some short ideas: (non-UK) European banks: STD BBVA AIB NBG ING insurers ABK MBI PMI RDN MTG Other ALU NYT MOT DRYS GT Airlines AMR AAI JBLU
Vampire Squid comments on Spanish banks: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/goldman-sachs-spain-bank-restructuring-still-slow-2010-05-24 MADRID (MarketWatch) -- The restructuring of Spain's savings banks, or 'cajas, remains slow, despite the weekend takeover of CajaSur by the Bank of Spain, said Goldman Sachs on Monday. It noted little progress between this seizure and that of Caja Castilla La Mancha (CCM) in November 2009. Goldman said individually, the problems of the cajas is small, with CajaSur accounting for under 1% of the banking sector total in customer deposits and loans. However, cajas overall account for 40% of the Spain banking sector's total assets, and 48% of total loans. It cited an extreme situation in which cajas would loan have defaults of 50% resulting in a pretax drain of 23 billion to 70 billion euros ($28-$87 billion). Overall, it's cautious on Spanish banks, based on further credit quality deterioration, reveue pressure and a poor macro outlook. It rates Popular /quotes/comstock/06x!cpop (ESOP 4.35, -0.10, -2.25%) , Sabadell /quotes/comstock/06x!csab (ES:SAB 3.53, -0.04, -0.98%) , Bankinter [es:bkt] and Pastor /quotes/comstock/06x!cpas (ESAS 3.96, -0.04, -1.00%) sell, and Banesto /quotes/comstock/11i!bnsty (BNSTY 4.10, -0.07, -1.68%) neutral. BBVA /quotes/comstock/06x!cbbva (ES:BBVA 8.46, -0.27, -3.12%) /quotes/comstock/13*!bbva/quotes/nls/bbva (BBVA 11.01, +0.52, +4.96%) is rated nuetral and Santander /quotes/comstock/06x!csan (ES:SAN 8.41, -0.19, -2.22%) /quotes/comstock/13*!std/quotes/nls/std (STD 10.98, +0.57, +5.48%) a buy, it said, citing that they are healthy with wide gross operating margins, international businesses and high capital buffers. Spanish symbols POP SAB BKT PAS BBVA SAN USA synbols BNSTY (Banesto ) BBVA STD
Spanish symbols POP SAB BKT PAS BBVA SAN BTO USA synbols BNSTY (Banesto, Spanish symbol BTO ) BBVA STD
Wowsers. If I was a newspaper editor my headline for this morning's action would be "What if the stockmarket held a party and the EUR/USD was not invited?" ES up by 1% but EURUSD at about 1.2302, down from the level at 4pm yesterday and down from the 1.2380 hod I have for the June futures. Also other 'sore thumbs' include BBVA and STD which are flatish compared to the New York close. Now I'll probably be proved wrong and the EURUSD and BBVA and STD will have a massive rally in the next 8 hours. However if and when the EURUSD can stumble back to the 1.2600 or so level I'll be very interested in adding to my short. If I don't get that opportunity, I'll be happy to sit on my current position.
Well I am at least 1 hour late with these stories to explain EURUSD weakness, but better late than never: BBVA unable to renew 1 billion CP: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/spains-bbva-unable-renew-1-billion-commercial-paper-funding edited to add: WSJ story about BBVA was published 12 hours ago http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...634.html?mod=WSJ_Markets_section_WorldMarkets German bund auction failure: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/eu...-failed-german-auction-spanish-bank-cp-proble
This morning it looks like the culprit is Spain again. EUR/USD hit a high of 1.2345 after 3am ET, but at the time of typing it is down to 1.2267. Despite strength in CAC-40 (higher beta than FTSE or DAX), IBEX futures are -121 to 8875, down from a high of day (also just after 3am ET) of 9140. Spanish banks STD and BBVA both offered below their 4pm New York closes. At the very least IBEX would need to get back over 9,000 for the ES to be able to continue to go up today. Three failed attempts at getting over June ES 1090, now +18 at 1079.50 down from hod of 1085.75.
Why are equity futures so strong this morning. It can't be that China announced it is holding onto their EU bonds. How is that considered news? What the hell else are they going to do with them?
I'll go for the smart-alec answer of "they're up because equities are oversold on a multi-week basis". While I agree with you that the China story is not news, it was possibly the reason given to the late day slide yesterday. So it follows that if they announce they're not selling, then equities can recover what they lost yesterday. You might be interested in this http://www.zerohedge.com/article/global-macro-morning-update if you haven't seen it already
Also forgot to add that about 15 hours ago the EURUSD formed a multi-day double-bottom at 1.2155, and when it rallied, it took equities and other risk assets with it.
Hugh Hendry saga Hugh Hendry: "I Would Recommend You Panic" http://www.zerohedge.com/article/hugh-hendry-i-would-recommend-you-panic A Quick Post Script To Mr. Jeffrey Sachs http://www.zerohedge.com/article/quick-post-script-mr-jeffrey-sachs (and the relevant YouTube video from January 2009: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owH4vyyCeSA) Hugh Hendry Warns To "Prepare For Hyperinflation" http://www.zerohedge.com/article/hugh-hendry-warns-prepare-hyperinflation