The EU Bans Reporting Of Any Bond Trade Below Par

Now the Europe finally “gets it” they have banned naked CDS buying, they are banning ratings, and have decided the market would trade a lot better if all those pesky below par bond trades went away. You can still trade below par it just can’t be reported. As mentioned at least a month ago – sweeping under the rug has been added to kick the can in the arsenal of bazookas the EU can use to “fix” the problem.

Clearly my headline is a joke, but not much crazier than the real ones. The only smart thing was the idea of having rating agencies report any changes at a pre-set time, like any other economic release. I think his idea wasn’t quite that – but close enough for government work.