Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktVital Statistics:
| Last | Change | Percent | |
| S&P Futures | 1300.9 | 12 | 0.93% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 2397 | 35.460 | 1.50% |
| Oil (WTI) | 100.77 | 2.070 | 2.10% |
| LIBOR | 0.5623 | -0.003 | -0.46% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 80.821 | -0.658 | -0.81% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 1.90% | 0.04% |
S&P futures are up after a 3 day weekend that started with S&P downgrades in Europe. Markets seem to be taking comfort in the Chinese GDP report last night that came in stronger than expected. Meanwhile Greece continues talks with bondholders regarding its upcoming 3/20 interest payment.
Earnings season gets into full swing this week, with Citigroup and Wells Fargo reporting this morning. Citi missed earnings on a drop in trading revenue, while Wells beat on stronger mortgage lending operations. Citi is down about 3 percent pre-open, while Wells is up about a percent.
In economic data, Empire State Manufacturing came in strong at 13.48 vs 11 expected.
Filed under: Morning Report | Tagged: citi bank, greece, stocks |
All Things in Moderation 
Just to give us a benchmark, what accommodations have been given to Greece so far?
A benchmark would help [me] to understand what “negotiations” about the 3-20 interest date mean.
LikeLike
Looks like the tea party accomplished something:
“Obama administration warns the left: You will not like our budget
By Alexander Bolton – 01/17/12 05:30 AM ET
Top White House officials are warning liberal and labor leaders to brace themselves for President Obama’s budget proposal. ”
,,,
“In his first three years, Obama had a free hand to suggest spending levels for government programs in his annual budget blueprint. But that is not the case this year because the administration is constrained by the budget deal reached in August to raise the debt limit.
He must stick to the $1.047 trillion spending cap he agreed to with GOP leaders, which means he will call for less discretionary spending than he did last year.
Senior administration officials fear a backlash from the left and are trying to prepare their allies to expect a disappointing budget, sources say.
“A senior White House person said we weren’t going to be happy with the budget, but they’re doing the best they can” given the spending caps set by the 2011 Budget Control Act, said one source. ”
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/204435-obama-warns-left-you-will-not-like-my-budget
If you want deficit reduction to be a priority, you need divided government.
LikeLike
Joe Nocera in the NYT today:
“Keep It Simple
By JOE NOCERA
Published: January 16, 2012”
…
“She also points to a contradiction in the way the Too Big to Fail institutions are being dealt with. On the one hand, Dodd-Frank is very clear that if a big bank becomes insolvent, there can be no taxpayer bailout. It must be wound down, just like any other bank. Yet, at the same time, she says, the federal and international regulators are adding a host of special Too Big to Fail capital requirements and rules. “They are acting as if these institutions are still too big to fail. The two thrusts are incompatible.”
Why does complexity risk matter? One reason is that the more complex the rules are, the greater the likelihood that smart bankers will find ways to game them. Another is that contradictory regulations, however well meaning, simply don’t make the system safer. But the most important reason is that complexity risk is having an effect on business — and that’s not helping the still-fragile economy.
Petrou says that in her own practice she has seen deals fall through — especially in the mortgage industry — because nobody can figure out how the new rules will be applied. Given how badly the country needs a revived housing industry, this is nothing short of tragic.
In her paper, Petrou offers a series of solutions, revolving around simpler regulations, a reliance on market discipline and transparency. She also calls for the regulators themselves to be held accountable, something that is nowhere to be found in Dodd-Frank, despite their obvious shortcomings in the years leading to the financial crisis.
However you feel about banks — and I know that many people harbor enormous, justifiable anger at what they did — our economy can’t function without them. And they needed to be regulated. But three years ago, overly complex securities were one of the root causes of the crisis. So why, then, do we have faith that overly complex regulations will prevent the next crisis? Sad but true: they won’t. ”
LikeLike
@mark: Here’s a piece with some background.
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/282469/20120116/greek-restructuring-negotiations-key-eur-week.htm
Different factions within the negotiations are in disagreement over how much each will lose. Talks broke off last week and are set to resume the middle of this week.
LikeLike
ADMIN note:
I’ve heard from scott and he can get into the site and see the dashboard but cannot actually do anything. He is getting this message:
“The page isn’t redirecting properly. Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.”
Is anyone else having any problems? If not, any ideas? Scott cannot comment right now and if others are having the same problem they cannot comment either so if you’re in that boat email me at plumgirls10@yahoo.com. If need be I’ll try to direct this stuff to Kevin. I am running the same firefox version that scott is so I don’t quite get it. I suggested he sign in under the sign-in link above on the left in case his bookmarked page from last week has been re-directed somehow. That sign in link above will direct you to a wordpress/atim sign in page.
LikeLike
FWIW, I have not had any problems and am using IE. Can’t Scott go back to using IE if he is having trouble with Firefox?
LikeLike
I am using Firefox (latest version). I had to sign in this morning at work through the handy-dandy login Scott set up for us in order to update my bookmark, but I had no issues doing so and no issues with the redirect.
LikeLike
Oh good. I’m glad we added the log in. Scott’s back now also, so we’re good to go I guess. Did you see the banner and rules of engagement? Yay Kevin
LikeLike
The wordpress sign-in page should work, obviously, as there is no redirect.
KW, if you are responsible for updating the banner, thanks. Otherwise, thanks to whomever.
LikeLike
That’s what I think also mark. Haven’t heard back yet since I suggested that to him.
LikeLike
MsJS, thanks for the link – I’ll look at it at lunch!
LikeLike
Back to Wisconsin for a moment:
The major public employee unions have been meeting privately with various possible challengers to Gov. Scott Walker (R) with the intent of backing a common candidate.
http://host.madison.com/ct/local/govt_and_politics/blog/
I understand why they might want to do that. It is my hope that their efforts don’t end up crimping the democratic (small d) process. In my view, if only the unions choose a challenger to Walker, that challenger will lose.
————
lms and others, thank you for keeping up on the tech stuff.
LikeLike
I’m back…thanks for the help.
That you all helped me get back in despite the fact that my continued silence would surely prove beneficial to everyone else shows that there is indeed at least some altruistic impulse at ATiM.
LikeLike
Can we ask what the solution was? It may come up again for someone.
LikeLike
I used the link Mark sent me. I’ve replaced our “log-in” link in the side-bar above with Mark’s link, so hopefully that will be a better way to log in.
LikeLike
I’ll go try it out. Thanks
LikeLike
Okay, both the previous log in and the new log in worked for me this morning and one or the other worked for okie…..so all’s well that ends well. Good thing we did that over the weekend though.
LikeLike
lms:
Did you see the banner and rules of engagement? Yay Kevin
Indeed. I particularly like they way he, er, moderated the font for “in moderation” in the banner. Nice touch.
LikeLike
Sorry to go off topic on your post Brent……..back to our regularly scheduled programming.
LikeLike
FWIW, I was having the same problems with chrome.
LikeLike
I don’t think it was a browser problem, more of a redirect/bookmark problem which should be solved with a log in and new bookmark for all of us. I think……………….
LikeLike
Meanwhile, back in Greece:
There are an estimated 10,000 in the streets of Athens protesting austerity measures. And more such measures may be put in place, depending on how this week’s round of debt negotiations go.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2012/01/17/greece-debt-financial.html?cmp=rss
And this is just Greece. There are other countries and companies to deal with as well. And this seems to suit China just fine.
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2012/01/17/china-sees-upside-of-eurozone-crisis/#axzz1jjbDLdhR
LikeLike
Sorry about the re-direct, that probably had something to do with me setting it up so all-things-in-moderation.com now directs to here, instead of being a hover.com re-direct . . . didn’t foresee any problems with that, but I guess there was. Other interface irrationalities are me playing with the CSS. As you may have noted, I’m messing with the comments CSS. Including alternating colors (although this may not show up in ie).
LikeLike
So Kevin, when someone goes to their old atim bookmark, if they haven’t been here yet, what happens exactly? What is a hover.com re-direct?
LikeLike
Comments look awesome btw. My question above is for someone like john/bannedagain whom we haven’t heard from yet. And NoVA, although I did email him.
LikeLike
The hover re-direct is where I told hover to point requests for all-things-in-moderation.com to conservaliberals.wordpress.com. But I changed the configuration so, instead of re-directing the URL, all-things-in-moderation.com actually becomes this URL. Which was how it was configured at Blogger. I’m also curious is someone could get suekzoo to try and log-in/post, since she couldn’t comment at Blogger.
LikeLike
I’ll email her and ask her to try.
LikeLike
Depends what they had bookmarked, but all-things-in-moderation.com should work for everybody (or shortly work for them, if they user dawdling DNS). More importantly, that’s likely to work for folks where the local netnanny might block wordpress.com blogs. If anybody was having trouble coming over to conservaliberals.wordpress.com, have them try all-things-in-moderation.com instead.
LikeLike
I also updated the banner, may tweek it a little more. That was the quick answer. 😉
LikeLike
Does anyone besides me love the word “beautimous”? It’s a favorite around here.
LikeLike
My new favorite word is “interrobang.” It’s a “new” punctuation mark that combines a ? with a !…‽
LikeLike
Kevin
Scott is having problems again………….check your email from him.
LikeLike
lms…I’m back again.
After talking to Kevin, I’d recommend to anyone experiencing the same problem as me (getting redirected to “Sue’s stuff” on hover rather than the homepage) just wait it out. Seems to have something with your own DNS server taking a while to update. it finally rectified itself for me, so I assume it will for others as well.
LikeLike
lms…I’m back again.…….dangit………;)
I hope the “sue’s stuff” doesn’t have something to do with our “suekzoo”? I’m frankly a bit confused but as long as everyone, including me, can get in it’s fine I guess.
Now I’ll go email the real sue and see what happens.
LikeLike
It does have to do with sue, but more importantly is has to do with DNS server time-lag when updating. Once it’s propagated, that problem scott had should not recur.
LikeLike
Thanks Kevin
LikeLike
*waving at ScottC*
LikeLike
Brent, tomorrow I’ll do an early morning ADMIN post again so we don’t take up another one of your posts with this stuff…………apologies again.
LikeLike
FWIW, the bookmark here on my work computer automatically updated itself over the weekend–I hadn’t opened ATiM on this computer since Thursday (or maybe even Wednesday), so it was seamless for me.
Of course, that means that if I ever get lost I won’t have a bread crumb trail to get me back. . .
LikeLike
That’s what email is for right?
LikeLike
🙂
LikeLike
*looking at all the threaded comments*
AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!
😉
LikeLike
Well, at least they are very easy to read, after I modified the CSS. 😉
LikeLike
msjs
I keep saying I’m going to quit but it’s so darned convenient when you’re commenting, but then a pain in the ass when reading. I promise I’ll try harder to resist. 🙂
LikeLike
I don’t mind the replies. Maybe that’s me. I think they’re very readable, now that I modified the CSS.
LikeLike
😉
LikeLike
msjs:
AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!
I am with you 100%.
(back in again, lms. very unstable for me)
LikeLike
scott
I sure hope it gets resolved. I’m sure you’ve tried everything but what if you went back to IE or would that make you look like an idiot at work…..lol? That’s happened to me before when I really think I want something and then get it and wish I’d thought it through a little better first.
LikeLike
lms:
I tried ie. Doesn’t make a difference. I think it has something to do with the back end system in my office. We’ll give it a day to see if it gets better.
LikeLike