Wall Street Journal (October 7)
“French President Emmanuel Macron has lost his fourth prime minister in just over a year, a sign of how the country’s political crisis has engulfed his ranks and constrained his options for pulling France out of a fiscal spiral.” After just a month in office, “Sébastien Lecornu stunned the country by resigning as prime minister…. Lecornu’s benighted tenure—the shortest in the history of France’s modern Fifth Republic—is a measure of how a political system that was once a cornerstone of stability in Europe has fallen into disarray.”
Tags: Benighted, Cornerstone, Disarray, Engulfed, Europe, Fifth Republic, Fiscal spiral, France, Lecornu, Macron, Options, Political crisis, Resigning, Shortest, Stability, Stunned, Tenure
Reuters (June 9)
“Latin America has emerged as a top investing destination as ongoing wars – both of the military and trade variety – make investors seek options in a region they view as refreshingly untroubled by tariffs and major conflicts.”
Tags: Conflicts, Investing destination, Investors, Latin America. Emerged, Military, Ongoing wars, Options, Region, Tariffs, Trade, Untroubled
Mansion Global (July 11)
“The market has cooled since June, when the Federal Reserve raised interest rates 0.75% to help curb inflation.” Housing inventory is rising, “finally giving buyers some options and negotiability with sellers.” As a result, “nearly 15% of home contracts in the U.S. were canceled in June,” which had approximately 60,000 cancellations. That’s up 12.7% over May and 11.2% year on year.
Tags: Buyers, Contracts, Cooled, Fed, Housing inventory, Inflation, Interest rates, June, Market, Negotiability, Options, Sellers, U.S.
Bloomberg (February 21)
“The American love affair with stocks is deepening as everyone from frenetic day-traders to staid institutions dive further into the market…. While aspects of the craze—the growing obsession with penny stocks and options, primarily—are the basis for daily warnings about a bubble, bulled-up positioning is proving a sturdy backbone for the rally.”
Tags: Backbone, Bubble, Craze, Day-traders, Institutions, Market, Options, Penny stocks, Staid, Stocks, U.S., Warnings
Institutional Investor (January 4)
Researchers have uncovered “striking evidence of pre-disclosure spikes in options trading.” They “investigated informed trading activity in equity options prior to firms’ cybersecurity breach disclosures. We found pervasive directional options activity, consistent with strategies that yield abnormal returns to investors with private information.” There is a clear “cost of disclosure, and delayed reporting of breaches creates informed trading opportunities.”
Tags: Breach, Cybersecurity, Equity, Evidence, Options, Options trading, Pre-disclosure, Researchers, Spikes
Seattle Times (October 27)
“The world’s biggest buyers of commercial jets believe Boeing, which is set to report more heavy financial losses Wednesday, has fallen significantly below parity with rival Airbus — with limited options for recovery as it bleeds cash during the pandemic-driven aviation crisis.”
Tags: Airbus, Aviation, Bleeds, Boeing, Buyers, Cash, Commercial jets, Limited, Losses, Options, Pandemic, Parity, Recovery, Rival
The Economist (December 7)
British voters are facing a “nightmare before Christmas.” They “keep being called to the polls—and each time the options before them are worse…. Next week voters face their starkest choice yet, between Boris Johnson, whose Tories promise a hard Brexit, and Jeremy Corbyn, whose Labour Party plans to “rewrite the rules of the economy” along radical socialist lines.” Both leaders are unpopular and on Friday, December 13th, “unlucky Britons will wake to find one of these horrors in charge.”
Tags: Brexit, Christmas, Corbyn, Johnson, Labour, Nightmare, Options, Polls, Radical, Starkest, Tories, UK, Unlucky, Unpopular, Voters, Worse
Reuters (October 12)
“Nerves are fraying in the Brexit talks, negotiators are trying to work out if the other side is bluffing about walking away, and a ticking clock is fast narrowing British options come March 2019.”
Institutional Investor (April 26)
The Saudi Stock Exchange, known as the Tadawul, has “sped up its transaction cycle and introduced new trade options in a bid at international capital.” It has adopted the T+2 settlements now common in Europe. (The U.S. still takes three days to settle transactions, but is scheduled to adopt T+2 this September). Tadawul also “introduced securities borrowing and lending as well as covered short selling.” Currently ranked #23, the Tadawul hopes moves like these and the launch of a REIT market will help it attract more investment.
Tags: Europe, Options, REIT, Saudi Arabia, Securities, Settlements, T+2, Tadawul, Transaction cycle, U.S.
Wall Street Journal (June 15)
The yield on 10-year German bunds turned negative, a new low. “This is good for governments that want to finance spending on the cheap, but it’s not so good for the private risk-taking that drives economic growth. Negative interest rates reflect a lack of confidence in options for private investment. They also discourage savings that can be invested in profitable ventures. A negative 10-year bond is less a sign of monetary wizardry than of economic policy failure.”
Tags: Bunds, Confidence, Finance, Germany, Governments, Growth, Investment, Negative interest, Options, Risk-taking, Savings, Spending, Yield
