It has become standard operating procedure for the FED to enter the market in an effort to minimize the impact of any low probability event with market disrupting outcomes.The BREXIT vote surprised the markets but the FED allowed investors to absorb the financial pain and stayed in the watchtower.
Posts Tagged ‘Eurocrats’
Notes From Underground: It’s March and We Hear the Wind Blowing
March 4, 2012Do you have to be a weatherman to hear the wind blow? There are many cross currents alive in the investment world as the LTRO is behind us, ISDA defaulted on its role as a referee on global financial issues in the face of political threats from the EUROCRATS, and the Bernanke FED looks to be waiting for a new crisis to erupt before undertaking another further easing. March is always a difficult month for trading YEN as the JAPANESE CALENDAR YEAR ENDS MARCH 31 so repatriation of corporate profits is always a wildcard for any short YEN positions.
Notes From Underground: Oh Where Oh Where Can Tim Geithner Be, Oh Where Oh Where Can He Be?
December 12, 2011Last week, Secretary Geithner was in Europe prior to the SUMMIT in an effort to influence European policy makers. The Obama administration has been trying to impress upon Europe’s key planners that it was of the utmost importance to get ahead of the CREDIT CRISIS and stop solely reacting. It seems that the U.S. Treasury Secretary failed miserably to convince Merkel and the others that the BIG BAZOOKA needed to be fired. As usual, the EUROCRATS tried to FOOL the financial markets they disdain. Chancellor Merkel has openly stated that she will not be coerced by an UNELECTED FORCE CALLED THE MARKET.
Notes From Underground: Europe Has the World Living On Hope
December 6, 2011Courtesy of Leon Russell:
I’M UP ON THE TIGHTROPE,ONE SIDES HATE AND ONE IS HOPEIT’S A CIRCUS GAME WITH YOU AND ME
Notes From Underground: “Everybody’s Talking At Me I Can’t Hear A Word They’re Saying…”
December 1, 2011It was a day of dueling flapjawing as the European elite was out talking about everything that needs to be done to save the EURO and Sarkozy promising that there would not be any European defaults. Again to paraphrase Jimmy Breslin: Sarkozy is a little man in search of a balcony. The time for public orations is past and the call to action is immediate and real. Global investors don’t want any more rhetoric. Next Friday is considered the day of reckoning but if the EUROCRATS have any sense all the needed policy will have been put in place by the December 9th meeting so that the markets will have absorbed the “shock and awe” and there will be no disappointment.
Notes From Underground: European Leaders Head to Washington for Meetings When Everyone Knows There Is No Sanity Clause
November 27, 2011In one of the best Marx Brothers scenes is from A Night at the Opera, where Groucho and Chico are ripping up a contract and they finally come to the SANITY CLAUSE, in which Chico proclaims there is no SANITY CLAUSE. In tomorrow’s Financial Times, there is a story about France pushing for a Christmas gift from the ECB. The gift that the French are hoping for is a backstop for the European banks that are under severe stress because of the huge amount of EURO sovereign bonds on the banks’ balance sheets. In order for the ECB to act, there would have to be a SANITY CLAUSE invoked and the EUROCRATS would have to attain a measure of sanity. The day-to-day machinations of EUROPEAN politics has left the markets FATIGUED and in a very defensive mindset.
Notes From Underground: Christine Lagarde, the Markets Turn Their Lonely Eyes To You
November 9, 2011The European debt markets were thrown into further chaos today as the German/Italian 10-year notes spread blew up. In cash terms, the move was a widening of 58 basis points while in futures prices the differential was 512 ticks. Notes From Underground has been monitoring the BUND/BTP futures spread for almost two years. The BUND and BTP 10-year futures are the proxies for Europe as they are the only liquid contracts available to hedge risk. Prior to September 2009, the BUND was the only bond future contract available to manage risk and speculate on the European debt markets. The ITALIANS moves to list the BTP FUTURES so the banks and pensions would have a viable tool in which to hedge the massive amount of Italian debt that was in the market. It seemed that the Italian finance ministry had a noble intention, but as the debacle of the PIIGS has moved to center stage, the Italian BTP has been the only viable tool for speculators and hedgers to participate in the long end of the EURO debt markets.
Notes From Underground: A Market Pregnant With Fear Suffers A Contraction From A Confusing Headline
October 25, 2011The global markets are on tenterhooks waiting for the European leaders to come to some definitive plan of action to secure the European banking sector and provide relief to the problem of sovereign solvency issue of the so-called PIIGS. This problem has plagued the financial landscape since January 2010, when the Chinese SWF failed to buy a Greek 25 billion euro bond offering. When China didn’t fund Greece, the spotlight was directed to the European debt markets and the result has been a steady decay in the value of the sovereign debt of the European peripheries. After previous crisis meetings to stem the debt crisis, the time has come for the EUROCRATS and their political leaders to provide a program that has some genuine credibility.
Notes From Underground: LIES, DAMN LIES and THE SADISTICS OF AUSTERITY
October 5, 2011The European problems are made from the continued deception of the policy makers that meander from crisis to crisis. Eurocrats denied that there was a sovereign credit crisis even as the BOND MARKET was aggressively selling the debt of the PIIGS. A problem in Greece when rates went above 10% on 2-year Greek Bonds? No, just some speculators moving the markets in an attempt to make a quick EURO. There are no problems in the EU. Now that the lies have given birth to a major crisis and possible global DEPRESSION, the EUROCRATS are beginning to acknowledge that something is rotten in Brussels.