Bloomberg.com – Wall Street Exhales as Volcker Rule Seen Sparing Market-Making Wall Street banks avoided their worst fears of the Volcker rule after regulators crafted the ban on speculative trading to leave market-making operations intact. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which among big U.S. banks gets the largest portion of its revenue from trading, climbed to… Continue reading Regulation
The Financial Times – Martin Wolf: The emerging risks of ticking time bonds When funding conditions turn, relying on cheap dollars to finance local assets can be lethal The most sobering lesson of the global financial crisis was that developments expected to increase resilience – in that case, the “originate and distribute” model of finance… Continue reading Asset Managers Could Blow Us All Up
<Click on chart for larger image> The Financial Times – Shipping benchmark hits three-year high A recovery in global shipping markets is gathering momentum with a key indicator hitting a fresh three-year high, raising hopes that the gloom hanging over the sector is finally lifting. The Baltic Dry index, which reflects the daily charter rate… Continue reading Baltic Dry Index
The Financial Times – John Authers: Time to take the Bitcoin bubble seriously The moment has come to take Bitcoin seriously. This month has seen notes on the online currency from mainstream foreign exchange analysts at Wall Street banks Citi and BofA Merrill Lynch. When Wall Street has to take Bitcoin seriously, the online currency… Continue reading Bitcoin Needs To Be Taken Seriously
Jim Bianco was on CNBC yesterday talking about the Fed’s taper decision. To view the interview click on the image above. To view any of our recent interviews click here. As we detailed yesterday, Jim does not think the Fed will taper at next week’s FOMC meeting, or even at the January meeting. As the… Continue reading Timing The Taper
MarketWatch – Fed’s Bullard floats idea of small taper in December The best move for the Federal Reserve given improving jobs numbers but slow inflation readings might be a small December taper, an official said Monday in key comments ahead of next week’s meeting. “A small taper might recognize labor market improvement while still providing… Continue reading Fed Speak
<Click on chart for larger image> MoneyBeat (WSJ Blog) – Hidden Volume From Small Trades to Hit Screens Today For years, the number of so-called “odd lot” stock trades – below 100 shares – has been on the rise, but hidden from the view of most everyday traders. But all that’s about to change, and… Continue reading Low Volume
The Telegraph (UK) – Money printing, search for yield and the mirage of financial stability Unfortunately, the near free money environment has gone on for much longer than anyone anticipated, and we seem incapable of easing ourselves off the life support The BIS’s latest quarterly review points out that yield compression is back with a… Continue reading Money Printing
<Click on chart for larger image> CNBC – Art Cashin: This could spark ‘outright selling’ Art Cashin says the yield on the U.S. 10-year note remains the “North Star” for stocks and if it tops 3 percent we’ll see some “outright selling” in the stock market. Cashin, UBS’ director of floor operations at the NYSE,… Continue reading If The 10-Year Breaks 3%
The Financial Times – Return of boom-era debt deals raise alarm The global turmoil that erupted in 2007 was triggered by a blow-up in securitised US subprime mortgages – loans for homeowners with low credit scores that had been repackaged and redistributed among investors around the world. Given that history, investors and policy makers would… Continue reading Overheated Corporate Bond Market?
The Wall Street Journal – Abe’s Support Drops Sharply in Japan Polls taken in recent days show a rapid downturn. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s political support has sharply eroded for the first time since he came to power, as a feud over a secrecy bill dominated the final days of a parliament session that was… Continue reading The Japanese Sour On Abe