Posts Tagged ‘CoCo bonds’

Notes From Underground: The August of Our Discontent

August 7, 2019

When August rolls in the markets thin as Europe heads to the beaches and New Yorkers head to the Hamptons before Labor Day. This means every tweet President Trump is amplified by the LACK of market liquidity. On Wednesday, the president was back in full confrontation with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell because three central banks CUT interest rates last night: India,Thailand, and, most importantly, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, which surprised most market analysts by cutting 50 basis points instead of 25.

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Notes From Underground: Draghi is Laughing All the Way To the Bank

July 10, 2016

The jobs report on Friday was the antithesis of May’s poor data, which was actually revised downward by 27,000 to a very meager 11,000 NFP gain for May. The June report brought an unexpected increase of 287,000 jobs, although the average hourly earning (AHE) showed a weak 0.1% gain. The market closes revealed a well known fact: ULTRA-LOW INTEREST RATES ARE THE KEY ELEMENT TO THE REACTION FUNCTION OF TRADERS AND INVESTORS.

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Notes From Underground: Swiss go CucKOO for COCOs

December 13, 2010

Something to put on your radar screens for the new year: contingent capital, or CoCo bonds. These instruments are contingent convertible and will be a very respected form of TIER 1 capital under the foggy regulations of Basel 3. The regulators like these instruments as they are DEBT that converts to equity if/when the bank-in-question’s equity/capital ratio falls below a certain level. Rather than the BOND holders getting a free ride and the equity owners bearing the burden with an equity raise, the CoCos will automatically convert to EQUITY, which will lower the level of DEBT and increase equity capital to a regulatory acceptable level. Credit Suisse announced it’s going to do a $30 billion CoCo so you can be certain that other large multinational banks will be joining in. It has yet to be determined what effect CoCos will have on the markets overall. If its popularity catches on, as I suspect, it could provide a boost to the global behemoths as it would lower the need to float more stock to reach the needed capital levels.

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