Archive for December, 2013
Thursday, December 26th, 2013
The markets are extremely thin and many participants are out on an extended holiday so to get overly enthralled by the price action. There are a couple of points to ponder here though. The Long Bond in cash has supported around 97-0 over the last trading sessions. If we breach ...
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Treasury Update
Thursday, December 26th, 2013
Here are some charts which support the case of nascent economic strength. Thanks to Robert Sinche at Pierpont Securities.
GLOBAL: After muddling around neutral readings (data near expectations) during the early months of 4Q2013, there are hints that Economic Surprise Indexes are tilting to the positive, with upbeat data in both ...
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Interesting Charts
Thursday, December 26th, 2013
It was a very quiet overnight session. I believe that most of Europe is closed as none of the equity markets in Europe register as open. The yield curve is little changed with 5s 30s at 216 basis points (recall that spread traded around 254 on November 20) and 10s ...
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on December 26 2013 Opening
Wednesday, December 25th, 2013
This is a non market related piece but on a topic near and dear to my heart. The NYTimes has an article with a series of questions on the way you pronounce a series of words and from your answers the authors construct your personal dialect map.
I did not know ...
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on New Yawk Accent
Wednesday, December 25th, 2013
The Wall Street Journal is carrying an article about the successful debasement of its currency and the attendant demise of the deflation dragon in Japan. The Bank of Japan will count its policy initiative a success when inflation returns and that has not yet happened. The article notes that the ...
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Wrestling with Deflation in Japan
Wednesday, December 25th, 2013
In a previous post a few minutes I chronicled weak retail sales at traditional brick and mortar stores. The WSJ cuts through that gloom with a report of surging on line sales.
Via the WSJ:
Online Sales Jumped 37% During Weekend
Sales Through Mobile Devices Rose 53%
By
Andria Cheng
connect
Dec. 24, 2013 12:49 p.m. ET
Retailers' ...
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on On Line Sales Surge
Wednesday, December 25th, 2013
Via Bloomberg News:
Japan’s Nikkei 225 Closes Above 16,000 First Time Since 2007
2013-12-25 06:57:02.195 GMT
By Yoshiaki Nohara
Dec. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average
closed above 16,000 for the first time in six years, extending
gains in the finals minutes of trading, as clothing retailer
Fast Retailing Co. led the equity benchmark higher.
Fast ...
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Happy Days Here Again: Japan’s Version
Wednesday, December 25th, 2013
Retail store sales and traffic at those stores took a tumble in the week ending Sunday December 22 according to ShopperTrak. Traffic plunged a whopping 21 percent and sales slipped 3.1 percent. Bad weather accounts for some of the slippage and some of that shopping probably happened on line. I ...
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Not So Merry Christmas for Retailers
Tuesday, December 24th, 2013
I am a political junkie and when the calendar page turns and reads 2014 we will be just a little more than ten months from the off year election to determine control of Congress and the extent of Barack Obama's lame duckery in his last two years in office. The ...
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Politics and 2014
Tuesday, December 24th, 2013
Once again I remain in light blogging mode for the Christmas holiday as sometimes personal life trumps the interest rate markets. However, as one would expect volumes were extremely light overnight. One dealer noted that volume was about 1/2 of normal. That dealer noted that the only meaningful flow was ...
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Christmas Eve Blogging