LINKS-ДАЙДЖЕСТ 18 марта 2012 г.

Apple To Hold Monday Morning Conference Call On What It Will Do With Its Massive Pile Of CashApple проведет конференцкол, чтобы решить, что ему делать с его огромным кэшем.

Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, and Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO, will host a Conference Call on Monday, March 19, 2012 at 6:00 a.m. PT to announce the outcome of the Company's discussions concerning its cash balance. Apple will not be providing an update on the current quarter nor will any topics be discussed other than cash.

JIM O'NEILL: Low Trading Volume Could Actually Be Very Bullish For Stocks

Низкий торговый объем в действительности может быть бычьим для рынка акций

A Quick Guide To Everything Going On In The Eurozone Right Now

Быстрый взгляд на то, что сейчас происходит в еврозоне

The biggest issue right now remains the size of the European bailout funds--the European Financial Stability Facility and the European Stability Mechanism. While leaders agreed to move up the implementation of the latter from next year to this summer, Germany has in the past opposed measures to run both funds simultaneously. Recently, German leadership has appeared to have given ground on this issue, it is unlikely to support any measures to increase the availability of bailout funds significantly.

Бывший член управляющего совета ЕЦБ заявил, что европейские лидеры должны немедленно помочь Португалии.

This week, former ECB member Lorenzo Bini-Smaghi said that EU leaders need to allocate funds to support Portugal immediately, since the country is likely not to meet its funding needs of €100 billion by 2016. Bini-Smaghi stressed that this second bailout would need to be talked about immediately so as to avert a liquidity crisis when confidence fades. While yields on its government bonds are no longer over 20%, Portuguese debt is still trading at distressed levels.

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With Greece's second bailout finally in place, investors are looking ahead to the country's next round of national elections, which will probably topple the technocratic leadership of George Papademos--the country's interim leader since early November. Current finance minister Evangelos Venizelos is expected to tender his resignation Monday to start gearing up for the elections as PASOK's candidate.

On a brighter note, this week both the IMF and the European Commission agreed to pay out the funds Greece has been awarded as part of its second bailout. Greek newspaper Kathimerini reports that the first $7.8 billion of those funds will be paid out Monday.

Пример Греции заставит Ирландию добиваться улучшения условий оказания помощи.

Regarded as the strongest of the bailed out economies in the eurozone, Ireland still awaits a referendum on the "fiscal compact" that EU leaders agreed on back in December. The fact that Greece no longer has to pay back completely the debts it owed the ECB have led Irish leaders to continue pushing for better terms to their own bailout deal--lower interest rates with longer maturities on current loans.

Negotiations with EU leaders on this point are still ongoing, but doubts are beginning to mount about whether Ireland will be able to successfully change the terms of their loans this month.

Испания с ее бюджетными проблемами снова в центре внимания.

Spain is once again in the hot seat compared with Italy, with yields on 10 year bonds rising back above those of its counterpart and above 5%. Its public debt hit a new high at 68.5% of GDP, according to WSJ, and EU finance ministers agreed with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy that Spain would not be able to meet its budget deficit goal for the year, raising expectations for that from 4.4% to 5.8%.

Meanwhile, the country is seeing little recovery from a housing bubble and high unemployment. On Thursday, Spain's statistics agency announced that home prices had fallen at an annual rate of 11.2% in the last year and 9.6% in the quarter.

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The Rebirth of the Actively Managed U.S. Stock Fund

При каких условиях опять пойдет приток средств во взаимные фонды?

The persistent negative investment flows at U.S. listed mutual funds specializing in domestic stocks is one of the most important long-term trends catalyzed by the Financial Crisis. AUM has dropped by $473 billion since January 2007 despite the S&P 500 Index’s essentially flat performance over this period. The news is no better since the beginning of 2012 – despite the ongoing rally in domestic equities – with $6.8 billion of further outflows year to date.

Things That Make You Go Hmmm - Such As $4.00 Gas (Again)

Интересный автор Grant Williams создает ежемесячный обзор под названием: Things That Make You Go Hmmm

Morgan Stanley, Italy, Swaps And Misplaced Outrage

Италия имеет большие позиции на рынке деривативов. Зачем?

What was Italy doing with these swaps in the first place? If they were pure and simple interest rate swaps, why didn’t they just issue floating rate bonds in the first place? That is an easier way for them to manage that exposure. More likely the trades were funky and either involved some games with maturities or optionality, that gave them short term benefits but with increased longer term risk. This should be fully disclosed, and more importantly, the mark to market changes should hit the budget in the year the mark to market changes occur. Everyone seems to be acting surprised by the size of the Italian’s derivative book and the fact that it is massively underwater – why? The book is big because they can do trades that hide losses from the annual budget. Investors should demand to know all the derivative trades sovereigns have on and how they are accounted for.

Не затем ли, чтобы спрятать дефицит бюджета?