Archive for March, 2014

Monday Morning Miscellany

Monday, March 3rd, 2014

One fully paid up subscriber noted that the Russians had intervened in the market to stabilize the Euro by selling dollars and buying Euros with informed guesses in the market that they sold in the vicinity of $10 billion. This same fully paid up subscriber states that Russia maintains a ...

SocGen on Ukraine and Contagion Risk

Monday, March 3rd, 2014

This is an excellent piece on contagion risks which could percolate out of Ukraine. The risks in Ukraine are quite manageable but the concern is that there could be ripple effect elsewhere in EM space. Via SocGen research: COULD UKRAINE TRIGGER A FULL BLOWN EM CRISIS? CONCENTRATED OWNERSHIP IS MAIN RISK At ...

Corporate Bond Opening

Monday, March 3rd, 2014

Corporate bonds opening wider in response to the risk aversion trade. My corporate bond source says that bank and finance paper is 3 basis points to 4 basis points wider and TMT paper is 2 basis points to 3 basis points wider.  In addition the IG 21 is 2 basis ...

Ukraine and Russia and Germany

Monday, March 3rd, 2014

Some comments from Mark Chandler at Brown Brothers on the impact of the Ukraine crisis on Germany: After Ukraine, Germany may have the most to lose from Russian actions.  Its energy program and efforts to de-nuclearize seems to force greater reliance on Russian energy.  The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan spurred an ...

Overnight Flows

Monday, March 3rd, 2014

Via David Ader at CRT: OVERNIGHT FLOWS: Treasuries were well bid on the Ukraine-inspired flight-to-quality flows and global equities were under pressure.  Overnight volumes were understandably strong with cash trading at 181% of the 10-day moving-average, while TY came in at 173% of norms.  5s were by far the most active ...

Energy and Politics

Monday, March 3rd, 2014

I wrote a little while ago that I would observe the energy markets to see if Russia would use energy as a political weapon. Before I wrote that Reuters reported that Gazprom the Russian gas company has threatened to raise prices to the Ukraine.

March 03 2014 Opening

Monday, March 3rd, 2014

Prices of Treasury coupon securities have surged and the benchmark 10 year note attained a new cycle low as the crisis over the Russian intervention in the Ukraine has precipitated a genuine risk aversion and flight to quality. The yield on the benchmark 10 year note rests at 2.612 and ...

From the Oh Canada Department

Sunday, March 2nd, 2014

My final employer prior to my retirement and extraction from the denominator in the calculation of the participation rate was a Canadian bank with dominion in Toronto. So when ever I see a Canada story I still take notice. It seems that the folks at PIMCO expect the housing bubble north ...

Investors Not Heeding Polonius’ Advice to Laertes

Sunday, March 2nd, 2014

The equity market (ex the Ukraine motivated sell off this evening) continues to print new highs. But Alas the FT wants to take away the punch bowl and truncate the glee by pointing out that margin debt at the NYSE is at some rather frothy levels and in the past ...

Treasury Market Update

Sunday, March 2nd, 2014

The benchmark 10 year note is trading at 2.596. It closed around 2.65 and at the current level it is 4 basis points through the 200 day moving average at 2.636. The 5s 10s curve is at 114 basis point which is a tad flatter than the 214.4 which prevailed ...