A short post to end the working week. Coming up during the weekend: a Back to School- research review, Press Digest, Weekly Support- week in review and next one previewed and Weekender- standard collection of good reads. What do you like in this blog? I would love to get some feedback and requests. I am on Twitter, Facebook, email and paper.li
Joke of the Day: Van Rompuy re-elected as a president. No other nominees, decision unanimous - democracy in action.
News roundup – Between The Hedges
News roundup – The Trader
Daily – Danske Bank (pdf)
-good US data and Spanish auction, today focus on EU summit
Morning Briefing – BNY Mellon
-The EU may be considering reforms that would be growth-negative in the first instance
Market Preview – Saxo Bank
-The EU may be considering reforms that would be growth-negative in the first instance
Market Preview – Saxo Bank
Debt crisis: live – The Telegraph
Europe Crisis Tracker – WSJ
EURO CRISIS: GENERAL
Roundup of the agenda: The outcome of events in March could spell the very survival of the world’s second favorite reserve currency, the euro
Bundesbank’s balance sheet expands (TARGET2, LTRO-II) – Sober Look
34bn jump from Dec to Jan (+7%): With the bulk of the EUR 523bn LTRO-II participants being non-German banks, the TARGET2 imbalances will increase further.
EURO CRISIS: GREECE
Greek Crisis May Test the Value of Swaps – DealBook / NYT
The exact amount paid out on the swaps is determined by an auction of Greek bonds. Yet the auction would almost certainly take place after the bonds had been included in the exchange and eradicated… After the exchange, investors would have new Greek bonds, worth much less than their old bonds’ original value. But it is not clear whether these can be included in the default swaps auction, and, if they can, whether they would settle at the price investors hoped for.
The exact amount paid out on the swaps is determined by an auction of Greek bonds. Yet the auction would almost certainly take place after the bonds had been included in the exchange and eradicated… After the exchange, investors would have new Greek bonds, worth much less than their old bonds’ original value. But it is not clear whether these can be included in the default swaps auction, and, if they can, whether they would settle at the price investors hoped for.
Germany in rare praise of Greece, but bail-out decision next week – euobserver.com
Even though the IMF board is meeting on 13 March, eurozone finance ministers are expected to receive the figure from the Washington-based lender in time for their meeting on Monday, enabling them to give the final green light to the bail-out.
‘Hubrisk’ (hubris+risk) and the Greek crisis – voxeu.org
The Eurozone’s problems are political as well as economic. The European leaders establishing the euro were, according to this column, guilty of putting political desire above economic reality. Their successors now trying to resolve the sovereign debt crisis are repeating that mistake, with potentially devastating consequences
OTHER
Dan Zwirn, the Man Who Fell to Earth – Businessweek
On the lengthy list of things Dan Zwirn has lost, a few items jump out. There’s the $17 million condo on Central Park South, the summer place in Quogue, N.Y., and the $18 million Gulfstream IV jet. Then there’s D.B. Zwirn & Co., the hedge fund that once managed $12 billion in assets, employed 275 people in 14 global offices, and created the roughly $700 million in personal wealth that made so many of Zwirn’s spectacular purchases possible. Zwirn, 40, misses his money and the things it afforded him.
OFF-TOPIC
10 Commandments for Con Men – Lists of Note
1. Be a patient listener (it is this, not fast talking, that gets a con-man his coups).
Memory Is Not a Recording Device – brain pickings
Debunking the myth that memory is about “reliving” a permanent record stored in a filing cabinet.