Salient to Investors: Florida ’s jobless rate has fallen more than in 42 counterparts in the past two years, the extra yield on its muni-bonds has dropped 25 percent this year over the average AAA security Peter DeGroot at JPMorgan Chase says the yield spread will narrow more amid declining unemployment and climbing home sales.
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Hedge funds and distressed debt funds are buying Greek mortgage bonds as mutual funds and banks have to sell because of credit downgrades, in a bet the bonds will rebound if Greece stays in the euro. JPMorgan said initially assigned top credits pay 22 percentage points more than benchmark rates, more
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Douglas Swanson at JPMorgan Chase sees nothing in the short term to cure Europe. Hedge-funds and large speculators increased net-short position in 10-year T-note futures in the week ending June 12. Speculative short positions outnumbered long positions by 95,385 contracts on the CBT. The Fed’s term premium shows U.S. government bonds at almost
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Bill Farren-Price of Petroleum Policy Intelligence says Saudi Arabia will continue to meet customer demand – if demand drops, then will cut. Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix said Saudi Arabia cannot at the same time commit to a supply cut to please OPEC and commit to replace Iranian barrels to please the G-20. Predictions:
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Phil Flynn of Price Futures Group says the markets are betting that the anti-austerity forces in Greece will lose, which would boost oil prices, bus a win would see a deflationary downdraft impacting all markets. Sees increasing likelihood that the central banks will increase stimulus – the Fed has a lot of cover
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Brazil holds the world’s biggest oil discoveries since Kazakhstan found the Kashagan field in 2000. Brazil has at least 50 billion barrels of recoverable reserves in an area the size of Florida in deep waters off the coast of Brazil. Read the full article at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-15/petrobras-worst-big-oil-bet-on-deepwater-disappointments.html
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: NorthCoast Asset Management says everyone is on the sidelines for fear the market will get hammered if Greece leaves the euro. Predictions: Jeffrey Saut of Raymond James sees another leg up in the stock market on the belief that the Fed is going to have to provide liquidity to prevent the U.S. dollar from rising substantially
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: U.K. and France boosted holdings of U.S. Treasuries by over 26 percent in April, total international demand for U.S. financial assets slowed. Chinese holdings rose $1.5 billion to $1.15 trillion. Chris Rupkey of Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ said safe haven flows from Europe are driving T-yields down, and expects the trend to continue until Europe stems its crisis.
READ MORE... →Predictions: David Bianco of Deutsche Bank no longer expects a near term rally of 5 percent or more because of uncertainty about the Greek election, but maintained his year-end prediction of 1,475 on the S&P 500. David Trone of JMP Securities expects some of the largest financial institutions to underperform due to concern that Europe will experience significant damage. Michael Hartnett of Bank of
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Brown Brothers says the longest streak of alternating up and down days in the S&P 500 since October is a sign of a tug of war between bulls and bears. A lack of extreme pessimism during the market retreat since April suggests the market could go lower. BGC Partners says
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