Archive for December, 2013
Monday, December 9th, 2013
Prices of Treasury coupon securities are registering very small gains in overnight trading. The yield on the benchmark 10 year Treasury rests at 2.843 and is 1.2 basis points lower than it was late Friday. The yield curve is mixed with 5s 10s flatter by 0.2 basis points at 136.8 ...
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Monday, December 9th, 2013
My last employer before slipping into retirement was a Canadian bank so this is an interesting article. The author proposes the merger of the century (title of her book) and catalogues the benefits of a United States/ Canada merger. Here is the money paragraph:
"Such a merger makes perfect sense. No ...
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Sunday, December 8th, 2013
Here is a NYTimes piece on the tapering issue and the ancillary issues associated with that topic. I think the author takes a Hilsenrathian approach and for the most part cites quotes already in the public record. I am an old timer and this story and similar Hilsenrath story are ...
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Saturday, December 7th, 2013
Stratfor has an excellent and long analysis of the declaration of a new Air Defense Identification Zone in the waters between China and Japan. The move has raised tension in the region and individual nations are responding in unique ways. Japan has ordered its airlines not to comply. The US ...
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Saturday, December 7th, 2013
The WSJ reports that the CFTC will vote next week on a final version of the Volcker Rule and the finished product will allow for some wiggle room on the topic of facilitating client flow versus prop trading.
Here is some background. If a client were to call a bond dealer ...
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Friday, December 6th, 2013
This is a lengthy article at Politico.com which posits a worst case scenario for ObamaCare in which the cancellations of so called substandard policies leaves more people uninsured on January 01 2014 than there would have been without the Rube Goldberg law. That is the exact opposite of the outcome ...
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Friday, December 6th, 2013
Via the WSJ:
By
Jon Hilsenrath
Dec. 6, 2013 7:15 p.m. ET
Federal Reserve officials are closer to winding down their controversial $85 billion-a-month bond-purchase program, possibly as early as December, in the wake of Friday's encouraging jobs report.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke will have to build consensus among officials about how soon to pull ...
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Friday, December 6th, 2013
Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner and Smith on the tapering trajectory. The firm sees a 35 percent probability of such a move in March and a 30 percent chance in January. That leaves a small 15 percent chance December. I will go with nil.
Via Merrill:
License to taper. This week's data, providing ...
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Friday, December 6th, 2013
It has gotten pretty quiet out there in bond land as the market is stuck in cement the last several hours. Dealers with whom I have contact report very light flows from clients.
Next week the Treasury will auction a dollop of longer dated paper and a market maker with whom ...
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Friday, December 6th, 2013
Swap spreads continue to narrow.Ten year spreads are inside of 6 basis points. Dealers report continued receiving from liability driven investors as well as delta hedging related receiving from option desks. Looking at a chart of 10 year spreads there does not appear to be any resistance until the 4 ...
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