Paul Murphy is the founding editor of FT Alphaville and an associate editor of the Financial Times. He joined the FT in London in 2006 as development editor of FT.com, concentrating on the expansion of the online business. Prior to that, he served as the Guardian’s financial editor for seven years. He has also held senior positions in business journalism at the Sunday Business newspaper and the Daily Telegraph. Murphy is a graduate of the London School of Economics.
On a generally crappy day for equities and bonds across all the big western markets, Italian stocks stood out:
The question is rhetorical.
Back in December we were able to share a long, angry letter penned by Vincent Tchenguiz concerning the legal dispute between the Tchenguiz brothers and the Serious Fraud Office. Read more
El Pais has a nifty interactive whereby you can search the 14 sheets of manuscripts allegedly penned over 18 years by Luis Gutierrez Barcenas, the party manager and treasurer at the heart of the supposed Rajoy “slush fund” scandal in Spain…
In case you missed the moment earlier on Monday, here’s the yield on US 10 year paper breaking through 2 per cent – albeit momentarily. At pixel the reading stood at 1.99… Read more
So the Bank of England has decided to give its new-fangled biannual Money Market Liaison Group Sterling Money Market Survey (first launched in May 2011) more oomph.
No longer will the results sit, largely unnoticed, in one of the Bank’s quarterly bulletins. From now on the survey will be presented on a standalone basis, with its very own pdf and cover illustration, which looks like this: Read more
Are you in the equities business, needing something to surpress your natural optimism? Ditto ETF traders, those in securitised derivatives, even bonds? Click the following images for the instant, full-sized depressive effect… Read more
The brutalist architecture movement has broken Severfield-Rowen.
This Yorkshire-based structured steel specialists, which counts the Olympic Stadium and the Shard amongst its successful projects, warned on profits on Wednesday and parted company with its chief executive, Tom Haughey. Talks are also underway with the firm’s bankers… Read more
Not a member yet of Alphaville’s walled financial garden? It’s free, but you have to apply for membership.
Some reasons to do so… Read more
Tim Morgan of Tullet Prebon has been threatening this tome for a while. And now it has actually appeared…click to read…
No, not the radioactive variety. The financial market type, instead.
Here’s the (illiquid) progress of uranium futures over recent months… Read more
It’s a big theme: investors of all colours have reportedly been pouring money into equity funds of late. In fact, over the past week money has been flowing into stocks at the fastest rate since September 2007, according to EPFR.
Which should give all investors pause for thought. Read more
H/T to Martin Malone of Mint Partners for this vivid illustration of how the differential between “core” and periphery sovereign yields has tightened.
We are going to lay the blame for this — right up front — on the idiotic Financial Markets and Services Act. (Or at least the utterly dumb implementation of such by Lord Sants and colleagues.) The “markets abuse regime” has led us to…where do we start?
Okay, with this chump: Read more
What should we make of this? The CBOE VIX, the barometer of choice for those monitoring market volatility, dropped like a stone between Xmas and New Year. And the trend has continued in the days since…
You really do wonder how long this trend can be allowed to continue. From Eurostat on Tuesday…
Bloomberg states that Turkey’s new Capital Markets Law, enacted at the turn of the year, promises harsh punishment for… Read more
It’s the first day of dealings in the new-fangled Japan Exchange Group following the slow-motion merger of the previously unlisted Tokyo Stock Exchange and the listed Osaka Securities Exchange, slated to create the world’s third largest bourse. And the first day has proved to be un-clever, with stock number 8697 down 9.42 per cent at the close in Japan… Read more
An unlikely beneficiary of the fiscal fudge, perhaps. Here’s Spanish 10 year paper, the yield on which was threatening to drop back below 5 per cent on Thursday. Read more
Via John Hempton’s Bronte Capital…
Amidst a general fiscal-fudge-relief-rally on Wednesday, one sector stood out…
You just knew it was coming: chaotic brinkmanship, followed by a half-baked compromise that sees substantially all contentious issues kicked off to another day. Last minute Congressional agreement over tax rises, simply offers up spending cuts and the debt ceiling as the next two crisis points for US legislators.
So it’s Rally Time, but only sort of. Asian stock markets were up sharply, but that was at last partly down to the latest positive PMI data from China. In London, the Footsie — much more of a barometer for the US — was up 1.5 per cent or so at pixel. Read more
Here’s embattled agriculture combine Olam on Tuesday morning:
Don’t ask the SFO, or accountants Grant Thornton, for that matter.
Here’s a long, angry letter sent by the Vincent Tchenquiz camp some months ago to Grant Thornton, forming part of the furious legal dispute between the Tchenguiz Brothers and the SFO.
At the bottom of page 19 you’ll find a section headed “Sainsbury’s proceeds.” It is allegedly the case that when the financial cops pounced — acting on information from GT, who were handling the unwinding of Iceland’s Kaupthing — neither the SFO or GT really understood how the modern stock market works. Read more
The Bank of England has published the first data from its new-fangled Funding for Lending Scheme. At first blush, the numbers look pathetic: net lending grew a paltry £500m in the three months to end-September, while total drawdowns from the FLS amounted to £4.5bn, against a potential pot of £100bn.
But that would be us jumping to conclusions, prematurely. As the Bank says: Read more
Click for details.
Maybe this was inevitable after the Qataris said they would approve Xstrata’s merger with Glenstrata, but would abstain on the retention bonuses. But the raw numbers of shareholders here saying payments to management were excessive suggest a very aggressive mood amongst institutions. Remember, this is a revised incentive scheme, where shareholders were supposed to have been listened to…
The result from Xstrata’s shareholder meeting on Tuesday… Read more
There are so many aspects surrounding Greece’s ongoing refinancing needs still up in the air, it should come as no surprise that the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting of European finance ministers has reportedly been shrunk to addressing how an immediate €15bn gap can be bridged through to 2014. A further €17.6bn seemingly required to take the country through to 2016 can be discussed later. Read more
Subject to the vote of Xstrata shareholders later on Tuesday, of course. And one or two regulatory hurdles remain. But while we wait for the XTA vote, here are the voting results of the Glencore shareholder’s meeting… Read more
This is a euphemistic statement header, to say the least…
PREMIER FOODS ANNOUNCES FURTHER STEP TO BUILD VALUE IN BREAD Read more
