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Category Archives: Pricing

Trading every which way…

Bloomberg is reporting today that several institutional investors have accused Goldman Sachs of naked short selling high yield loans… which generally hadn’t happened in that market as loans were trading at par until recently… uh oh… 
In the Bloomberg article there is also the suggestion that GS has been intentionally delaying settlement of trades which [...]

Treasury Club II

Forgot to include the money quote for the Treasury Club post…
Bill Gross says… “that MBS is trading between the 20s and high 70s… depends on the structure of the paper… it is complex because of various default rates and cash flows… this is one reason they trade so cheaply…”
I certainly believe the “smart money” is [...]

The Treasury Club…

Bill Gross, of Pimco, was interviewed by Kathleen Hays of Bloomberg about various Treasury programs… his whole game is to ride the Federal pony capturing significant additional spread on Treasury guaranteed assets… I guess I shouldn’t be so naive about all the private gain that is happening as a corollary of the bailout… lots of [...]

Incubator markets…

My comment in response to a WSJ.com article about a speech by CFTC Acting Chairman Lukken about reforming the financial markets regulatory structure… 
%  %  %
Having read Commissioner Lukken’s speech where he calls for the creation of a “systemic risk” regulator I really must object to the heart of his argument… he says…
“This new (proposed) structure would require certain reporting [...]

Spiky…

Nice chart from EconompicData…

Long Term Capital

Here is an interesting account of what happened in 1998 when the Federal Reserve orchestrated the primary dealers to bail out Long Term Capital Management…
~~~~ ” … I want to talk about the word “liquidity” as it applies to the bond market.  
I want to focus on what has happened over the last three or four months. [...]

Resetting the rules…

 
Treasury helps corporate-bond market
Nov. 5, 2008
Sharon Wrobel , THE JERUSALEM POST
~~~~ “For the first time since the outbreak of the global financial crisis, the Finance Ministry has indirectly intervened in the depressed corporate-bond market to neutralize the impact of market volatility.
“In an effort to enable financial bodies to invest in corporate bonds without being exposed [...]

cruel…cruel…

A friend saw this on Calculated Risk and sent it over… truth is cruel… hilarious too…

Swapping secrecy…

New York Times
Op-Ed Contributor, By Christopher Cox
Published: October 18, 2008
Swapping Secrecy for Transparency
~~~~ “The historic volatility in the financial markets has raised important questions about the lack of meaningful regulation of financial instruments known as credit-default swaps. The $85 billion government rescue last month of the insurance conglomerate American International Group, for example, was needed [...]

Besieging the regulators…

Near the end of the Civil War Union forces beseiged Petersburg, VA for 9 months. Confederate forces could barely find food to eat. Starving,  with their numbers dwindling due to desertions, and with Sherman’s forces approaching from the south, Lee attempted a break out.
It failed miserably, and on April 2nd, Union forces soon assaulted the Confederate lines. The [...]