Eurozone debt crisis

[jimrobo]

what a day yesterday in the financials!

Last week Draghi said they would do whatever it takes to save the suro and there was no going back.

The market took that as the ecb were going to do something pretty significant this week. All week the markets were like a ghost town just waiting for the ecb announcement yesterday.

He announced that they would look at a mechanism for directly being active in the markets and that they would look at it over the coming weeks. That was it and the market went crazy! Everyone was hanging on his every word almost. As he was talking about the ecb being active the price was getting smashed upwards with everyone expecting him to announce what and when they were going to buy but then he just left it at that and the market just collapsed. The dax got smashed about 400 ticks in 10 minutes. It went so mental xtraders price/data feed went down right in the middle of it! I can only imagine the losses and gains some people would have had yesterday! As a measure of scale 400 ticks = 5000 euros and thats on the smallest unit you can trade with.

[superfrank]

what a day yesterday in the financials!

Last week Draghi said they would do whatever it takes to save the suro and there was no going back.

The market took that as the ecb were going to do something pretty significant this week. All week the markets were like a ghost town just waiting for the ecb announcement yesterday.

He announced that they would look at a mechanism for directly being active in the markets and that they would look at it over the coming weeks. That was it and the market went crazy! Everyone was hanging on his every word almost. As he was talking about the ecb being active the price was getting smashed upwards with everyone expecting him to announce what and when they were going to buy but then he just left it at that and the market just collapsed. The dax got smashed about 400 ticks in 10 minutes. It went so mental xtraders price/data feed went down right in the middle of it! I can only imagine the losses and gains some people would have had yesterday! As a measure of scale 400 ticks = 5000 euros and thats on the smallest unit you can trade with.

my "free edge" worked out nicely yet again (assuming one got out in time)...
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=4971

[jimrobo]

hmm not sure whether your free edge was a buy or a sell after reading that ??? Maybe I didn't read enough of the posts

[superfrank]

it's a buy in the days before such meetings.

i haven't traded it lately but the key is to buy a dip at some point before attention turns to the meeting/summit.

[jimrobo]

I guess it depends which market. The dax didn't do a massive amount all week because it got seriously bought last week after draghis initial comments of we are prepared to do whatever it takes. Then when no action was announced yesterday it got smashed down. Today is the opposite! positive NFP number and serious retracement from yesterday we are almost at the highs again. Strange activity in the spanish 2 year bond market and ftse mib though. There were rumors of an ecb emergency press conference this morning and since then someone has smashed the spanish 2 year bond yeilds around 86 basis points. Its been a funny old week!

It would have worked last week before draghis comments though! The trick is getting in before but thats a far longer term approach than I'm comfortable with.

[superfrank]

no guarantees obviously, but over time the edge has been very profitable.

government/central bank intervention is what is driving markets these days with economic news seemingly a poor second (apart from big news like the NFP).

i've never done much longer term trading (days/weeks) but they say it's much easier than intraday trading and it's not hard to see why.

[superfrank]

Telegraph - ECB buying Spanish and Italian debt 'makes no sense' says Belgian bank governor
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/fina ... rnor.html#

old Herman Van Rompuy won't be pleased!

Zerohedge
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/belgian-n ... s-no-sense

A week ago we explained quite clearly why instead of encouraging self-defeating, short-termist behavior by promising to save Europe's insolvent countries if and when needed, which does nothing to resolves Europe's problems and make it worse in exchange for a brief respite from bond selling, the ECB should be doing precisely the opposite: encouraging local governments to understand that there is no magic bazooka from the central banks.

[superfrank]

Greece needs more time for cuts, says PM Samaras
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19329402

yeah, like about 200 years.

[jpoc]

I noticed this thread started talking about Irish bond yields, good news story today as nine year bond yeilds lower to below 6%:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-2 ... -2010.html

[superfrank]

Longer working week suggested for Greece
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19491266

Greece's international lenders have suggested measures including increasing the maximum working week to six days.

this is getting silly now. it won't make a blind bit of difference.

who in their right mind would want to invest in Greece atm?

Greek taxpayers should bring a class action against Goldman Sachs for cooking the books which enabled the country's entry into the Euro. that would raise plenty and take down one of the most disgusting organisations (imho) that ever existed.

[Euler]

The ECB and OMT: OTT, OMG or WTF?

http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwo ... fsrc=gn_ep

[superfrank]

Not too little, possibly too late
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexch ... -programme

Despite Mr Draghi’s efforts to portray the purchases as purely within the ECB's monetary responsibilities, there is no denying that they wander far from the ECB's original mandate. That's why the vote was not unanimous. Mr Draghi did not name the lone dissenter, but it was almost certainly Jens Weidmann, president of Germany’s Bundesbank. Though still passionately opposed to the ECB’s bond purchases, Mr Weidmann seems to have made up his mind that he can achieve more as a vocal dissenter inside the ECB than by resigning, as his predecessor Axel Weber did.

if there is one country i'd listen to in the EZ then it would be Germany.

[gutuami]

Euro rises briefly after news of German Constitutional Court verdict on bailout fund

[Euler]

This is a good read: -

http://www.arpllp.com/core_files/The_Ab ... r_0912.pdf

[superfrank]

This is a good read: -

http://www.arpllp.com/core_files/The_Ab ... r_0912.pdf

yeah good that.

“I think we will look back in ten years’ time and say we should not have done this, but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past.”
U.S. Senator Byron L. Dorgan in 1999 on the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act.

that's what happens when the fox gets to be in charge of the hen house, i.e. big finance dictating financial regulation.