Daily Commentary

Today's strength in the credit markets is a reminder that when the mood and expectations are this low, even a slight 'beat expectations' can move the market.  Ford lost $1.8B and burned through almost $4B in cash....yet the market is rallying as many expected worse.  I'll attribute some of the enthusiasm to the animal spirits looking forward to great weather this weekend (on the east coast at least).

These very same animal spirits seem to think that Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged is more relevant today than Barack Obama's Audacity of Hope  as the former briefly outranked the latter on Amazon's sales rankings. 

While the new issue market is quiet in the U.S. today (because of earnings and pending stress test results), the new issue market in Europe continues to show strength.  AT&T brought a >30yr bond in UK sterling and it was gobbled up quickly....highlighting the demand globally for long duration assets.

Now, that being said, Moody's said that they UK government was taking "risks" and that their finances are "deteriorating" but for now their AAA rating was not under review.

Forgive the pun....but speaking of toxic assets, I missed this story last week about Lehman being long tons of yellowcake uranium.