Archive for June, 2015

Greg Ip on Liquidity

Sunday, June 7th, 2015

Via Greg Ip at the WSJ: Bonds are supposed to be boring, but this year they’ve been anything but. After plumbing the lowest levels in memory earlier this year, German yields have skyrocketed, and yields around the world have largely followed suit. Market participants complain that the volatility is aggravated by illiquidity, ...

Strange Victim of Strong Dollar

Sunday, June 7th, 2015

This WSJ story is from the "you learn something new everyday" department. It seems that the the US has a thriving business in the export of scrap metal and paperboard. This article reports the hit that business has taken as the strong dollar makes exports uncompetitive. Via the WSJ:   The Big Business ...

Taper Tantrum

Sunday, June 7th, 2015

My friend Steve Liddy spent a bit of time on Saturday exercising his analytical powers. Via Steve Liddy: It does to me. I'm sure there will be a number of articles this weekend, which follow similar ones from the recent past, talking about 'tantrum', 'credit bubble', 'dealer balance sheet and risk tolerance', ...

Barron’s Joins the Chorus on Bond Market Illiquidity

Saturday, June 6th, 2015

Via Barron's: A Liquidity Time Bomb in the Bond Market? Bond ETFs and mutual funds are underpinned by much less liquid assets. That, Nouriel Roubini warns, is a recipe for disaster. By Randall W. Forsyth June 5, 2015 9:45 p.m. ET Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” Substitute “liquidity” for “water” and Samuel Taylor ...

Greece Negotiations Still Founder

Saturday, June 6th, 2015

Via the FT: Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, asked to meet Jean-Claude Juncker on Saturday but was spurned by the European Commission president rankled by the Greek leader’s denunciation of his efforts to broker a bailout deal. Mr Tsipras met with Mr Juncker in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss a compromise ...

Danger in Investment Grade Corporate Bond Spreads

Saturday, June 6th, 2015

Via Bloomberg: Investors: Wake Up and Smell the Fundamentals There's reason to be cautious about investment-grade corporate debt by Tracy Alloway June 4, 2015 — 10:43 AM EDT Pop quiz. Which corporate debt has performed better this year—the U.S. dollar-denominated bonds issued by Russian companies or investment-grade U.S. corporates? If you answered Russian ones, well done. ...

Greed and Fear and QE

Saturday, June 6th, 2015

This is an insightful article at the FT on greed and fear and QE. The author argues that markets (especially on the buy side) do not fully reflect the end of QE. He writes that many still own the same trades which QE motivated and suggests that a dealer community ...

Friday Night With Merrill Lynch Research

Friday, June 5th, 2015

Eclectic Topic from Merrill Lynch: Tantrum deja vu. Global growth, inflation and interest rates are rebounding, and we are only a few months away from likely Fed liftoff. As result corporate bond prices are declining at a pace eerily similar to what we saw during the Taper Tantrum in 2013. After ...

Dudley Speech

Friday, June 5th, 2015

Via Bloomberg: Fed’s Dudley: Likely to Be ‘Appropriate’ to Normalize This Yr 2015-06-05 16:40:04.52 GMT By Vivien Lou Chen (Bloomberg) -- NY Fed President William Dudley said it will likely be “appropriate to begin monetary policy normalization” later this yr and tightening should be “shallow, upward path,” with pace influenced by financial mkt’s response. * “The appropriate stance ...

Crazy

Friday, June 5th, 2015

I guess it is not crazy as the curve has flattened and prospect of September move will benefit back end to detriment of short end. Anyway, I just looked at screen and Long Bond is precisely where it was at 814AM when I marked it at 3.0790. At that time ...