2014

The supply of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) continues to fall behind the potential demand - even with the Fed's taper in place. New issuance has steadily declined over the past year, with the Fed becoming an increasingly larger…

Owning shares in a bank is the functional equivalent of owning a call option on the bank’s future operational earnings, and if the share price contains little intrinsic value (i.e. the value of its assets does not exceed the value of its…

The UK government this week ruled out any question of agreeing to a currency union with an independent Scotland. So where does this leave Scotland's currency conundrum? And what about the banks? Scotland has two very large banks - RBS and…

Themes for today: Commodities: soybean prices could fall due to increased supply. This would be troublesome for Argentina. Emerging markets: Of the fragile five, India is looking better, Brazil is still a big concern. Developed…

News links for 14 Feb 2014

Again, the income to support sales just doesn’t seem to be there, as the sub 3% federal deficit doesn’t seem to have been providing the spending needed to offset the demand leakages (unspent income). And squinting at the jobless claims…

Ukraine's sovereign CDS spread is approaching the high reached right before the Russian bailout was announced. The currency is nearing the pre-bail-out lows.

By Marc Chandler The Italian 10-year premium over Germany (white line) has generally fallen over the past year as the dollar against the euro (yellow line). Of course, as one would expect the euro is more volatile than the 10-year…

My thesis has been that China was the main driver of volatility in emerging markets and that tapering by the Federal Reserve was merely a proximate trigger. I still believe this to be the case. However, increasingly I am becoming concerned…

News links for 13 Feb 2014