A Little More Today than Yesterday! Trading Stuff.
Archive for September, 2009
End of Month Window Dressing
Sep 30th
David Fry (ETF Digest) submits:
September 30, 2009
THERE’S A SUCKER BORN EVERY MINUTE
P.T. Barnum would blush at the market activity today. The powers that be have given new meaning to manipulation and end-of-month/quarter window dressing.
Rail Transport: Why Can’t We Learn from Europeans?
Sep 30th
Ryan Avent submits:
Early this week, I noticed a number of my favorite bloggers linking to this Elisabeth Rosenthal essay at Environment 360, on the mysterious greenness of European nations. The average American, as it happens, produces about twice as much carbon dioxide each year as your typical resident of Western Europe.
Rosenthal attributes much of this difference to behavioral factors relating, it seems, to Europeans’ unique tolerance of inconvenience. She writes:
Despite Crisis, Securities Lending Looks Unstoppable
Sep 30th
Larry MacDonald submits:
Having ranted before on securities lending and how it adds to the systemic risk of the financial system and how the division of the spoils appears to shortchange retail investors, there is a modicum of satisfaction in seeing the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) commence an investigation into the practice. Yet the industry continues to gather steam and take on the characteristics of an unstoppable train.
Rebuilding Reserves: COFER Updates for Q2
Sep 30th
Marc Chandler submits:
The most authoritative source of reserve data, the IMF’s COFER data, was released on Wednesday for the second quarter of 2009. Central banks are in the process of rebuilding their reserves, which peaked in Q2 08 at about .96 trillion before falling to .49 trillion in Q1 09. In Q2 09, reserve levels rose to .80 trillion.
The value of dollar, euro, sterling and yen holdings rose in the quarter, while the value of Swiss franc holdings fell. The dollar’s share of reserves slipped to 62.8% from 65.0% in Q1, which is consistent with the saw-tooth pattern that has lasted for several quarters now, with the dollar’s share rising in one quarter and falling in the next. The euro’s share rose to 27.5% from 25.9% in Q1, while sterling’s share increased from 4.0% to 4.3% and the yen’s share rose to 3.1% from 2.9%.