Daily Reading – Monday, April 18, 2011
FT BeyondBRICs: RRR hikes: China’s liquidity mop
Although described as tightening – and coming after strong inflation and growth figures – the move looks as much to do with preventing a new wave of liquidity as controlling the current one.
FT Alphaville: Smoke, mirrors, and Greek maturity swapping
A confusing morning for Greek debt restructuring watchers on Monday, with CDS spreads up to 1,220 bps at pixel time, Markit said.
FT Alphaville: The literal Bernanke put
The theory itself, raised this weekend by Eric deCarbonnel at the Market Skeptics’ blog, relates to the Fed using derivative instruments to keep rates suppressed instead of other alternative measures like quantitative easing or interest rate ceilings.
Specifically, it suggests the Fed can and may already be selling put options directly to the market. (Although we’re obviously not too sure about the latter point.)
FT Alphaville: More on the literal Bernanke put
Central banks using options as a monetary policy tool — crazy, right?
FT Alphaville: Who’s afraid of Comex gold delivery?
The answer is the University of Texas Investment Management company.
Econbrowser: Brent-WTI spread
The puzzling differential between the price of oil in different markets seems to be persisting.
FT BeyondBRICs: Nigeria: good news for Goodluck
Oil traders will have one less thing to worry about if Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan is confirmed on Monday as the clear winner of Saturday’s election.
Slope Of Hope: The Spoiled Brats at Google
I wrote a post recently about Google’s desperate attempt to cling to a couple of Vice Presidents that were going to leave for Twitter by throwing them $50 million and $100 million in exchange for sticking around. My belief was that this was a mistake, to say the least, and it would poison the culture.