Monthly Archives: March 2009

2009-03-12 USER

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Advance Retail Sales MoM (Feb)

Survey -0.5%
Actual -0.1%
Prior 1.0%
Revised 1.8%

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Advance Retail Sales YoY (Feb)

Survey n/a
Actual -8.6%
Prior -9.0%
Revised n/a

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Retail Sales Less Autos (Feb)

Survey -0.1%
Actual 0.7%
Prior 0.9%
Revised 1.6%

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Initial Jobless Claims (Mar 7)

Survey 644K
Actual 654K
Prior 639K
Revised 645K

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Continuing Claims (Mar 7)

Survey 5140K
Actual 5317K
Prior 5106K
Revised 5124K

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Jobless Claims ALLX (Mar 7)

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Business Inventories MoM (Jan)

Survey -1.0%
Actual -1.1%
Prior -1.3%
Revised -1.6%

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Business Inventories YoY (Jan)

Survey n/a
Actual -1.5%
Prior 0.6%
Revised n/a


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Treasury news

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Yes, but this would help world demand.

But it’s throwing away a major opportunity to increase our standard of living by supporting domestic demand unilaterally and letting the rest of the world rely on exports to us:

Interesting news from Treasury:

  1. Propose to increase IMF standy funds from $50 Billion to $500 Billion (major positive for emerging market credit).

  2. Calling for all G20 countries to spend 2% of GDP in stimulus in both 2009 and 2010.

  3. Calling for some kind of global trade finance initiative.


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Deficit large enough to turn the economy?

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Given our counter cyclical tax structure, a weak economy causes the deficit to rise until it adds sufficient income and net financial assets to turn things around.

It then goes the other way, with the strong economy driving up revenues faster than even the government can spend, until the falling deficit ends the cycle.

In the past, when the deficit got in the range of 5% of GDP that proved sufficient to cause the turn.

It might be higher this time around.

The surplus years did a lot of damage as they removed substantial net financial assets that only deficits can replace.

The proactive Bush fiscal package reversed the economy earlier than otherwise.

Also, government purchases of financial assets don’t ‘count’ for purposes of this analysis.

So ex TARP, the deficit is maybe 2% or more smaller than the headline deficit number.


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SOV CDS Indicative Level

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SOV CDS Indicative Levels

Country 5yr CDS/10yr CDS Change Curve Euro/USD
Austria 242/262 -5 -20/-5 8/18
Belgium 137/147 -3 -10/-2 6/12
Finland 78/88 -2 -3/0 4/9
France 83/93 -5 -4/0 5/10
Germany 80/90 -3 -4/0 5/10
Greece 240/265 unch -25/-8 9/20
Ireland 330/360 -10 -30/-10 10/22
Italy 184/194 -5 -12/-2 7/11
Netherland 122/130 unch -8/0 5/12
Norway 53/65 unch -2/2 n/a
Portugal 125/138 -4 -12/0 8/14
Spain 140/153 -2 -8/-1 8/14
Sweden 136/152 -3 -8/-1 n/a
UK 142/158 -5 -8/-2 6/12
US 85/98 -3 -4/0 3/6


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2009-03-11 USER

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MBA Mortgage Applications (Mar 6)

Survey n/a
Actual 11.3%
Prior -12.6%
Revised n/a

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MBA Purchasing Applications (Mar 6)

Survey n/a
Actual 253.30
Prior 236.40
Revised n/a

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MBA Refinancing Applications (Mar 6)

Survey n/a
Actual 3470.70
Prior 3063.40
Revised n/a

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Bloomberg Global Confidence (Mar)

Survey n/a
Actual 5.95
Prior 8.49
Revised n/a


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Re: Bernanke missing the point on repo

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(email exchange)

The Fed already has thousands of designated agents, the banks, to lend and take in deposits.

If I were in charge I’d eliminate the cap on FDIC insured bank deposits and legislate any insured pension funds keep their excess cash in insured deposits.

And borrowers can go to the banks as well.

And if I wanted spreads narrower that could also be done via adjusting capital requirements and risk weights as desired.

>   
>   On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 10:00 AM, Pat wrote:
>   
>   Bernanke is lending credence to our idea of a centralized, regulated exchange for repo which
>   we have been calling the RPX project.
>   

Chairman Ben S. Bernanke — At the Council on Foreign Relations, Washington, D.C.

Mar 10 (Federal Reserve) — The Federal Reserve and other authorities also are focusing on enhancing the resilience of the triparty repurchase agreement (repo) market, in which the primary dealers and other major banks and broker-dealers obtain very large amounts of secured financing from money market mutual funds and other short-term, risk-averse sources of funding.


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EU Finance Chiefs Rebuff US Calls to Boost Economic Stimulus

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Yes!

Europe Snubs US Calls for More Stimulus Before G-20

by Jennifer Ryan and Agnes Lovasz

Mar 10 (Bloomberg) — European finance ministers rejected calls from the U.S. to do more to battle the economic crisis, saying stimulus plans already in place need time to work.

“Recent American appeals insisting that the Europeans make an additional budgetary effort to combat the effects of the crisis were not to our liking,” Luxembourg Finance Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said yesterday after leading a meeting of euro-area finance chiefs in Brussels. “We want to see what the effect of the recovery package is going to be.”


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Iraq and Iran holding hands

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Well done- we facilitated the realization of the dream of the Iraq-Iran Shiite super state Saddam had been keeping apart.

Iraqi president meets top Iranian leaders

Feb 28 (AFP) — Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is meeting top Iranian leaders on Friday on his second trip to the Islamic republic in almost two years, the offical IRAN news agency reported.

Talabani, a Kurd, will hold talks with his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the head of Iran’s Expediency Council Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and others.

Other media reports said Talabani is also expected to meet Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Iraqi leader arrived in Iran on Thursday on his way home from a trip to South Korea. He is accompanied by a high-level delegation from the ministries of foreign affairs, trade and electricity.

He previously visited Iran in June 2007.

Ahmadinejad travelled to Iraq in March 2008 in the first ever visit by an Iranian president to the former arch-foe, symbolizing the flourishing ties between Tehran and the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

The two Shiite-majority countries fought a war between 1980 and 1988 in which around one million people died.

Relations have warmed considerably since the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated regime in Iraq by US-led forces.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki visited Tehran in January to seek Iran’s help in rebuilding the country and the two neighbours agreed to establish a high-ranking joint committee to improve cooperation.


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