RSS feedWelcome to ’synthetic warehousing’
John Kemp, at Reuters, continues his sterling work on how contango in commodity markets is impacting trading strategies across the board — and to what degree the ‘cash-for-commodity’ strategy might by now be getting crowded.
Jargon alert: banks and their ‘platforms’
In light of the emergence of yet another ‘platform’-based product on Thursday — Deutsche Bank’s platinum Ucits platform, in connection with Paulson & Co’s retail fund offering — we thought it probably best to explain something to the banking community.
Explaining the Baltic Dry sell-off
FT Alphaville, and others, watched the Baltic Dry’s recent 60 per cent tumble, which took place over a run of 35 consecutive days, with particular interest.
Some, after all, suggested that it meant the index was no longer a valid economic indicator.
Buiter can’t believe it’s not traditional European central banking
Some, cool, if frankly brain-melting, stuff from Citigroup chief economist Willem Buiter on the plight of the European Central Bank on Thursday.
Or as we should perhaps call it instead — a ‘quasi-fiscal actor’.
Goldman’s Q2 really was ‘exciting with risks’
Does anyone remember Goldman Sachs’ 2010 Outlook?
The bank’s year-ahead piece, which carried the title “The Outlook for 2010/11: Exciting, with risks!”, is being given a second life after its December 2009 publication.
Markets Live transcript 22 Jul 2010
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 11:25 on 22 Jul 2010. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT Bryce Elder NHHola NHit’s 11.03am NHand time for Markets Live
So, is it really another lost decade for equities?
Are we going Japanese? No doubt fed-up with being asked that question in client meetings, Citigroup strategist Robert Buckland has set out to find the answer.
He has examined the Japanese bear market,
Spurs 1 – Autonomy 0
The curse of the Premier League strikes again.
Just weeks after signing a deal to have its name emblazoned on the shirts of Tottenham Hotspur, shares in FTSE 100 software company Autonomy have dropped following the publication of half year results:
Stress-test rumours and reality
We’re sure things are very – err, stressful right now at the London headquarters of the Committee for European Banking Supervisors, ahead of the Friday publication of stress test results for 91 financial institutions across Europe.
I’d rather have a go at Cocoa Jobs…
From page three of Thursday’s appointments section in the FT:
(H/T John Kemp)
Some stressful reading for the CEBS
Is the CEBS reading this little paper ahead of Friday’s stress tests?
The Information Value of the Stress Test and Bank Opacity
Donald P. Morgan
Stavros Peristiani
Vanessa Savino
Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports
It’s a look at investor reaction to the results of the 2009 US bank stress tests,
A Dutch machine with a fat finger
A possible culprit has been found for Wednesday’s sharp movement in cable — which saw the GBP/USD exchange rate drop to 1.5181 and recover in the space of a few minutes. A(nother) tradebot.
To be specific,
Nomura thinks you should be more bearish on Hungary
Are you worried about Hungary? Why not?
According to analysts Peter Attard Montalto and Olgay Buyukkayali at Nomura, policymakers and investors are a tad complacent about the outlook for the troubled European country.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Thursday,
- The league table of failed IPOs.
- Oil spill, meet muni bonds.
- Is the Fed choosing deflation?
- And more on opportunistic deflation.
- And the loneliness of the long-distance hawk.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Thursday’s FT,
Jeffrey Sachs: Sow the seeds of long-term growth
The striking feature in the current debate about austerity and stimulus has been the lack of attention to investment,
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Thursday,
- Volvo Q2 beats forecasts, sticks to growth outlook – statement.
- Autonomy earnings up 7 per cent, confident on year – statement.
- Lonmin Q3 sales fall,
Further from El-Erian on Bernanke and sliding stock markets
With Fed chairman Ben Bernanke on Capitol Hill presenting his semi-annual monetary policy report to Congress, stock markets are under notable pressure.
Bernanke’s full written testimony is now available.
BarCap vs HUD on Hamp
We do enjoy a good calling-out here on FT Alphaville, and on Wednesday, a pair of credit strategists at BarCap provided a neat example of the genre.
In a report headlined “Misleading Reporting of Mod Performance in the June HAMP Scorecard”,
Day 475 in the Celebrity Economist house
Day 475 in the Big Economist House.
10:19 am
Niall Ferguson, Ken Rogoff and Paul Krugman are in the kitchen.
Yesterday, housemates were punished for discussing too many conflicting economic solutions in the FT and the New York Times.
Wall St reform – the video
Courtesy of Whitehouse.gov…
Related links:
Obama signs financial reform bill – FT
The story of the gold curve, so far
FT Alphaville cited John Kemp last week regarding increasing evidence that the so-called ‘cash for commodity’ trade (aka contango trade) might be getting crowded.
Which is interesting, given that peculiarities have been emerging in the world’s most consistent and established contango market:
Ocado (IPO) tombstone
Click on the tombstone for further biographical detail.
El-Erian: What to expect from Bernanke’s report to congress
Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive and co-chief investment officer at PIMCO, discusses the options facing the Federal Reserve as chairman Bernanke prepares to address Congress.
________
Over the next two days,
From stress-test inferno to capital purgatorio
Europe’s bank stress tests are coming to an end on Friday. Now what about the recapitalisation risk afterwards?
Having sprung more leaks than the RMS Titanic, the tests seem to suggest that almost every bank has passed.