The backlash from the EU and IMF’s arguably illegal, but certainly immoral, treatment of investors in Greek bonds has begun. The blatant favouritism afforded to the ECB, allowing that institution to swap their Greek bonds for new ones not subject to the write down, has clearly angered investors. The Troika has reasoned that this anger […]
http://www.firstdegree.asia/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/logo.png00Timhttp://www.firstdegree.asia/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/logo.pngTim2013-05-06 06:15:132018-05-21 06:15:38Asia Sends the EU and the IMF to the ‘Sin Bin’
Not only did the Greeks develop the modern farce that we call “democracy”, they also created an alphabet that has been much adopted in the mathematical asset pricing literature. Theta has been adopted to represent the effect of a time increment on price and the term “theta-burn” refers to the rapid dominance of time on […]
The one thing that Greece has done right (with the approval of the EU/IMF/ECB troika) in the last three years of its crisis, is to finally consult the market in order to get their buyback completed satisfactorily. Two weeks ago, when Bozo was on the job, I was skeptical of their success. Fortunately, the Greeks […]
http://www.firstdegree.asia/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/logo.png00Timhttp://www.firstdegree.asia/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/logo.pngTim2013-05-06 06:14:212018-05-21 06:14:43Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley Replace Bozo T. Clown for the Greek Buyback
While it is not exactly clear what Ben Bernanke wants to achieve by purchasing financial assets, I think he wants to lower long-term interest rates. If this is the objective then we must consider what happens to the money the Fed releases when purchasing assets. Suppose the Fed buys a mortgage security using cash. The […]
http://www.firstdegree.asia/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/logo.png00Timhttp://www.firstdegree.asia/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/logo.pngTim2013-05-06 06:13:522018-05-21 06:14:19Forget QE3 – China and Japan Hold the Key to US Interest Rates
Casual empiricism is a dangerous pursuit, especially if the commentator extrapolates a few recent observations into general trends. However, sometimes there is no other way to make to detect new market behaviour. So at the risk of overinterpreting a few datapoints, here is my take on what is happening in the US Treasury market this […]
http://www.firstdegree.asia/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/logo.png00Timhttp://www.firstdegree.asia/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/logo.pngTim2013-05-06 06:13:182018-05-21 06:13:45A New Dynamic in the US Treasury Market?
A few months ago I blogged about the corn market and how it was overpriced. Since then, the corn price has fallen from USD 830 to USD 740 per bushel, and is likely to fall further. Corn has been studied extensively for its aberrant price behaviour, owing partly to the fact that it is one […]
http://www.firstdegree.asia/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/logo.png00Timhttp://www.firstdegree.asia/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/logo.pngTim2013-05-06 06:11:342018-05-21 06:12:13Modern Hillbillies in the Corn Market
European governments have successfully hijacked the press with their argument that there is a ‘trade-off’ between growth policies versus austerity. What a load of rubbish… …the embarassingly Keynesian argument goes like this. Governments are able to create much needed growth by spending more than they collect in taxes. Austerity programs restrict growth since government fiscal […]
http://www.firstdegree.asia/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/logo.png00Timhttp://www.firstdegree.asia/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/logo.pngTim2013-05-06 06:11:052018-05-21 06:11:28Growth Versus Austerity?
The proposal to issue Eurobonds to combat the European Debt crisis has been repeatedly proposed by debt-ridden states and rejected by the richer states like Germany. Eurobonds would replace individual country bonds like Spain’s with pan-European obligations. Spain’s debts would effectively become all of Europe’s, thus reassuring investors of repayment and reducing borrowing costs. The […]
http://www.firstdegree.asia/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/logo.png00Timhttp://www.firstdegree.asia/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/logo.pngTim2013-05-06 06:10:252018-05-21 06:10:50Beware of Eurobonds
I argued in an earlier post that the result of forcing Private Sector Involvement (PSI) to forgive some of Greece’s debt would be to raise Sovereign borrowing rates across Europe. Well, I was right and the EU has backed down on forcing future PSI writedowns should member countries find themselves in distress. PSI remains a […]
http://www.firstdegree.asia/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/logo.png00Timhttp://www.firstdegree.asia/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/logo.pngTim2013-05-06 06:09:322018-05-21 06:10:02Greece is in no Position to Renegotiate the PSI
When I ordered 20,000 shares in State Street’s High Yield ETF (ticker JNK) in 2009, my broker was concerned that the order was too large to complete in a day without moving the market. JNK was a relatively new vehicle with a market cap of USD 700M that didn’t trade that often. Four years on, […]
http://www.firstdegree.asia/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/logo.png00Timhttp://www.firstdegree.asia/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/logo.pngTim2013-02-17 06:38:382018-05-21 06:39:07High Yield Bonds Go Mainstream: A Viable Alternative to Listed Equity
Asia Sends the EU and the IMF to the ‘Sin Bin’
The backlash from the EU and IMF’s arguably illegal, but certainly immoral, treatment of investors in Greek bonds has begun. The blatant favouritism afforded to the ECB, allowing that institution to swap their Greek bonds for new ones not subject to the write down, has clearly angered investors. The Troika has reasoned that this anger […]
Theta-Burn Baby Burn
Not only did the Greeks develop the modern farce that we call “democracy”, they also created an alphabet that has been much adopted in the mathematical asset pricing literature. Theta has been adopted to represent the effect of a time increment on price and the term “theta-burn” refers to the rapid dominance of time on […]
Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley Replace Bozo T. Clown for the Greek Buyback
The one thing that Greece has done right (with the approval of the EU/IMF/ECB troika) in the last three years of its crisis, is to finally consult the market in order to get their buyback completed satisfactorily. Two weeks ago, when Bozo was on the job, I was skeptical of their success. Fortunately, the Greeks […]
Forget QE3 – China and Japan Hold the Key to US Interest Rates
While it is not exactly clear what Ben Bernanke wants to achieve by purchasing financial assets, I think he wants to lower long-term interest rates. If this is the objective then we must consider what happens to the money the Fed releases when purchasing assets. Suppose the Fed buys a mortgage security using cash. The […]
A New Dynamic in the US Treasury Market?
Casual empiricism is a dangerous pursuit, especially if the commentator extrapolates a few recent observations into general trends. However, sometimes there is no other way to make to detect new market behaviour. So at the risk of overinterpreting a few datapoints, here is my take on what is happening in the US Treasury market this […]
Modern Hillbillies in the Corn Market
A few months ago I blogged about the corn market and how it was overpriced. Since then, the corn price has fallen from USD 830 to USD 740 per bushel, and is likely to fall further. Corn has been studied extensively for its aberrant price behaviour, owing partly to the fact that it is one […]
Growth Versus Austerity?
European governments have successfully hijacked the press with their argument that there is a ‘trade-off’ between growth policies versus austerity. What a load of rubbish… …the embarassingly Keynesian argument goes like this. Governments are able to create much needed growth by spending more than they collect in taxes. Austerity programs restrict growth since government fiscal […]
Beware of Eurobonds
The proposal to issue Eurobonds to combat the European Debt crisis has been repeatedly proposed by debt-ridden states and rejected by the richer states like Germany. Eurobonds would replace individual country bonds like Spain’s with pan-European obligations. Spain’s debts would effectively become all of Europe’s, thus reassuring investors of repayment and reducing borrowing costs. The […]
Greece is in no Position to Renegotiate the PSI
I argued in an earlier post that the result of forcing Private Sector Involvement (PSI) to forgive some of Greece’s debt would be to raise Sovereign borrowing rates across Europe. Well, I was right and the EU has backed down on forcing future PSI writedowns should member countries find themselves in distress. PSI remains a […]
High Yield Bonds Go Mainstream: A Viable Alternative to Listed Equity
When I ordered 20,000 shares in State Street’s High Yield ETF (ticker JNK) in 2009, my broker was concerned that the order was too large to complete in a day without moving the market. JNK was a relatively new vehicle with a market cap of USD 700M that didn’t trade that often. Four years on, […]