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Markets
Chart of the day: The German-Spanish 10 Year Spread is at an all time high
Spanish bond yields are spiking with no obvious reason to believe they will come down anytime soon. That puts the Spanish-German 10-year spread at an all time high.
Don’t Fight the Last War: Lessons from the Battlefields of Risk Management
Our brains are not calibrated to deal with the unexpected. Most of us believe we are good risk managers but in reality we are not. Most of us trust that risk can always be quantified and expressed through some fancy modelling whereas,…
Norway dumps Irish and Portuguese bonds, Switzerland increases Sterling reserves
The Swiss National Bank reported its reserve figures yesterday and the increase in its sterling holdings are notable and may help explain the its relative strength, despite data a soft real sector reports, culminating in the news last week…
The Denial on Housing in Spain
This post highlights a brilliant piece of journalism by Bloomberg reporters Sharon Smyth, Neil Callanan and Dara Doyle. The story takes us to Spain and Ireland and the former's denial with regards its housing market. A passage that was…
Why The Yen Rally May Not Last
The Japanese yen was hands down the best performing G10 currency in April, gaining about 3.3% against the dollar and 4.2% against the euro. It appeared to start the new month on a strong note, with the dollar falling to 2 month lows in…
Australian House Prices down 10% from Peak
Australian house prices peaked in June 2010. The motive force behind Australia’s bubble was the same as in the USA and Japan: accelerating debt drove rising house prices during the boom. Now in both those countries, decelerating debt is…
Bill Gross: QE on hold but QE3 would be back on if jobs reports are weak
Last month PIMCO founder and Chief Investment Officer Bill Gross said PIMCO sees a mortgage-backed QE3 from the Fed as likely. As a result, Pimco has increased its exposure to these. He spoke to Bloomberg television yesterday about how his…
Bank of Canada: House price-to-income ratio outstrips norm by 35%
I have noted a number of times in the past that household debt levels in Canada have reached worrying levels. I am not the only one on to this. Canadian central bank head Mark Carney was in the news yesterday sounding the alarm on this as…
Chart of the day: Life insurers won’t meet nominal return targets
JPMorgan recently performed a study on the composition of portfolios managed by life insurance companies. The study looked at the top 20 life insurance firms using their regulatory filings. These are the portfolios set up to support…
Graphite: Time to Invest, or Flavor of the Day?
Graphite has been getting a lot of buzz recently, raising bullish expectations among some investors and even talk of a future bubble. Why? The price has risen steadily over the past couple of years and attracted a lot of attention. Let's…