January 2012

The US jobs report is the main economic release today. In recent months, better than expected employment reports have spurred risk on trading and this has been dollar negative. Given the ADP report, despite the December skew in that time…

Coldplay is what I'm listening to tonight.

In addition to the European economic recession exerting a drag on the rest of the world, the real threat of bankruptcy of a major financial institution can rapidly spread throughout the globe as a result of a run on the banks or the opaque…

At the end of last year, Italian 10-year yields were more than 200 bp on top of Spain. The spread has narrowed in recent days, but is still well beyond the euro era average of about 10 bp and the late 2008 extreme near 65 bp. There is more…

Financial news links for 5 January 2012

Welcome to Credit Writedowns Pro. This is the first post in a series here. Let me start this Byron Wien-style and make a predictions list. Wien defines his surprises as events to which investors assign 1-in-3 odds of happening but which he…

One of the key factors behind the poor sentiment toward the euro, which was pressed to new 13 month lows in Europe today, is the challenge posed by the sovereign and bank refunding needed this year, while rating downgrades loom around the…

Here's the skinny on how Jeffrey Gundlach sees the best tactical bond market approach for US-based investors

It is my view that the ECB is now the only thing between the economy and widespread bank failures, but I also concur that the consequence of this is a permanent outsourcing of the interbank market in Europe to the ECB's balance sheet and,…

When I worked in banking not so long ago, it was actually cool to be “old school”. It was just another way of saying that one would try to balance the bank’s interests with that of the corporate client’s. To make neither too little money…