Archive - Apr 1, 2011

While it is admirable that the Nasdaq and ICE are doing their best to avoid going obsolete in a world in which exchanges no longer matter, the question of just how credible the market considers an offer which has a financing component accounting for 33% of the transaction funding ($3.8 billion), is very suspect. After all what prevents private equity firm XYZ to come up with a 100% debt funded overbiad thanks to a "highly confident" (also known as "highly conflicted") letter from Goldman that it can raise the debt. In this case we have debt underwriting "titans" Bank of America and Wells Fargo underwriting the $3.8 billion. In other words, this deal has the same probability of happening as the Fed has of sustaining the market without downticks for the next 3 months.

RANsquawk European Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 01/04/11

The market was relatively quiet today as investors brace themselves for tomorrow's Labor Force Participation Rate Report...

USDJPY continues to march higher as a result of intervention, we are seeing retail long positions decrease for the first time in many months. USDCAD continues int its down trend whilst retail long positions at pretty much at the strongest we have seen them. AUD and EUR continue their march higher even though 60%+ traders are short.