Archive for May, 2016

A Consensus Market

Tuesday, May 17th, 2016

Via the WSJ: By James Mackintosh Updated May 16, 2016 3:11 p.m. ET It isn’t what you worry about that hurts your portfolio. It is what you know for sure. Two things most of us think we know for a fact, after years of extraordinary central-bank intervention and miserable growth, are that we ...

IMF Pushes for Long Term Debt Relief for Greece

Tuesday, May 17th, 2016

Via WSJ: By Marcus Walker Updated May 17, 2016 5:31 a.m. ET 8 COMMENTS BERLIN—The International Monetary Fund is pressing the eurozone to let Greece skip paying interest or principal on bailout loans until 2040, say officials familiar with the talks. The IMF wants the loans to Greece to fall due gradually in the following ...

Early FX

Tuesday, May 17th, 2016

Via Kit Juckes at Socgen: <http://www.sgmarkets.com/r/?id=h1087f21b,1703672d,1703672e&p1=136122&p2=8c0a4e37bd396ce1cfb7f2cdf419852e> Oil prices are higher, Asian equity indices are (marginally) stronger, bond yields are firmly anchored and with 10year TIIPS yields at 14bp this morning, there's nothing to scare investors in the very short-term outlook or to help dollar bulls, unfortunately. We will stick with an FX ...

More on Centralized Reporting of Treasury Trades

Monday, May 16th, 2016

This is the FT story on the Treasury's quest for centralized reporting of Treasury trades. This story touches on liquidity issues I mentioned in my post. Via the FT: The US is working on an “efficient and effective” way to collect data on government bond market trading by the end of the ...

Creating a Treasury Ticker and End of an Era

Monday, May 16th, 2016

The WSJ reports that the Treasury and the SEC have requested that FINRA create a data feed by which Treasury will be able to track Treasury trades. The ostensible reason is that the investigation into the  October 14 2014 flash crash (when the 10 year note yield plummeted about 30 ...

FX

Monday, May 16th, 2016

Via Marc Chandler at Brown Brothers Harriman: Drivers for the Week Ahead The risk is that the April FOMC minutes this week are more hawkish than the FOMC statement The record of the ECB's April meeting also will be published Instead of the ECB minutes, the greater risk comes from ...

Some Corporate Bond Stuff

Monday, May 16th, 2016

Via Bloomberg: IG CREDIT: Trading Volume Below Average; Spreads Leak Wider 2016-05-16 09:45:20.778 GMT By Robert Elson (Bloomberg) -- Secondary IG trading ended with a Trace count of $12.4b Friday vs $15.6b Thursday, $11.7b the previous Friday. 10-DMA $15.1b; 10-Friday moving avg $14.1b. * 144a trading added $1.5b of IG volume vs $2.1b, $1.8b last Friday * The most ...

Divergent Bond Forecasts

Monday, May 16th, 2016

Via Bloomberg: May 15, 2016 — 9:00 PM EDT Updated on May 16, 2016 — 4:59 AM EDT   To Thomas Costerg, the big question for bond investors isn’t whether the Federal Reserve will raise U.S. interest rates this year. It’s how long before the central bank is forced to cut them. As a senior economist ...

Goldman Sees Summertime Equity Vol

Monday, May 16th, 2016

Via Bloomberg: May 16, 2016 — 5:24 AM EDT "Sell in May and go away" goes the old investment adage. Analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. agree—this year, at least. While the team, led by Chief U.S. Equity Strategist David Kostin, is sticking with its end-of-year S&P 500 target of 2,100, the analysts reckon ...

Japan Official Touts FX Intervention Option

Monday, May 16th, 2016

Via the FT: Yen intervention remains an option for Japan because currency volatility can damage and destabilise the economy, the country’s top currency official has said. In an interview with Nikkei and the Financial Times on Monday, Masatsugu Asakawa, vice-minister of finance for international affairs, said Tokyo still regards intervening to sell ...