Jobs, showers and a point

There seems to be increasing realism in Europe. On one hand, the ECB buying of debt is actually having meaningful impact; perhaps it's fleeting but it's tangible at the moment. In addition, the talk of another round of European bank stress tests has the revolutionary idea of....gasp....using market values for sovereign debt.

The recently conducted Spanish debt auction resulted in yields that were a full 130bps lower than the previous auction. You can thank the ECB purchases for that....but before you yell "Ole!" please recall that Spanish gov't yields are still at historic wides versus German gov't yields.

On the matter of the coming stress tests, I discovered (via FT/Alphaville) a fancy interactive graphic tool here to input your own variables for a customized Euro bank stress test.

For those that watch retail investor behavior for leading but contrary indicators, please know that Morgan Stanley has set a record pace of issuance of structured notes to retail investors that are keyed off of interest rates. When mom and pop capitulate, it (name your sector/security/market) is headed the other way.

Ann Coulter, on the 'occupy wall street' protestors: "I am not the first to note the vast differences between the Wall Street protesters and the tea partiers. To name three: The tea partiers have jobs, showers and a point."

Be aware of Geithner on the tape today at 2pm on the domestic jobs bill and the European crisis.