I’ve been saying for a while now that one of the most important events of the week was the expiration of the ECB’s LTRO’s that occurred Wednesday. Like goldilocks, the demand for the 1% loans for 3 years from European banks was almost perfect at a little over 500 billion Euro’s. It wasn’t too little […]
The recently formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released an email on Wednesday that showed its intent to begin an inquiry into bank’s checking account courtesy overdraft practices. In the announcement, the group cited a 2008 study that found just under 10 percent of bank customers incurred more than 80 percent of overdraft fees. In what […]
On Friday Congress passed an extension of the payroll tax cut, removing the prospects for another drawn out, down to the wire drama that unnerves markets. As a rule, markets hate uncertainty, and removing uncertainty in this regard will be a net positive, as the market has come to expect these public showdowns and last […]
I briefly mentioned last week the high level trade talks that occurred between China and Canada in Beijing. The net result of those talks, the most material and fruitful in years, was the signing of a declaration of intent to agree to a “Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement.” (FIPA). The lengthy name aside, it’s […]
One of the things traders are constantly monitoring is internals of an index or market, for clues about the strength or weakness of that market beyond what the simple headline numbers say. That is why investors and trader monitor which sectors are rising and falling, because it can give insight into the “health” of a […]
Grains markets were quiet on Wednesday, with all grains trading within a penny or two of flat. This is because we get the USDA crop production report Thursday morning, and position squaring and de-risking always occurs ahead of those reports. Of particular importance in the report will be the size of the South American crops. […]