Archive for August, 2015

From the Oh Canada Department

Friday, August 28th, 2015

I have been headlining stories about our Northern neighbor this way since I began blogging again in October 2013. I had just retired from TD bank here in New York. It appears that Bloomberg has a headline writer with the same dry sense of humor as the story I will append ...

Lots to Watch Today

Friday, August 28th, 2015

Via Bloomberg: WHAT TO WATCH: * (All times New York) * Economic Data * 8:30am: Personal Income, July, est. 0.4% (prior 0.4%) * Personal Spending, July, est. 0.4% (prior 0.2%) * Real Personal Spending, July, est. 0.3% (prior 0%) * PCE Deflator m/m, July, est. 0.1% (prior 0.2%) * PCE Deflator y/y, July, est. 0.3% (prior 0.3%) * PCE ...

Dealer Positions

Friday, August 28th, 2015

Via Bloomberg: IG CREDIT: Dealer Positions in Corporates Fall, Led by 1Y-3Y 2015-08-28 10:54:31.565 GMT By Robert Elson (Bloomberg) -- Dealer positions in corporate bonds fell $1.6b to $21.7b as of Aug. 19. $21.1b, seen Feb. 11, is the low for the series Fed began in April 2013. $45.9b, seen March 5, 2014, is the high. * Investment ...

China Increases Margin Requirements

Friday, August 28th, 2015

Via Bloomberg: China Increases Margin Requirements on Stock-Index Futures 2015-08-28 10:47:36.531 GMT By Bloomberg News (Bloomberg) -- China increased the margin requirements on stock-index futures contracts to 30 percent and narrowed the number of contracts that traders can open before they are considered “abnormal trading.” Opening more than 100 contracts on a single index-futures product on the CSI 300, ...

FX

Friday, August 28th, 2015

Via Marc Chandler at Brown Brothers: Markets Debates Drivers of US Treasuries - There is growing speculation that China is selling US Treasuries during its FX operations, which is driving up yields in the US; but the reality may be more prosaic - UK preliminary GDP came in right on expectations at ...

Corporate Bonds

Friday, August 28th, 2015

Via Bloomberg: IG CREDIT: Highest Volume Since June; Spreads Inch Tighter 2015-08-28 09:56:25.213 GMT By Robert Elson (Bloomberg) -- Secondary IG trading ended with a Trace count of $17.6b vs $16.9b Wednesday, $12.6b the previous Thursday. Yesterday was the highest volume since $18.5b June 2. * 10-DMA $12.4b; 10-Thursday moving avg $13.7b * 144a trading added $3b of ...

Banks in a Bind in China

Friday, August 28th, 2015

Via the WSJ: By Chuin-Wei Yap Updated Aug. 28, 2015 5:19 a.m. ET BEIJING—China’s biggest lenders are scrambling to clear rising bad loans from their books, as a faltering economy weighs on loan repayments and sets banks on pace for their worst year since they began listing shares 13 years ago. The pace of ...

Early FX

Friday, August 28th, 2015

Via Kit Juckes at SocGen: <http://www.sgresearch.com/r/?id=he7f1172,13d48dbb,13d48dbc&p1=136122&p2=d2fdea3e8f164b361ca8a01f764624bb> Chinese equity prices are up. Oil prices bounced hard yesterday. Calm is back in EMFX. The only sounds are those of shorts being covered and the very geatest of the good are chewing the cud as the ponder the disappearance of the Phillips Curve in their ...

Overnight Flow

Friday, August 28th, 2015

Dealers not reporting much thus far about the overnight session. I have heard of real money (Asian based) buyers of Long Bonds. Other Asian based clients sold 2 year and 3 year paper in favor of off the run 10s. Bank portfolios sold spread product in the 10 year sector.

From the Oh Canada Department

Thursday, August 27th, 2015

Via the FT: Canada’s biggest banks have warned of more troubles to come from the fall in the oil price, as they reported surges in bad loans and chilling effects on consumer demand in the world’s 11th-largest economy. So far the big lenders such as Royal Bank of Canada and Toronto-Dominion Bank ...