The T Report: You Can Lead a Horse to Water, But Can’t Make it Drink

Posted by on Oct 9, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

Spain Will Spain go through with the bank bailout? We Spain get OMT for the secondary market? Will ESM support Spanish new issuance? In all likelihood each of these programs will be initiated, but I see them as likely being ineffective. They will be ineffective because they won’t be implemented with vigor. They will be […]

The T Report: Writers Block – 2 Pages of It

Posted by on Oct 4, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

Central Banks versus Rest of the World Day 1,038 What is there to write? The Fed has done its thing and the market is still trying to digest what QE means in the short term. The ECB has indicated what they would like to do, but so far has not actually done anything. Every day […]

The T Report: Portugal, Diffusion Indices, and QE

Posted by on Oct 3, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

Portugal Portugal managed to exchange some bonds today. The government bought back some bonds due to mature in 2013 and exchanged them for bonds due to mature in 2015. This is interesting. I think it has helped risk in Europe as it is a sign that Portugal is not about to default any time soon […]

The T Report: Again, Still, More of the Same

Posted by on Oct 2, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

We are seeing yet another risk rally on stories that this is the weekend Spain asks for a bailout.  Let’s for a minute ignore that we had the same rally on the same stories last Thursday. Let’s ignore the growing effort in Germany to challenge OMT (unlikely to be successful but still not a positive […]

The T Report: The Fourth Quarter

Posted by on Oct 1, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

A Confused Start to the Day, Month, Quarter S&P futures have already traded in an almost 1% range today. Weakness in Asia overnight, caused in part by weak data, was reversed on the European open, in part on weak data. You can’t make this stuff up, but the battle between weak data, mediocre earnings, downbeat […]

Spanish Bank Stress Tests

Posted by on Sep 30, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

The Asset Quality Review and Bottom-Up Stress Test Exercise I’m sure its fairly standard, but in the preamble, the report says it relies on 3rd party reports, that haven’t been verified or audited. Probably just standard legal mumbo jumbo, but worth mentioning since it is certainly lower than the standard a private equity investor would […]

The T Report: Eurobowl Crisis Weekend XXVIII

Posted by on Sep 28, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

I’ve lost count of how many crisis weekends we have faced,  How many summits we have had that are about to change the nature of the problem, but we are at another one of those moments, with the added joy of bank stress test releases coming out of Spain. The Bull Case I had turned […]

The T Report: Budgets and Bailouts

Posted by on Sep 27, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

Spain is Fixed! Again! Maybe Rajoy announces a new Spanish budget. Rajoy asks the ECB to enact OMT. The IMF agrees that the new budget is enough and ensure that OMT is enacted and that ESM can buy new issues while they are at it. All is good, right? Not so fast. A couple of […]

The T Report: Run, Don’t Walk

Posted by on Sep 26, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

Why Can’t We Have A Correction? The very fact that virtually everyone says we can’t have a correction probably means we can. I see complacency. The VIX is low and no one cares. Performance chasing is the latest excuse for analysis on why stocks HAVE to go up. People look at a treasury curve that […]

The T Report: From European Bull to Bear

Posted by on Sep 25, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

Summer 2012 in Europe I have clearly had another change in sentiment on the outlook for assets in Europe. At the height of the crisis I was an unabashed bull. The timing of this Bloomberg TV interview couldn’t have been better, but in general the bull case was based on 3 things Not doing anything […]