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| In case of fire... |
Quote of the Day: “#eurozone: I've reported 9 years here in Brussels and never known such a palpable sense of despair, even doom, signing off..” – @BrunoBrussels (Bruno Waterfield), The Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent on Twitter
News (Thu evening) – BTH
News (Fri morning) – BTH
Danske Daily – Danske Bank (pdf)
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| ...exit |
FX option vols – Saxo
TV: Bloomberg, CNBC, BBC World News
Markets Live – alphaville FT
Debt crisis: live – The Telegraph
EZ crisis Live blog – The World / FT
EURO CRISIS
Yet more chaos and confusion in the Euro Zone – The Big Picture
Very good review and speculation on the situation. If you read only one this week, read this. There will be no resolution of this crisis by the EU heads of State meeting on 23rd October – virtual certainty. The earliest date for any solution will be the G20 Heads of State meeting on 3rd/4th November, though a comprehensive fix by that date is also unlikely. Without IMF involvement, this is going to be a fiasco and very bad for markets, given that the Euro Zone will not deliver as much as was/still is expected – however, I believe the IMF will get involved.
There are lots of ways to attack this crisis. It could be solved easily enough if the ECB began behaving as a national central bank would. It could be solved through a move to a true fiscal union. It could be solved through Rube Goldberg plans that approximate one solution or the other. It could be solved through massive external support.
The EFSF As A Hedge Fund – ZH
So, your business plan is to go and buy stuff that no one wants, that is unlikely to ever be in position to repay the debt, and you aren't even price sensitive? The EFSF guys are getting very excited, they can tell this investor is on the hook, and now all they have to do is reel them in.
At some point very soon Germany is going to have to make a simple decision: does it, for its own self-interest, come up with the money needed to fix this crisis, irrespective of what's happening in Greece; or does it say no, and elevate the crisis by an order of magnitude.
The EFSF Could Crowd Out the Very Banks It Needs to Save – MarketBeat / WSJ
The biggest risk is that they create different tiers of borrowers in Europe, a ranking that will put the European Financial Stability Fund at the top, place sovereign governments behind it, and end with Europe’s banks.
I’m not even going to attempt to apply sarcasm to this story. After trying to keep up with Europe for several months, the sarcasm engine is overheated and belching black smoke right now.
Euro Summit Statement "Leaked" Draft Looks Like Swiss Cheese; 10-Point Proposal for More Meetings – Mish’s
Competing theories: 1) EZ bureaucrats are purposely hoping to downplay this now-failed summit into the gutter so that any results at the meeting will look good 2) EZ bureaucrats are as clueless as they look and sound. If there is a positive result of any kind, it will be by accident.
Whether they can come up with a plan or not is unknown. For now it appears markets are giving them the benefit of the doubt.
German Government Speaker Speaks – ZH
Peter Tchir: I think it should be clear to everyone, that for the past several months no one has been working on details. No detailed plans were ever leaked to reporters because there were no details…
It's scandalous that Europe's political elite cannot get the ECB to act like a central bank. Like, say, the Federal Reserve. What's the point of a central bank if it won't do central banking?
OTHER
In the year 1000, Middle East was 9,5% of global GDP. What happened?
Mission Impossible – beating the market over long periods of time – Turnkey Analyst
Nobody–I repeat, NOBODY–can continuously outperform the market over long periods of time, because eventually this “genius” will own the market! And by definition, if you own the market, you can’t outperform the market.
Margin Call – the movie
Number Crunching at the Apocalypse – NYT
Interview with the Director (video) – Reuters