Archive for October, 2016

David Challenges Goliath (Bloomberg)

Tuesday, October 18th, 2016

Via NYTimes DealBook: A start-up looking to take on the financial information behemoth Bloomberg L.P. is hiring a former Bloomberg executive to begin a new financial news service. Norman Pearlstine, a former top editor at Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal and Time, is joining Money.net, which has been building a low-cost alternative ...

Bond Market Angst

Tuesday, October 18th, 2016

Via WSJ: Markets Heard on the Street By Justin Lahart Updated Oct. 17, 2016 3:41 p.m. ET There is a little bit of fear creeping into government bond markets. It is about time, even if investors are still underestimating how much long-term Treasury rates could rise from here. Government bonds are no longer the can’t-lose ...

Skirting the Dodd Frank Rules on Risk Retention

Tuesday, October 18th, 2016

Via WSJ: By Sam Goldfarb and Serena Ng Updated Oct. 17, 2016 8:27 a.m. ET   A major postcrisis rule taking effect in December will force Blackstone Group LP and other creators of complex securities to eat some of their own cooking. Many of them are already engineering ways to keep it to ...

China Credit Surge

Tuesday, October 18th, 2016

Via Bloomberg: October 18, 2016 — 3:09 AM EDT Updated on October 18, 2016 — 4:03 AM EDT   China’s broadest measure of new credit exceeded estimates in September to fuel the economy’s continued stabilization and at the same time underscore escalating concerns over a property binge and the pace of debt expansion. Aggregate financing ...

Early FX

Tuesday, October 18th, 2016

Via Kit Juckes at SocGen: <http://www.sgmarkets.com/r/?id=h118c5df5,18a7de3b,18a7de3c&p1=136122&p2=28b416cf9c64768ca4b4f5d760196c1d> Working out how important central bank indepdence has been in building the economic prosperity major economies ahve enjoyed since the end of the 1970s wouldn't be easy, but getting rid of independence and seeing what happens next seems to be on the minds of some politicians, ...

Duration Time Bomb

Monday, October 17th, 2016

I have long thought the next market calamity would be in the corporate bond world. This Bloomberg  story reports on a Goldman Sachs research piece which posits that a 1 percent increase in yields would lead to more than $1 trillion in losses in corporate bond portfolios. The more interesting ...

IP

Monday, October 17th, 2016

Via Stephen Stanley at Amherst Pierpont Securities: Industrial production crept up by 0.1% in September, somewhat better than I had expected but a tenth below consensus.  Overall production in September was depressed by a weather-related fall in utility usage (though the 1.0% decline was smaller than I had projected).  There were ...

Equity Market Divergence

Monday, October 17th, 2016

Via Bloomberg and hat tip to Steve Feiss at Government Perspectives who you can find on Twitter at @stevefeiss: Index masks weakness in breadth that spells trouble in past Divergence happened in 2015, worst year in this bull market At first glance, the stock market in 2016 is nothing like it ...

Some Corporate Bond Stuff

Monday, October 17th, 2016

Via Bloomberg: IG CREDIT: Spreads See New Tight Levels YTD 2016-10-17 10:22:17.859 GMT By Robert Elson (Bloomberg) -- Secondary IG trading ended with a Trace count of $11.7b Friday vs $17.8b Thursday, $11.2b the previous Friday. 10-DMA $13.9b; 10-Friday moving avg $11.4b. * 144a trading added $1.9b of IG volume Friday vs $2.5b Thursday, $1.9b last Friday * Trace ...

Yield Rally Continues

Monday, October 17th, 2016

Via Bloomberg: German Bund Yields Surge to the Highest Since U.K. Referendum Marianna Duarte De Aragao aragaomarianna October 17, 2016 — 4:54 AM EDT Updated on October 17, 2016 — 6:27 AM EDT Ten-year yield climbs above 0.1% for first time since June 23 Rising inflation expectations are pressuring debt prices   A selloff in European government bonds pushed ...