Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Report in Investment News of Pimco bond fund manager lamenting the current interest rate enviroment…sometimes its tough…hang in there guys…
Thursday, February 22, 2007
For retail fixed income we see less trade volume when interest rates decline or stay flat…it is a well known part of the equation. We see specific evidence of this in the recently released NASD “2006 TRACE Fact Book” (download here 20 mb). Here are the average number of daily trades for investment grade securities […]
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
I’m rereading filings made to the SEC regarding rating agencies as part of the process of writing my comments in this final round of rulemaking. These comments relate to market structure and forces and the best way to regulate them. I had to pause though when I read the following from Cantwell and Company:
Question 22: Should […]
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
You can buy individual pieces of credit ratings research online from Alacra Store. The firm is an aggregator which sells content that includes company profiles and financials; credit, investment and market research; economic data and news. As you can see from the prices below it is really geared for institutions and maybe high net worth individuals. I’m showing the […]
Monday, February 19, 2007
Light going on the NYSE Bonds blog…not well known yet…also fixed income blogs are still rarities…
Thursday, February 15, 2007
The NASD has released their online course for registered reps to learn about selling fixed income to retail investors.
After going through the course I’d be surprised if any brokers would sell fixed income given the myriad of risks that reps are responsible to represent to investors prior to sale. It helps explain the impossibly low penetration of fixed income. None […]
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Bond insurers are our “country club cousins”.
While the majority of fixed income market participants are sweating along trying to trade or structure deals..our cousins are sitting back earning hefty incomes providing financial guarantees on investment grade securities. Those are the securities that rarely default.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
There is lots of speculation in the fixed income markets about the level of liquidity that the new NYSE Bonds platform will attract. Since it’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow we can frame the question as “will anyone love the new platform?”
My prediction is similar to many others in the market which is that the takeup will be […]
The leading credit risk modeling reference site on the web, www.defaultrisk.com , has gone missing from the ether…on the same day (Feb 5.) that the SEC released the Proposed Rules for Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization…
The SEC Proposed Rules (page 111, footnote 312) references the site www.defaultrisk.com along with a report from the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) […]
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
held its year end and 4th quarter conference call this morning. They did a very good job of increasing their share of institutional corporate bond trades in the US and Europe and they are making good progress on their new products for single name CDS list trading and an anonymous crossing network for dealers.
CEO/Chairman […]
