Some thoughts from Beppe Grillo (really):
I’m here on the settee at home. They’ve made me lie down. They don’t want me to have any upsets. They’ve covered me up with one of those checkered rugs. Outside there are the floodlights beaming in through the bathroom window. I don’t know what they want to see. This adventure that we’re having is fantastic…
Throwing around the negative interest rates idea has become very trendy all of a sudden with Draghi, Praet and Constancio weighing in and, we’d argue, using the threat to substitute for policy impotence.
So, was Bank of England deputy governor Paul Tucker doing the same thing on Tuesday morning in front of a Parliamentary committee? Using a jedi-trick to talk down sterling perchance? It’s not a phrase you use lightly and it seems unlikely he would have whacked it out completely unintended. But it has to be said, if he was going Jedi here, the effect didn’t last all that long. Read more
This is a cracking *cough* little note from Bank of America Merrill Lynch on soaring gasoline crack spreads… which are being driven by a spate of refinery closures which, as it turns out, are specifically impacting the New York Harbour market, known as PADD I, beyond all others.
This has generally resulted in a divergence in regional prices across the United States (mostly to the disadvantage of East Coast drivers).
As BofAML notes:
Despite being the middle of the winter, US RBOB gasoline crack spreads to Brent crude oil have soared by an astonishing $16/bbl in the past month (Chart 2).
With the freedom to publicise at a low cost at will, what place is there for the subset of writers and editors doing this for a living? Andrew Betts, director at FT Labs, opined in a recent TEDx talk that if media organisations are to weather the changing habits of consumers of news and analysis, technological innovations must occur. Read more
The political picture in Italy is looking deeply uncertain. We all know that.
But what’s possibly more interesting is the scale of the market reaction to that uncertainty. Read more
Alternate working title: Opec-cartel style
We’ve already heard from Oleg Deripaska on the matter. And we’ve started to see the consequences hit Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton. But the latest “we must rein in supply” Opec-cartel style talk, actually emanates from Glencore CEO Ivan Glasenberg.
Bloomberg has the story ( hat tip to Reuters’ John Kemp) and it offers few cracking paragraphs to say the least: Read more
Live markets commentary from FT.com
China to tighten shadow banking rules || US seeks maximum fine in BP spill trial || Osborne weighs impact of banks’ bad loans || US senators press EU on Iran sanctions || Rio Tinto warned of possible rating cut || Scientists claim 72 is the new 30 || Yahoo bans working from home || Markets update: Italian impasse rekindles eurozone jitters Read more
In terms of providing certainty, it’s hard to see how the Italian election outcome could have been worse.
Elsewhere on Tuesday,
- A major lack of Vix convergence.
- Elon Musk mentions the hyperloop again.
- Gasoline’s danger zone. Read more
Italian election spooks markets || Asian stocks fall || Goldman said to be cutting jobs || Big BP trial opens || Rio Tinto warned on rating || Sinopec gets Chesapeake assets cheap || China’s debt bomb || Yahoo CEO bans remote working Read more
ROUND-UP
Doesn’t it feel like 2011? The S&P 500 had its worst day since November (closing down 1.8 per cent at 1,487.89), Morgan Stanley shares fell 6.57 per cent, and the euro lost 1.7 per cent against the yen. The 10-year Treasury yield dropped to 1.86 per cent, a one-month low (Reuters, Bloomberg). Read more
It’s the week of the big hearing in the pari passu saga.
Argentina (plus the bondholders who agreed to be restructured between 2005 and 2010, plus Bank of New York) will try to convince the Second Circuit that it should change an order for the country to pay holdouts ratably as a remedy for breaching their bond contract. ‘Ratable’ is a term with a controversial history in sovereign debt but it basically means paying each creditor on the same basis, not paying one after the other.
Well, speaking of ratable payment… we’d just like to point something out from the Belize debt restructuring, which has been going on while the pari passu saga has trundled through courts: Read more
Dear everyone, this article is based on a questionable premise: that the dollar is about to head off on another bull run. We know this may not happen. Thanks, us. Read more
No sooner had Italian stocks soared and bonds tightened (sic) on early exit polls suggesting Pier Luigi Bersani’s centre-left Democratic party might have secured victory in both the lower and upper houses of the Parlamento Italiano, than…
So Nassim Taleb had a go at TED the other week. Over “skin in the game”.
(There’s also a paper. On skin in the game. Not on TED.) Read more
Live markets commentary from FT.com
New president elected in Cyprus, now onto the bank bailout || New BoJ governor || China flash PMI || To the polls in Italy, with a low turnout || The UK’s downgrade hits pound || RBS to float Citizens || Revisiting the budget sequester || Markets update Read more
That’s the considered opinion of Julian D. A. Wiseman (most recently head of UK rates strategy at Société Générale but writing on his personal blog here) on the Monday after Moody’s cut its credit rating for the UK from Aaa to Aa1, taking the Bank of England down with it. For those keeping count, that makes it a downgrade that was neither surprising, nor informative nor, in itself, damaging (as Martin Wolf put it)… but more to the point it was just plain silly. Read more
The flash HSBC/Markit China PMI number for February: 50.4. That’s a four-month low and quite a drop from 52.3 of January. Yet, as HSBC’s Hongbin Qu reminds us, it’s also the fourth consecutive month of expansion above 50 — the level which demarcates between above-trend and sub-trend growth.
So, what to make of it? Well firstly, Chinese New Year happened in February and, yes, you probably need to treat January and February data with caution because this holiday a) can fall in either month, and b) is huge. Read more
This Monday edition of rising Japanese equities/weak yen is brought to you by Haruhiko Kuroda, president of the Asian Development Bank and according to various media reports, the likely nominee for Bank of Japan governor.
Kuroda reportedly said early this month he was quite happy at the ADB and had nearly four years to serve of his third term. But to that we say: Mark Carney! Read more
Now that Cypriots have elected the guy who’ll have to negotiate how to pay for the costliest bank bailout in history (relative to the size of the economy on the world’s 81st-biggest island)…
He (and they) could do worse than look at these charts, courtesy of Gabriel Sterne at Exotix: Read more
Elsewhere on Monday,
- Payments, finance and a proto-shadow banking system in Ancient Rome.
- The arrival of Japan’s sunset.
- THAT question revisited. Read more
Asian markets rise, yen weakens || Kuroda tipped for BoJ governor || China flash PMIs surprisingly weak || Italians go to polls || Osborne in difficult position after downgrade || Scottish currency battle looms || RBS may sell part of Citizen || RBS to pay Direct Line advisers more || BP in holding pattern Read more
Last year’s worries about the Chinese economy suffering a ‘hard landing’ eventually proved to be misplaced. Or should that be, worries that the government wouldn’t be able to engineer a soft landing, proved to be misplaced. Yet, while the economy seems to be on a more stable footing these days, there may be too much optimism that this will continue.
The consensus is for growth of a touch more than 8 per cent this year, roughly in line with what Beijing itself is forecasting. Yet Zhiwei Zhang and Wendy Chen, economists at Nomura, argue this is too bullish, and offer five reasons why they think 7.7 per cent is more realistic, with growth slowing to 7.3 per cent in the second half of 2013. Read more
Let’s take a moment for a high level overview of public debt-to-GDP ratios in the eurozone. If that’s not your idea of fun, well, you probably wouldn’t be reading FT Alphaville.
Courtesy of a note by Lasse Holboell W. Nielsen of the Economics Research team at Goldman Sachs (we may have added some kittens)… Read more
The disconnect we’ve noticed between commodity fundamentals and forward rates appears to be popping up in other asset classes as well.
Priya Misra, rates strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, makes a very interesting point on Friday about what she sees in her sector. Read more
Live markets commentary from FT.com
Brussels turns up pressure over Libor || Relief over HP earnings buys Whitman time || Citi unveils pay plan for executives || Egyptian elections to start in April || ECB unveils €1.1bn profit on crisis bonds || US paints bearish outlook for grain prices || CFTC sues Nymex over information leaks || Markets: Growth-focused products are rallying Read more
Older entries
1'This downgrade is nonsense!'
2Stable Italy shocker hopes dashed!
3Italian post-election misery
4The burning of Rome spreads
5Hey, spendy miners, operate Glencore style
Show more6A dollar bully
7The Chinese PMI circus [Updated]
8Tucker goes Jedi (ish)
9Food for thought on digital news consumption
10Further reading
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