August 29, 2007
Most Read Stories (29-Aug-2007 9:08:40)
Here are the top five most read stories on the Bloomberg in the last day with selected excerpts (and my comments, if any, in italics).
As of 29-Aug-2007 at 9:08:40 (Beijing time):
- U.S. Stocks Fall Most in Three Weeks; Lehman Leads Banks Lower
- Who’s Advising on ABN? Only 19 Insist `I’m Spartacus’
- Fed Put Inflation Skepticism Above Credit Concern
- European Stocks Decline; SocGen, Deutsche Bank Pace the Retreat
- U.S. Home Prices Fell by Record in Second Quarter
“Citigroup Inc., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos. led all 93 financial companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index lower….”
“A handful of the firms will get the lion’s share of what New York-based Freeman & Co. estimates to be as much as $459 million in M&A fees because most are providing limited services for their clients…. Bankers may collect another $170 million for underwriting the stocks and bonds needed to finance the acquisition.”
“‘For the present, however, given expectations that the most likely outcome for the economy was continued moderate growth, the upside risks to inflation remained the most significant policy concern.’ … They noted that ‘mortgage loans remained readily available to most potential borrowers,’ and the ’supply of credit to finance real investment did not appear significantly diminished.’”
Channeling Jim Cramer: THEY’RE NUTS! THEY KNOW NOTHING!! THE FED IS ASLEEP!!!
“National benchmarks decreased in all 18 western European markets except Greece.”
“Home prices in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas fell 3.5 percent in June from a year before, the most since S&P/Case-Shiller began compiling the index in 2001 … S&P/Case-Shiller’s 10-city composite index, which has a longer history, declined 4.1 percent from June 2006. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange last year began offering futures contracts based on that index.”
How liquid are those contracts? (I’ve never looked.)
August 29th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Something to ponder.
August 29th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Brian: A lot of that was over my head but I get the gist. Thanks for sharing.
August 29th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
I looked at the Boston Real Estate futures from CME.
the strategy pdf is a decent read, although old. I believe it says the index they use(Case Shiller) excludes sales through foreclosure by mortgage lender, but if you look at the actual index publications they don’t say if they exclude these transactions and don’t say if they include them either.
That bit is very important as far as I’m concerned.
Where does one get liquidity information on these contracts/options?
August 29th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Off topic, but just a comment. This has become my favorite market site because of your wide range and sometimes odd focus. Thanks for making my life a little better.