Archive for August, 2015

New Jersey Swap Unwind

Friday, August 21st, 2015

Via Matt Levine at Bloomberg (this is an excerpt from a longer article): Toxic swaps. New Jersey, like many states, has issued floating-rate bonds, and then swapped them back to fixed rates using derivatives with banks. (See, e.g., page I-47 in this 2014 bond offering document, or pages I-39 and I-40 ofthis ...

Corporate Bond Trading Yesterday

Friday, August 21st, 2015

Via Bloomberg: =============================================================================   IG CREDIT: Volume Falls; Spreads Continue to Make New Wides 2015-08-21 10:05:35.921 GMTBy Robert Elson (Bloomberg) -- Secondary IG trading ended with a Trace count of $12.6b vs $14.5b Wednesday, $14.4b the previous Thursday. 10-DMA $12b; 10-Thursday moving avg $13.4b.* 144a trading added $2b of IG volume vs $2.4b on Wednesday, $2.5b last Thursday * ...

FX

Friday, August 21st, 2015

Via Marc Chandler at Brown Brothers Harriman:  FX Market Quiets While Equity Markets Head South - The Japanese yen is drawing support, as it often does, from the drop in global equities and the decline in US yields - The return to stability in the dollar-yuan rate makes many suspicious of China's intention - ...

Citibank on ECB QE

Friday, August 21st, 2015

Via a fully paid up subscriber: EUROZONE VIEW: Citi say that ECB QE2 should be "priced with an increasingly probability by markets" due to global low inflation caused by CNY depreciation and path of ECB balance sheet that would tighten policy after Sep 2016. Citi highlight that the gap between ECB inflation forecast and ...

Early FX

Friday, August 21st, 2015

Via Kit Juckes at SocGen: <http://www.sgresearch.com/r/?id=he745d94,13c367e3,13c367e4&p1=136122&p2=0d04283c14778418f61b2593b25d2a80> It used to be that in times of trouble, the US dollar reigned supreme. Then there were times when the yen did even better and now, the euro is as good a safe-haven refuge as the dollar, at least when the front end of the US ...

5 Year Tips Result

Thursday, August 20th, 2015

Courtesy of Ian Lyngen at CRT Capital: * 5-year TIPS auction stops at +0.305% vs. a +0.335% 1:00 PM bid WI. * Bid/Cover 2.58 vs. 2.51 average. * Dealers were awarded 23.1% vs. 52% average for 5-year TIPS. * Indirects get 79.4% vs. 42% norm. Record high! * Directs take 0.5% vs. 6% average. * Dealer ...

Hilsenrath Story

Wednesday, August 19th, 2015

Via the WSJ: By JON HILSENRATH Updated Aug. 19, 2015 7:27 p.m. ET The Federal Reserve faces a potential cliffhanger about whether to raise interest rates at its September meeting, a decision that will test Chairwoman Janet Yellen’s ability to lead an uncertain policy-making committee. Officials have signaled for months they intend to start raising ...

Swap Market Commentary

Wednesday, August 19th, 2015

Via a fully paid up ssubscriber who is a market maker in plain vanilla swaps: Deja vu all over again....once again the rates world awaits the move off zero by the FOMC.  Much like the parable "Before the Law" by Kafka it seems the Fed is standing at the door asking ...

CPI Analysis

Wednesday, August 19th, 2015

Via Gennadiy Goldberg at TDSecurities: Inflation momentum came in marginally weaker than the market expected in July, with both headline and core prices rising 0.1% m/m (0.132% m/m before rounding). On a year-ago basis, the pace of headline inflation edged modestly higher to 0.2% y/y from 0.1% y/y as core inflation ...

Kocherlakota Op Ed Argues Against Rate Hikes

Wednesday, August 19th, 2015

Via the WSJ: nflation so low, higher rates will push the economy away from the Fed’s price and employment goals. By NARAYANA KOCHERLAKOTA Aug. 18, 2015 7:11 p.m. ET 23 COMMENTS I participate in the meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee, the monetary policy-making arm of the Federal Reserve. In that capacity, I’m often asked ...