The "up-to-the-minute Market Data" thread

And bad news for peanuts lovers like me...

Peanut Butter prices set to explode! 250% price increase coming

I'm gonna go buy a ton load...

Europe Recovery Rally Fizzles As French Bund Spreads Hit Record On Fresh Downgrade Rumor

After the ECB is rumored to have bought €1.7 billion in Italian (70%), Spanish and Portuguese bonds this morning, spreads across the continent stabilized... however briefly. Since then, confirmed speculation of an Austrian downgrade and an unconfirmed rumor that Egan Jones and/or other rating agencies will put France on downgrade review has just sent the French(OAT)-Bund spread to new record highs.

Downgrades we can believe in.

All You Need To Know About The Aptly Misnamed US "Supercommittee", Complete With Trading Cards

Incidentally, the country has already issued $700 billion in debt since then, and by the end of the week, total US debt will be just shy of $15.1 trillion.

No biggie... at the current rate of spending, that means the second ceiling of the debt ceiling deal is broken before the end of the month... and that the final debt ceiling is broken in September 2012... Brilliant.

But it was both the French bond market and the rescue fund EFSF that were a disaster today. For some context, the spread between French and German bonds rose 21bps - the most ever in a day and over 10 standard deviations!!

EFSF 10Y bonds trade 177bps over Bunds, having widened over 65bps since the EU summit.

S&P Explains How A Technical Error May Have Led Some To Believe That FrAAAnce Is Massively Overrated At AAA

As a result of a technical error, a message was automatically disseminated today to some subscribers of S&P's Global Credit Portal suggesting that France's credit rating had been changed. This is not the case: the ratings on Republic of France remain 'AAA/A-1+' with a stable outlook, and this incident is not related to any ratings surveillance activity. We are investigating the cause of the error.

A fat finger again... And SP saying that France still has a stable outlook is a joke...

Italy and Greece have been infamous as socialistic economies, plagued by the reluctance of the citizenry to pay a fair share for the government handouts they receive.
However, the chickens have now come home to roost, as they say.
Greece and Italy are now paying for shortsighted policymaking, as years of government spending and rampant tax cheating are now catching up in the form of high debts and empty coffers.
Historically, Italy has been able to take on large amounts of debt because most of its debt was owned domestically — for most of the 80s and 90s, Italy had a debt-to-GDP ratio of 105 percent-to-120 percent.
However, with the introduction of the common currency, the euro, we see more French banks and German banks owning Italian debt.
Here’s the problem with foreigners owning your debt — because in part it amounts to more of a purely dispassionate business decision, foreign countries are also more willing to dump your debt. This can push rates higher and makes it much more difficult to fund your debt, because it costs too much to roll over or issue new bonds.
Now, Italy is not in absolute dire straits, because its annual deficit is “small” in relative terms. It’s 3.9 percent of GDP compared to nearly 9 percent for the U.S. this year. However, with a total debt of 118 percent of GDP, with yields on Italian bonds climbing to 7 percent and potentially higher, it’s going to be more difficult to fund that deficit.
The issue with Italy is, in the markets, perception is everything, and negative sentiment toward its ability to pay back debt will affect bond buyers and sellers. The fear, whether rational or irrational, builds upon itself, driving rates higher.
Italy is a problem because, unlike Greece, it is a major world economic player. It is the eighth largest economy and third largest bond market in the world.
From my vantage point, this is just another shoe to drop, and not the last. I see us in the midst of a global sovereign debt crisis.
The weakest players — Portugal, Ireland, and Greece — were rattled first, and now we’re seeing it spread into the larger nations like Italy. Soon, we will likely find that it’s bleeding into the biggest players, that being England, Germany, and the United States, all of which face fundamental weaknesses, most notably the U.S. and its burgeoning burden of unfunded mandates.
In times like this, as an investor, there’s one thing you must do, in my opinion: you have to own gold.
Now, despite my views on this debt crisis, I’m not a chronic gloom and doomer — I don’t think the west is going to collapse, as some other bearish pundits proclaim.
However, as rates rise and less foreigners buy these bonds, the debt will be monetized, meaning that central banks will print money to buy debt. This is inflationary by nature, and we will see gold rise on the back of such inflation.
As investors, it’s our job to position our assets as best we can, using the information at our disposal to make judgments about the direction of the market. We are currently in the middle of a 15-to-20-year market supercycle, in which stocks remain mired in a stagnating pattern.

On the homefront.... heard about the Christmas Tree Tax getting into Law by Øbama...

source:
demint.senate.gov...


Snip :this is a Senator Jim DeMint quote

That’s the whole purpose of the Obama Christmas Tree Tax: to take money from hard-working families celebrating Christmas and give it to clever lobbyists and businessmen running a crony-capitalist subsidy scam. ...

happy hollydaze




related:
www.realclearpolitics.com...

Title: Ron Paul: Obama Presidency On The Verge Of Being A "Dictatorship"

reply to post by St Udio


You got to be joking is Obama turning into a moron or the moronic side of him is just getting bigger and bigger

With so many people angry at the waste and abuse by the government and now Alabama county filling for bankruptcy is going to be a lot of people "very happy with a new tax".

But a usual is just to keep the fat rats happy and busy with tax payers dollars.

Oh, this is going back fire alright but no just with outrage, but outright anger to the dictatorship capitalist holding our government hostage.

Christmas celebrations has gone down the hill in my neck of the woods 15 years ago our street was full of lights and Christmas decor I mean people will line up the street for the displays, now, last year I was the only one with lights in my yard and a display, this years if that tax keep been pushed I will have none, one more for Obama and capitalism.

How about that.

reply to post by Vitchilo


How long to you think the ECB will be able to buy up Italian debt? do they have comand of the printing press like the FED do here?

I dont know much on the EURO and how its created like i do here with the USD

reply to post by camaro68ss

How long to you think the ECB will be able to buy up Italian debt?

For quite a while... unless Italy gets downgraded again... and then it becomes like Greece... if the yield is too high, they wont be able to do much.

do they have comand of the printing press like the FED do here?

Nope but they can buy a lot of debt. And they can still cut interest rates..

Bonds Sell Off Following Very Weak 30 Year Auction

Minutes ago the Treasury auctioned off yet another block of $16 billion in 30 Year bonds. The auction was pretty horrible: the When Issued was trading at 3.155% when the press release hit that the bond cleared at only 3.199%, a huge 4+ bps tail for the longest duration paper. Internals were not pretty either: the Bid to Cover dropped from 2.94 to 2.40 and Dealers had to buy well over half again or 55.7% with Indirects taking a meager 28.4%, and the remaining 15.8% going to Directs, nearly half of the 29.5% from October.

Perhaps the global banks, in an attempt to preserve the Ponzi one more time, pushed all their freely allocatable and repoable capital into Italy and had far less left for long US paper

"U.S. Stocks Advance Amid Drop in Jobless Claims as Europe Concerns Ease"

-Bloomberg.

Someone owes me $50.

And I sent a letter to Bloomberg asking that they not copy/paste story headlines continuously for months at a time.

Originally posted by camaro68ss
reply to post by Vitchilo

 

How long to you think the ECB will be able to buy up Italian debt? do they have comand of the printing press like the FED do here?

I dont know much on the EURO and how its created like i do here with the USD

edit on 10-11-2011 by camaro68ss because: (no reason given)

The ECB is built exactly like the Federal Reserve. However the Member States of the European Union put strong restrictions on what it can actually do .. unlike the USA. For instance the ECB is (currently) prohibited from Monetization. That means the ECB is expressly forbidden to "print" money for the sake of paying National Debts. That's why when the ECB created a general "bailout fund" they had to ask all member states to contribute funds to the general fund. This way they are not actually using printed Euro's to bailout any one nation.. it's more like a gift or loan from all other states.

The number of Euro's printed each year is determined by the GDP of all member states, each Member gets a certain amount printed in relation to it's GDP growth, as a means to keep inflation as steady as possible. The ECB is (currently) forbidden from doing any kind of "printing" for the sake of printing.

Originally posted by Rockpuck
"U.S. Stocks Advance Amid Drop in Jobless Claims as Europe Concerns Ease"

-Bloomberg.

Someone owes me $50.

And I sent a letter to Bloomberg asking that they not copy/paste story headlines continuously for months at a time.

Well the UK and France ended up in red... Germany and US in green... so we're even!

As for local economic news, 200 000+ students (me included) were striking today to protest the hike in university tuition fees. It now costs 2600$+ for a year of university. Last year it was 2400$ and the year before that 2200$... it just keeps going up every year.

reply to post by Vitchilo


I paid $56,000 .....

(I should say still paying actually... not "paid")

Originally posted by Rockpuck
reply to post by Vitchilo

 

I paid $56,000 .....

Well lucky you.

You went to Harvard or what?

reply to post by Vitchilo


Nope. It was a 4 year school that averaged around $4,500 a semester, 3 semesters a year. Usually around $13-14 a year.

One of my best friends went to a Catholic university and paid on average $45k ..... a year.



The cost of my schooling is about average, once you include books and fees and crap.

I take it you're in Britain? Because there is no school in America where you can go a full year on $2,500 lol. Even community colleges, 2 year institutions average $1,800 a semester.

PS.. Harvard's tuition is approx $50k a year, or $200,000 for a 4 year degree. Not including living expenses, books, fees etc.

reply to post by Rockpuck

~It was a 4 year school that averaged around $4,500 a semester, 3 semesters a year. Usually around $13-14 a year.

Well counting like that...

It's $1400 a semester and you add books and it's about $1700... 3 semesters a year too. 4 years... so $17k or so compared to $56k... quite a difference.

I'm in Canada.

reply to post by Vitchilo


Oh, I thought you meant $2600 a year.. 4 years $10,400 compared to my average tuition $14,000 4 years $56k.

I'm in Canada.

*adds Vitchilo to Foes list...*


Oh ya! My whole point was this:

American "Higher education" *insert laugh* is obscenely expensive, a newly married couple, assuming within the same age range and didn't come from an affluent family, settles down with an average of $50-80k dollars in student loans.. I know people personally that owe more for student loans than they do on their homes.

He, he, I laugh at the prices of schooling or "higher" education today what a freaking scam, I attended the historical University of PR, my semesters were only 100 dollars back in the 70s, 5 to 10 dollars a credit and back then you can actually recycle the books as they were not "revised" but every few years, we have come a long way in the scam that is now called education, for profits.

Incredible.

After yesterday’s rukus of news reports on the blow up of the Eurozone, it has quietened down some today now that Italian bond yields have dropped back below seven percent and markets have stabilised.

What I’m trying to say in a very vague way is that I’m feeling a little bored. I guess I wait for the next blow up to get my cheap thrills!

US Regulator defends Fannie, Freddie executive pay

The regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Thursday defended their million-dollar executive bonuses which have come under fire given huge losses at the government-owned mortgage firms.

Of course they do.
Lehman ends mortgage case for 0.5 cents on dollar

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, which hopes next month to win court approval of its bankruptcy reorganization, agreed to a $40 million settlement of investor lawsuits claiming $7.7 billion of damages from mortgage debt.

WTF... investors lose 7.7 billion because Lehman Brothers were full of it and they get 40 million? So they lost 99.5%?? This is so criminal...
U.S. foreclosure activity rises in Oct

Lenders seized more U.S. homes and sent out more first-time default notices in October, suggesting the backlog of foreclosure activity has started to flow again, a report by RealtyTrac said on Thursday.

Default notices were filed on 77,733 properties last month, up 10 percent from September.

'There are over 1.5 million properties in foreclosure, 3.6 million delinquent loans and then you add that 12 million underwater negative equity properties.

Real bullish... for the banks. Doesn't matter that 80%+ of those foreclosures are illegal, the cops will still kick people out.
Portrait of MF's former CEO Corzine on sale for $85,000

He has put it up for sale at a price of $85,000 for the next week, during what Raymond calls the 'annotation period.' After that, he will raise the price north of $100,000.

Is this for freaking real? I should buy it and take a dump on it on TV...
Foreign central banks' U.S. debt holdings fall-Fed

The Fed said its holdings of U.S. securities kept for overseas central banks fell $474 billion in the week ended Nov.9, to stand at $3.442 trillion.

Big sell of US securities... $474 billion sold IN A WEEK...

Allianz net profit hit by Greek write-downs

German insurer Allianz on Friday reported an 84% drop in third-quarter net profit as took impairments of €931 million ($1.27 billion) related to investments in the financial sector and Greek debt. Allianz also said its tax rate surged to 60%, up from 34.4% in the year-ago period. Third-quarter net profit fell to €196 million against €1.26 billion in the year-ago period. Total revenue fell 1.8% to €24.07 billion against €24.52 billion. A survey of analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast net profit of €600 million on revenue of €24.1 billion. Oliver Bäte, chief financial officer of Allianz SE, said the group is "well able" to withstand uncertainty and high volatility of capital marekts right now. "We remain committed to achieving our operating profit target for 2011 of €8.0 billion, plus or minus €500 million."

Spears and swords are Das Kapital, not gold.

Fiat money is not based on "faith", it is IMPOSED on people ("guaranteed" by force-state).

There are so many "ordinary", "normal" people who prevent others from having back their investment. If they say it's 0.5 cents on a dollar, well, that's the way it is, because they are backed by a huge bureaucratic, police and military force.

It is a one way communication, a mockery.

Remember Clinton-Lewinsky mockery of democracy, a big reality show covering up Enron and some other such "trivial" activities.

What do we have now? Lots of sexual scandals, because they do so good in satisfying basic human need for cheap performance games.

But the real game goes on unobstructed.

There is so much to be deconstructed, you people haven't seen nuttin yet.