Saturday, October 22, 2011

Weekend News 21 Oct

[BRIEFING.COM] After another volatile week, stocks are closing the week out with a strong +1.9% gain, bringing the S&P 500 +1% vs. last Friday's close. Although earnings season picked up this week, the market remains preoccupied with Europe and the steady stream of back-and-forth headlines from various "officials" that flow out of the region. While a definitive plan remains to be seen, market participants seem to be giving policymakers the benefit of the doubt that they are making progress towards one. This weekend brings the first of two upcoming EU summits, although EU leaders have managed to lower expectations for this meeting and a plan is not expected until the follow-up summit midweek next week.
Treasuries ended the week with a quiet session on Friday as traders prepared for this weekend's EU Summit. A flat trade on Friday caused 2-, 3-, 5-, and 7-yr yields to settle little changed on the week while some selling in the back of the curve ran the 10-yr yield up 2 bps to 2.203% and the 30-yr up 5 bps to 3.252%. While shorter dated yields were relatively stable this week, longer dated ones did see a rise as the 10-yr added 3 bps and the 30-yr gained 8 bps. This weekend's EU Summit is sure to provide for an interesting session start to next week with official details of the plan set to be released on Wednesday.


Energy
  • Greater Volatility Ahead? (Futures)
  • IEA Expectation Of Future Global Production From MENA. (Oil Price)
Markets
Central Banks
  • Sunday's EFSF Plan, Bank Recapitalization, & Greek Haircut. (Reuters)
  • Great Depression, 2.0 & History Repeating. (Zerohedge)
  • Introducing Mario Draghi. (Telegraph)
  • EFSF As Bond Buyer. (FT Alpha)
  • Fed Swap Lines With Europe. (Zerohedge)
  • M2 Surges 33% In 4 Months In US. (Zerohedge)
Politics
  • Weekend Status Of Euro Talks. (Telegraph)
  • The Killing Of al Awalaki's 16yr Old American Born Son. Zero Due Process. (Antiwar.com)
  • The Fraud Of Federally Subsidized Student Loans. (Zerohedge)
  • Student Loans And A Generation Of Wage Slavery. (Zerohedge)
  • Tom Woods' Response To Henry Blodget. (Tom Woods)
HFT/Algo
  • Bank America, The New HFT Darling. (CNBC)
Graphics
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