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A quick glance at the Maiden Lanes

So there is the individual non-agency MBS CDS book with 2000+ line items. Then there are the interesting positions where they were shorting muni CDS on Nevada, California and Florida. And back in MBS space, there are billion dollar slugs of subprime mezz bonds and every kind of Agency CMO structure under the sun. To […]

Whoops

I assume some payroll expectation revisions will start flying across the screens – there were a few 350/400 numbers out there! Whoops!!! Looking at the ADP report details, it was another tough month for small goods producing firms coming in at -27k. With this survey being spot on in the last 3 months, and having […]

French Lunch

It is quiet. Rates are holding at the top end of the range and the curve is maintaining a steepening bias. Swap spreads have stabilized, the Bund/US spread continues to widen, vol is drifting lower and MBS is widening a smidge. It feels like a whole lot of nothing as we await quarter end flows, […]

A venus transit eclipse

With an eventful week behind us, it’s time to get ready for some payroll fireworks. The half day Friday should be action packed, and illiquid, as equity markets are shut and bond market are open (something that happens with frequency of a venus transit eclipse). Ward is looking for low to mid 100s, the consensus […]

The Fed should be able to drain reserves via LIBOR

Those who know me well know that I disavowed trading LIBOR many years ago. It all stemmed from some experiences in 2007 when I happen to stumble into making a lot of money on some seemingly worthless EDU7 puts. I was quite pessimistic on the economic outlook, but I had some puts from an old […]

Swap Spread Stopfest…The Market gets Sick from Healthcare

I generally do not comment much on swap spreads as we at Jefferies are only involved in trading instruments with cusips (something I am quite pleased about). That said, the moves in swaps are going to feedback into MBS market valuation and also provide some insight into Treasury rates, curve and volatility. So, what is […]

EUR Swap Spreads

A chart to chew on…..this is a US long term government debt problem…not a LIBOR problem!! You are unauthorized to view this page.

23a Exemptions

It’s a quiet start to a front end auction week, with the curve recovering a tad from last week’s hangover. I think the “reach for yield argument” discussed in last Friday’s comment provides the best rationale for why we have seen the flattening. But reaching for yield, with a fiscal nightmare on our hands, will […]

Piecing to together the price action this week:

The inflation data and the FOMC were unequivocally dovish. The long end traded in sync with these results with 30s up 23 ticks on the week. The short end, however, marched to different tune with 2s down 1 tick on the week. I do not believe the discount rate rumors are to blame for the […]

Dissents

There is little to talk about before 2:15 so I’ll keep this brief. The key focus for the market is on a Bullard (and possibly a Warsh) dissent. I think these are very remote possibilities. Let’s start with Bullard – he has been talking about a recovery that is “on track” in his recent presentations […]