Hangover relief (not really), Weekend edition

posted by Anal_yst

Mar 09, 2008 7:24PM

@ hedgingrisk

its so they have an excuse to live there

posted by hedgingrisk

Mar 09, 2008 7:44PM

@ Anal, So if you could do your job anywhere... Where would it be?

Bermuda come up this weekend as we tried to figure out the best place to trade and chill, while the world markets become unhinged.

So where would you retire to trade the world markets from, if you could pull the pin on the NYC scene?

posted by girl

Mar 10, 2008 9:21AM

Anal_yst: I'm honored that you graced my nascent political career while I was out in the coutnry this wknd- will return the favor in kind the next...with a suitable anally related article if i can find one.

In all seriousness the article cited is just too full of gems to even spark an argument - but there are 2 things that caught my eye:

That a- John McCain is so desperate for the support of the current administration, he voted for torture despite having been a prisoner of war and formerly having spoken out about his treatment while POW to garner sympathy and the "heroicism" vote.

b- Bush states that “The fact that we have not been attacked over the past six and a half years is not a matter of chance..." while the 9-11 comission made it quite clear to anyone who can read that 9-11 itself was not a matter of chance but sheer dismissal of various warnings received by our own government.

Personally I'm resigned to the argument that history and god shall judge these men.

posted by GinNTonic

Mar 11, 2008 1:05AM

Ugh I have to copy & paste links

posted by Anal_yst

Mar 11, 2008 9:18AM

We'll work on the html for next week, butt for now, heaven forbid you take the 1/8th of a calorie to ctrl c/ctrl v...

posted by mrpink

Mar 14, 2008 4:20PM

So, Anal_yst, how bout we tag team on this weekend's posting... I'm going to be working, so if any hot BSC news hits the reuters wires, i'll post...

-mrp

posted by Anal_yst

Mar 15, 2008 11:27AM

Im down for sunday, you wanna do saturday, er, i guess that'd be today, ughhh

posted by mrpink

Mar 15, 2008 1:56PM

LOL I just woke up from a night of celebrating Bear's demise...

More interesting news after the.... coffee.

posted by mrpink

Mar 15, 2008 2:00PM

10:50 15Mar08 RTRS-CITIC SECURITIES SAYS CANNOT GUARANTEE IT WILL INVEST IN BEAR STEARNS
10:52 15Mar08 RTRS-CHINA'S CITIC SECURITIES SAYS TO CLOSELY MONITOR SUBPRIME IMPACT ON DEAL WITH BEAR STEARNS
10:53 15Mar08 RTRS-CITIC SECURITIES SAYS HASN'T COMPLETED DUE DILIGENCE OR PAID ANY MONEY TO BEAR STEARNS
10:55 15Mar08 RTRS-CITIC SECURITIES SAYS STILL NEGOTIATING WITH BEAR STEARNS ON MAJOR TERMS OF INVESTMENT DEAL
11:30 15Mar08 RTRS-CHINA'S CITIC SAYS CANNOT GUARANTEE COMPLETING $1 BLN INVESTMENT IN BEAR STEARNS

SHANGHAI, March 15 (Reuters) - China's CITIC Securities
said on Saturday it could not guarantee it would
complete a deal to invest about $1 billion in Bear Stearns
given the U.S. investment bank's financial crisis.
On Friday, Bear hammered out an emergency funding deal with
the U.S. Federal Reserve and JPMorgan Chase, saying its
liquidity position had deteriorated.
"Our company has noticed the recent financing arrangement
between Bear Stearns, JP Morgan Chase and other financial
institutions, and we have also considered factors including the
sharp fall in Bear Stearns' share price," said CITIC Securities,
China's largest listed brokerage.
"We cannot guarantee reaching a final agreement in the
future," it said in a statement emailed to Reuters in response
to media enquiries.
Last October, Bear and CITIC Securities announced plans to
invest about $1 billion in each other and form a joint banking
venture in Asia.

Moodys:

NEW YORK, March 14 (Reuters) - Moody's Investors Service on
Friday cut its ratings on Bear Stearns Cos and said it
may cut them again, after the bank said a sudden cash crunch
forced it to turn to the Federal Reserve and JPMorgan Chase for
emergency funds.
"Bear did not face any sizable net write-downs or credit
losses, and its franchise was intact," Moody's said in a
statement. However, "Bear's customer franchise has been hurt by
this crisis, and it will continue to erode if a long-term
stabilizing solution is not quickly achieved."
Moody's cut Bear's long-term ratings by two notches to
"Baa1," the third-lowest investment grade.

Reuters Commentary:
NEW YORK, March 14 (Reuters) - Credit market turbulence, a
Federal Reserve policy meeting, stock market moves and data on
U.S. industry and housing will drive U.S. Treasuries prices in
the coming week.
Trading opens Monday after two-year note yields
sank as low as 1.38 percent on Friday, their lowest since
mid-2003, as investors rushed to safety on concerns about
risks to the banking system.
Whether the rescue of Bear Stearns, with J.P. Morgan Chase
and the New York Federal Reserve pumping emergency funds into
the cash-squeezed bank, will calm credit markets is a question
unlikely to be answered soon, analysts said.
"If you want to track the progress made toward resolving
this problem, simply turn on your computer once a day and see
where the two-year note yield closed," said David Resler, chief
economist at Nomura Securities in New York. "Until you start to
see two-year yields pushing north of 2 percent -- and I do not
expect to see that any time soon -- you can be pretty sure that
the credit crisis is still going on," he said.
That prognosis is likely to remain a persistent source of
support for safe-haven U.S. Treasuries in coming weeks.

DATA ON INDUSTRY, HOUSING
Fresh economic data, including housing starts and
industrial production, will punctuate a four-day trading week.
The market will shut on Friday for the Good Friday holiday and
will close early on Thursday for the three-day Easter weekend.
"The data will help determine where we are in this economic
downturn," Resler said.
February industrial production will be down, consistent
with the drop in hours worked and payroll jobs, Resler
predicted.
"It's hard to find any industrial sector that is likely to
have enjoyed growth last month," he said.
Economists polled by Reuters offered a median estimate of a
0.1 percent slip in February industrial production, versus a
slim 0.1 percent increase in January.
"The manufacturing component of industrial production has
been running roughly flat for the past several months, which is
how I see the economy: as running roughly flat," said Daiwa
Securities America Chief Economist Michael Moran, in New York.
Early regional reports on manufacturing from the Federal
Reserve Bank of New York and the Philadelphia Fed will offer
bond investors perspective on the most recent developments.
They are likely to show manufacturing remained weak or weakened
further in early March, Resler said.
Economists in a Reuters poll also estimated that housing
starts fell in February to a seasonally adjusted annualized
rate of 990,000, from 1.012 million in January.

THE FED
Distant are the days when the Fed seemingly sat on its
hands during the weeks between scheduled policy meetings, with
Fed officials traveling the luncheon circuit with mainly
similar messages on the state of the economy.
Since August, the Fed has been busy managing credit market
disruptions, attempting to keep increasingly rocky lending
conditions from undermining economic growth. To that end, it
first invented Term Auction Facilities, or TAF, to temporarily
flush cash through the banking system on an as-needed basis.
This week, the Fed revealed an even bigger mousetrap, a new
Term Securities Lending Facility, dubbed TSLF, to provide up to
$200 billion of Treasury securities in exchange for debt,
including federal agency debt, federal agency mortgage-backed
securities and non-agency AA/Aaa rated private label MBS. This
provided relief to portfolios overweight with distressed
assets, said IDEAglobal U.S. Chief Economist Joseph Brusuelas.
On Friday, the Fed acted again, this time orchestrating a
bailout for investment bank Bear Stearns by arranging
for JPMorgan Chase to secure emergency funding for Bear Stearns
as necessary, for an initial period of up to 28 days. It was
the Fed's first rescue of a broker since the Great Depression.
"There is no doubt about the creativity of the current
Fed," said Decision Economics senior economist Pierre Ellis.
After all this handiwork, a simple rate cut by the Fed
could seem like a routine affair. Indeed, a rate cut at the
Fed's meeting on March 18 is a foregone conclusion, with the
debate being only over how much the Fed will cut -- 50, 75, or
even 100 basis points.
A series of rate cuts has brought the federal funds rate
down to 3 percent from 5.25 percent in the past six months.
Markets are pricing in better than even odds of a full
percentage point interest cut by Tuesday's meeting, which would
be the steepest one-time reduction in several decades