Today Germany had a failed bond auction. The terms of its failure were simply that not enough people turned up and no one wanted to buy. The rate was customarily low its just no one came to the shop. Why? It was not that the buyers were asking for a higher rate of return to …
Failed German Bond Auction – not what it seems EXPANDED Read More »
A very interesting article and great interview at Portfolio.hu today. What makes it of interest is that for once you have a politician talking out of their mouth instead of the usual other end. The Hungarian government is always described as ‘centre-right’. Forthright might be more accurate. Remember in the wake of the Greek bail-out, …
I thought I’d let you know that a book based upon everything I’ve written starting with Bear Stearns and going up to the Greek fiasco is now finished. It is called The Debt Generation. All we have to do now is find an agent and a publisher. I say we because it has been edited …
I have been sitting here listening and thinking, feeling vaguely guilty that I haven’t written anything. I have been watching what seemed a perplexingly contradictory series of events and facts. And it has led me to consider this – too often, when we think and even more so when we speak, we do so in …
I have written a lot about how I think there are now two economies. Ours and the bank’s. Here is a glimpse of the sort of evidence that convinces me it is true. Just from today. Portugal’s rating was downgraded again today. This time by two more notches because of continuing ‘concerns’ that Portugal’s financial …
You know that phrase, “You can’t have your cake and eat it too”? Well aparently you can if you’re a US bank. The US suspended all mark to market requirements for bank assets back in 08. Since the banking crisis took hold and bank assets became valueless, banks have been allowed to ignore this incovenient …
In the last two days Europe’s agreement on the Greek bail-out fund and the larger, related Europe-wide bail out fund have begun to unravel. First the the in-coming, newly elected government of the Slovak republic and their likely President Iveta Radicova re-iterated her conviction that the Slovak Republic should not contribute its share of the …
Between September and November, in the UK and the US, we are going to have the Political Killing Season. We may also have it elsewhere but I haven’t given it enough thought yet. From September onwards the reality of Cuts will start to make itself felt. So far they have not. But when the new …
I think there is a basic asymmetry in US and EU bank debts, which is having an effect on US/Eu relations. EU banks own/are exposed to large losses on bad debts in US real estate. Both residential and commercial. Banks such as Deutsche Bank, Soc Gen and RBS to name just a few obviousl ones. …
So what was last week? Was it the proof that we were just having a little re-trace before powering on with the recovery? Or was it a week of manufactured confidence, created and sustained for the entire week by HFT trades designed to squeeze short sellers and corall sentiment back to the party line? Well …
