Archive for October, 2015

Corporate Liquidity

Tuesday, October 6th, 2015

The Liberty Street Economics Blog (aka Federal Reserve Bank of New York at 33 Liberty Street) is running a series of articles on bond market liquidity. The first article deals with liquidity in the corporate bond market and concludes that liquidity is improving. Here is the concluding paragraph: In Sum In conclusion, ...

Support Level?

Tuesday, October 6th, 2015

The Bond contract is currently trading at 157-09. That has retraced and broken through the 157-24 level at which it changed hands in the moments prior to the labor report. The curve steepening is also hitting the Note contract. Just prior to the data on Friday morning that contract traded at ...

Norway Tapped Out

Tuesday, October 6th, 2015

The slumping price of oil has thrown the Norway's budget into disarray. Bloomberg reports that the country's planners had assumed a $69 per barrel price for oil and with oil currently at $49 revenue is well short of spending. Norway has an $830 billion sovereign wealth fund and analysts believe that ...

Early FX

Tuesday, October 6th, 2015

Via Kit Juckes at SocGen: <http://www.sgresearch.com/r/?id=hec7cf68,14473877,14473878&p1=136122&p2=51cb62016097f66ac874b203cdc25783> According to the FT, Citi strategists think we should be brave and buy stocks... "We think that latest global equity sell-off represents a correction in an ageing bull market, rather the beginning of the next major bear market" apparently...  Ebenezer Scrooge would no doubt say "Bah, ...

While Bloomberg Slept

Monday, October 5th, 2015

Symphony is the Goldman led consortium which is leading a challenge to Bloomberg's primacy in communications via its much used chat rooms. Symphony is developing an alternative to Bloomberg and that challenge received some legitimacy today with reports that Google has invested in the fledgling enterprise. Via the WSJ: By Sarah Krouse and Justin ...

36 Year Anniversary

Monday, October 5th, 2015

Tomorrow, October 6th, its the 36th anniversary of Paul Volcker's revolution at the Federal Reserve which changed operating procedures at the Fed and subsequently broke the back of the inflation which had ravaged the US economy in the 1070s. That inflation and the economic malaise which flowed from it was ...

Novel Bank Tax

Monday, October 5th, 2015

Legislators in Washington need funding to pay for highway construction. That is certainly a noble purpose. However, those legislative solons lack testicular appendages and in their collective pusillanimous souls they do not wish to raise gasoline taxes to pay for the endeavor. Banks are a popular target these days and the ...

Petrobras to Cut Capital spending

Monday, October 5th, 2015

Via the FT: Petrobras cuts investment plans on weak real, oil 45 minutes ago Petrobras has become the latest victim of Brazil's weak real and low oil prices with the state-owned oil company slashing its investment plans for this year and next. The company said it was cutting its planned investment for this year ...

Weekend Data Preview

Saturday, October 3rd, 2015

Via Robert Sinche at  Amherst Pierpont Securities: AUSTRALIA: In an encouraging development for the domestic economy, the AiG Performance of Services Index jumped by 6 points over the last 3 months to a 7 ½-year high in August. S. KOREA: S. Korea will be the first of a number of Asian countries ...

Kocherlakota and the Negative Dot

Saturday, October 3rd, 2015

Via Bloomberg: October 3, 2015 — 11:30 AM EDT Alister Bull  and Matthew Boesler Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Narayana Kocherlakota said the U.S. central bank would have been “totally justified” if it had increased policy stimulus to combat low inflation when it met last month, adding that negative interest rates could ...