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  Breaking the Bank (in gilts)
  
  Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:38:27 +0000
  This’ll be a controversial argument about the Bank of England’s buying of UK government debt, we know… but it comes from Philip Rush of Nomura:Aggressive quantitative...
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  We want negative Treasury yields
  
  Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:40:58 +0000
  Interesting exchange in the latest minutes of the TBAC – Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, which brings together primary dealers and US Treasury officials… (Hat-tip...
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  The Italian bid, redux
  
  Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:57:32 +0000
  We’re sticklers for this stuff — but it’s an important point by Societe Generale’s analysts on Tuesday: (click charts to enlarge)There’s your...
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  Rabobank says go Dutch
  
  Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:54:32 +0000
  (We’ll get our coat)Since there’s a question-mark over who’s going to buy the circa €200bn of fresh eurozone sovereign debt being sold in the first three months of 2012…...
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  The Italian bid
  
  Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:18:47 +0000
  Apparently, the European Central Bank bought unusually large amounts (at least €1bn) of Italian debt on Thursday. Just as well?Stefano Di Domizio of Lombard Street Research wants more:...
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  Keep calm and call the War Loan
  
  Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:20:33 +0000
  (Alternative title: Financial repression meets the History Channel?)Telling the UK government to issue 100-year bonds clearly wasn’t out-of-the-box enough for Societe Generale’s...
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  Banks, bezzles, and ECB liquidity
  
  Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:30:27 +0000
  Quote du jour from an excellent IFR article, doubting the Sarko trade:With bank debts coming due and most firms unable to raise fresh funds in bond markets – which remain...
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  Yes! We have no collateral today
  
  Tue, 06 Dec 2011 08:39:33 +0000
  Didn’t think the quality collateral scarcity issue was a big problem?Seems the fast diminishing pool of ‘risk-free’ assets is a big enough issue to have the...
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  Manufacturing quality collateral
  
  Fri, 25 Nov 2011 18:20:45 +0000
  Regulators are demanding that banks set aside larger amounts of high-quality liquid assets to help them withstand periods of market stress.The securities generally deemed acceptable...
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  French bonds — some (parabolic) perspective
  
  Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:12:52 +0000
  Chart of French 30-year bonds’ spread to German debt over the last five years (via Reuters):We think it’s a good chart… because it shows that investors really,...
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  Belgium joins the spread-betting party
  
  Fri, 11 Nov 2011 17:26:31 +0000
  The lashing of non-Germanic eurozone sovereign bonds continues - but at a slower rate in Belgium’s case.Just shy of its euro-era high of 273bp over comparable 10-year Bunds on Thursday,...
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  The view from Rome
  
  Thu, 10 Nov 2011 09:16:55 +0000
  (Front-page headline from Il Sole 24 Ore. “HURRY”)Although there’s a tiny amount of breathing room…Italian bond yields were falling at pixel time —...
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  LCH Clearnet SA raises margin on Italian bonds
  
  Wed, 09 Nov 2011 08:18:25 +0000
  Note — this is not the margin call many were looking out for.As we’ve explained, LCH Clearnet SA follows a different framework to LCH Clearnet Ltd – operator...
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  Dicing with debt, EFSF edition
  
  Fri, 04 Nov 2011 11:31:12 +0000
  If the thing set up to borrow for the eurozone can’t borrow then the eurozone is screwed. That was the lament from the market when the EFSF decided to postpone on Wednesday...
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  Hello, Greek mopping-up law?
  
  Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:15:12 +0000
  Reuters, on signs of a push to make Greece’s debt restructuring coercive rather than “voluntary”…Athens could squeeze out bondholders by changing the...
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  What is going on in Italian T-bills?
  
  Wed, 02 Nov 2011 12:20:15 +0000
  More to the point — this can’t go on, surely. The Italian 12-month BOT yield, via Reuters:The yield has gone from 4 per cent on Friday to 5.4 per cent on Tuesday –...
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  The central bank cannot, will not hold?
  
  Tue, 01 Nov 2011 10:00:56 +0000
  These prices (for the 10-year Italian benchmark bond) are after the ECB intervened on Tuesday:Ten-year Bund yield is below 2 per cent at pixel time. Despite it all, clearly...
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  The ECB is not here to save the world — redux
  
  Mon, 31 Oct 2011 09:53:21 +0000
  Weirdly, the ECB does seem to be here to play chicken with Silvio Berlusconi, though:That’s the only reason we can give for Italian 10-year bonds yielding 6.1 per cent on Monday....
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  How badly do you want EFSF first-loss protection?
  
  Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:42:38 +0000
  The EFSF has opened the kimono a little on how it would work as a sovereign bond insurer. Answers from an updated investor Q&A — especially interesting ones have been bolded by us:...
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  But what does Mrs Watanabe think?
  
  Thu, 27 Oct 2011 12:25:41 +0000
  Apparently Sarkozy has phoned Hu Jintao on Thursday, to beg er, ask China to wire cash through the EFSF. Somehow.Shouldn’t someone also be calling Mrs Watanabe?Japanese...
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  Building a better bank recap, discount curve edition
  
  Wed, 26 Oct 2011 08:50:18 +0000
  At some point on Wednesday, eurozone governments will say they want banks to find an unspecified amount capital, based on revised sovereign haircuts which… we still don’t...
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  Writing down Greece at Deutsche, encore
  
  Tue, 25 Oct 2011 08:36:24 +0000
  Deutsche Bank’s third-quarter results, 2011:- A €777m profit, double forecasts but down from €1.1bn in the second quarter (excluding charges from the Deutsche Postbank...
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  Eventually, French Spreads Fail (E.F.S.F.) — redux
  
  Tue, 18 Oct 2011 08:30:09 +0000
  Some nasty bond moves in the eurozone sovereign debt “senior tranche” at pixel time (also in CDS — chart via Markit)…(DBR – Germany, FRTR –...
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  Sovereign ratings correlation like it’s the 1990s
  
  Mon, 10 Oct 2011 13:55:03 +0000
  It’s not often you see the world’s third-largest issuer of sovereign debt downgraded by no fewer than three notches overnight.Nor is it very often that you see ratings...
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  Keep on carrying on LTROs
  
  Fri, 07 Oct 2011 12:57:32 +0000
  It’s baaack! The prospect of eurozone banks buying more sovereign debt to take advantage of new cheap one-year ECB liquidity, that is.You’ll have heard that the ECB...
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  IMF SPV — splatted
  
  Wed, 05 Oct 2011 16:21:24 +0000
  IMF European director Antonio Borges sallies forth to fix Europe’s sovereign debt crisis once mo — oh, hang on, oops:Let me be clear about some earlier comments...
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  You can lever, but will you take the loss?
  
  Wed, 28 Sep 2011 07:30:00 +0000
  OK, you can’t lever the EFSF because the German government says no. Just no, no, no, no. Although even in the rare event that it changes its mind, there’s also this issue…...
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  Let them eat EFSF equity tranches?
  
  Mon, 26 Sep 2011 14:20:56 +0000
  Rather than start directly with the weekend rumour of using the European Central Bank to “leverage” the EFSF…… instead we’ll start what the ECB...
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  When Italian bonds trade as risk assets
  
  Thu, 22 Sep 2011 10:36:56 +0000
  Well, they’ve been trading like it since (ooh) July, but the relationship becomes really obvious on a day like Thursday, when fears of a global slowdown hit home again.For example,...
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  Operation sovereign debt net
  
  Mon, 19 Sep 2011 18:24:52 +0000
  From the ivory tower of academia has come a novel idea: why not just net away all those troublesome debt exposures?For example, say Spain held Irish debt to the tune of €12bn...