economic recovery....'.   Via the Dallas ...

Number Series and a Bow to Luca Brasi

Monday, December 9th, 2013

2 16.25 3 16 4 15.875 5 16.125 7 15.375 10 14.875 20 15.75 30 14 Identify the relevance of the aforementioned series of numbers and win a free subscription to acrossthecurve.com. Oh it is free so you only get bragging rights. i will be away from blogging for a bit ...

Plutocrats Party and Populists Protest

Monday, December 9th, 2013

Household net worth jumped $1.9 trillion in Q3 to the highest level in recorded human history at $77.3 trillion. The increase was powered by an increase in the value of real estate by $428 billion and a $ 917 billion increase in equity and corporate bond mutual funds.

Research

Monday, December 9th, 2013

This is via Bloomberg and summarizes research pieces from a variety of firms post the labor data. I have personally been an advocate of view that Federal Reserve will do nada at the December meeting. I have encountered an opposite view from some friends who argue that the rebound in the ...

Treasury Market Update

Monday, December 9th, 2013

The Treasury market is quiet today with light customer activity. Bond prices are higher ( and with the inverse relationship between price and yield intact rates are lower)  for several reasons. There is an old adage which counsels not shorting a quiet market. I think that is part of the ...

Corporate Bonds

Monday, December 9th, 2013

Corporate bond spreads are firm but one participant did describe them as a tad heavy in response to the recent flood of new issuance. Notwithstanding that the preponderance of last week's $25 billion of IG issuance is trading at issue spread or better. As an example the Microsoft multi tranche ...