Evening Reading – December 13, 2010
Slope Of Hope: A Subtle Shift
I personally would get seriously excited about going long stocks in a big way if the $SPX got back down to around 1150-1175. Until then, I am probably going to remain mostly short.
FT.com Alphaville: Big numbers from the BIS
$2,281bn — Foreign exposures to Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain.
$107bn — Decline in foreign exposure to the above between April and June.
$81.1bn — German loans to Spanish banks at the end of Q2.
FT.com Alphaville: BIS > stress tests
Here’s more on those big BIS numbers on banks’ peripheral exposure, complete with a faint haughty whiff of ‘my banking statistics are better than yours’.
FT.com Alphaville: The peripheral bond buyer of last resort
As widely speculated — the European Central Bank did indeed ramp up its bond purchases in the week ending December 9, with the Securities Markets Programme buying a further €2.7bn of peripheral eurozone government paper.
FT.com Alphaville: Ireland: doomed
Here are Ernst & Young’s latest eurozone real GDP projections, to 2014 (underlining in blood-red ours)…
FT.com BeyondBRICs: Chart of the week: China-Africa trade
In the debate over strengthening ties between China and Africa, trade relations are often boiled down to China’s insatiable hunger for African oil and minerals. China’s friends say this is a gross oversimplification, but the latest chart of the week (after the break) shows it’s not unreasonable.
Calculated Risk: CoreLogic: 10.8 Million U.S. Properties with Negative Equity in Q3
CoreLogic reports that 10.8 million, or 22.5 percent, of all residential properties with mortgages were in negative equity at the end of the third quarter of 2010, down from 11.0 million and 23 percent in the second quarter. This is due primarily to foreclosures of severely negative equity properties rather than an increase in home values.