Thursday, February 24, 2011

DRAIN THE SWAMP AND BLAME THE OIL? - 3 UPDATES

I am just about to enter into a meeting in about 5 minutes, but wanted to post these items very quickly.

6 MONTH EURIBOR -
http://www.homefinance.nl/english/international-interest-rates/euribor-rates-6-months.asp
Euribor continues to push upward.  Yes, there are rumors that we'll see an interest rates increase, but this is still important.


FINANCIAL CONDITIONS INDEX -
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=BFCIUS:IND
Once again the Bloomberg Financial Conditions Index moved up close to 0.5 and then got slammed back.  Recall that a level above 0.0 is considered expansionary, however I'm not convinced this is a real expansion given that we cannot get passed 0.5 ever.




Finally, just an update.  I have scaled out of my shorts on PIN and FXI as I've done really well over the last two days.  No reason to push my luck. 

One parting thought.  If you were a central banker and had policies underway that were not effective and were actually putting you in a box, wouldn't you use the Mid East riots and Libyan oil issue as an excuse for stopping your QE II operations?  We know they would never come out and say they made a mistake, but this would be perfect cover for Bernanke to drain the liquidity swamp and blame it on oil prices that were inhibiting the effectiveness of him flawless (lawless) policies.

This could be one great time to unplug the printing presses and watch the markets fall. 
Be Careful!

GOATMUG