Stefan Isaacs

 



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1
Beautiful Game, Ugly Investment
Travelling back from Sunday’s draw between Liverpool & Arsenal (it was never a sending off), I noted Liverpool Football Club had again made the business pages for all of the wrong reasons (see here). The current battle between RBS, the principal ... 		17-Aug-2010
2
The European Central Bank withdraws the 12 month LTRO, just as banking system strains re-emerge
Areport in the FT today (may need free registration) highlights the lobbying of the ECB by Spanish banks to renew a one year funding facility known as the Long-Term Refinancing Operation (LTRO) that comes to an end this week. Banks borrowed €442bn ... 		30-Jun-2010
3
Germany implements restrictions on financial markets. Is this a policy error?
At this stage the details are very limited but it appears that the German supervisory body BaFin has banned the "naked" short selling of Eurozone sovereign bonds, their credit default swaps, and the shares of ten leading German financial ... 		19-May-2010
4
European sovereign debt fears - limited impact on European corporate bond markets
Strong earnings results, low inflation expectations and a view that the ECB will have to keep interest rates lower for longer to support the economic recovery has seen demand for European corporate bonds remain fairly robust. That is not to say that ... 		04-May-2010
5
Lessons from Argentina
The past couple of days have seen Greek debt take a bit of a battering. Spreads on Greek government bonds are the widest they have been since the inception of the Euro, and Greek 5yr CDS is wider by 100bps+ versus the beginning of the week. This seems to ... 		09-Apr-2010
6
Are Sovereign CDS Evil?
Following on from Jim's Sovereign CDS Q&A blog(see here) I came across thischart at zerohedge.com. Whilst I can't vouch for its accuracy, the chart shows that the actual net amount of outstanding sovereign CDS contracts, relative to outstanding ... 		26-Feb-2010
7
LBO’s and IPO’s: have European equity investors woken up?
Back in January at our Annual Investment Forum I focussed on the changing face of the European Leveraged Finance markets - those companies financed with significant levels of debt. My belief is that the current, somewhat forced reinvention, will ... 		17-Feb-2010
8
The Ultimate Carry Trade ?
Last week’s BWIC list (bids wanted in competition) from the Bank of England gave further evidence, if it was needed, that the demand for Sterling corporate bonds remains very strong. The table below, kindly provided by HSBC, shows the bonds that ... 		13-Jan-2010
9
High Yield Déjà Vu? Not Quite Yet
It’s been quite a year to date for leveraged finance. Improving economic data, increased risk appetite and a supply/demand imbalance has driven valuations starkly higher. At the time of writing, the Merrill Lynch European High Yield Index is up a ... 		03-Nov-2009
10
Car wash, talkin' about the car wash yeah
Having recently recovered from my amateur stunt man escapades I thought I’d pen a short note on the recent court sanctioned debt restructuring by IMO Carwash. Why do investors outside of IMO care ? Well, it’s the first time that the English ... 		20-Aug-2009