So 200 Was Pretty Much Priced In?
So it looks like 200 was pretty much what the market had priced in. It felt like the market had priced in a pretty nice number, and I thought it would take more than 200k to get a serious, lasting, pop in risk assets, but this muted reaction is pretty surprising. The bulls have a real […]
Daily Credit ETF and Index Summary (12.01.06)
Main is 1.5 tighter so far, XOVER is 7 tighter. SOVX seems about unchanged, but it also seems to be a product on the verge of death. Volumes seem abysmal and the liquidity matches that. HYG and JNK have attracted over $500 million of new money this year. Yet they are down. The premium to […]
Mediobanca And UniCredit  
So, according to this, Mediobanca is the largest shareholder of UniCredit. I guess it could be custodial, but does explain why they are part of the underwriting group that backstopped the deal. If you combine the Central Bank of Libya, Libyan Investment Authority, and Libyan Foreign Bank holdings, then they are actually bigger than Mediobanca. At the risk of making […]
Daily Credit ETF and Index Summary (12.01.05)
A couple of obvious stories and follow-ups. HY17, which we liked the most yesterday, significantly outperformed HYG and JNK. That trade may have a bit of room to run so wouldn’t take it off yet, but is encouraging to see about a 0.5% move in that convergence. HYG and JNK were both down marginally yesterday. […]
Spain Guarantees Spanish Bonds
Made you look 🙂 Although the headline is obviously too bizarre to be true, I bet that a lot of people see it, and wonder for at least a moment what Spain is up to now. That moment of doubt, that thought that a country could be guaranteeing its own debt is a key to […]
Daily Credit ETF and Index Summary (12.01.04)
Credit didn’t do as well as equities and didn’t have the “liftathon” atmosphere that we often get at the start of the year. Many people were in meetings, and investors were just trying to get their arms around the situation here and abroad, but the performance was pretty mundane. There is still hope that the […]
(BN) Spain Helped Valencia With $160 Million Payment, El Pais Reports
We first got this story from the www.trumanfactor.com people. It seems as another case where a sovereign is slinging around guarantees with reckless abandon. This time it is to help a state rather than a bank, but the idea is the same, sovereigns are creating more and more contingent off-balance sheet liabilities to keep struggling […]
Some Good Answers To Other Times +1.55% Is A Disappointment
1) When it is the % of your bonus that is in cash 2) When it is your child’s GPA 3) When it is your bonus expressed as a % of your salary 4) When it is the % of actual votes you get in Iowa as a Republican Candidate 5) When that would put […]
When Is +1.55% A Disappointment?
In spite of today’s sharp rally, the market failed to hold early gains, and is likely to disappoint Europe overnight. The DAX is up 4.55% and is up 5.3% in dollar terms. The Euro Stoxx 50 is up almost 4% in USD terms YTD. On top of that Spanish 5-year bond yields are 25 bps […]
(BN) National Bank of Greece Offers to Buy Back $2.5 Billion Debt
My head must still hurt from New Year’s Eve, but if I understand this, NBG issued preferreds to the Greek government (who just happened to have some money lying around). That raised their capital. Now they are going to buy back some debt with that money. The discount will count as “earnings” thus also increasing […]