Business

Every year around this time, Americans face the certainty of tax time, and that means - in general - finding the cash to pay Uncle Sam his just deserts. This scramble for cash is seasonally evident in the variable-rate tax-exempt (Muni) bond market, where the typically wealthy stash their cash, as rates rise into tax time and fall after (as flows come and go). This year however, the scale of the outflows is enormous, spiking money-market fund rates from 1bp to 29bps...

Submitted by Joseph Calhoun via Alhambra Investment Partners,

Canada has joined the “bail-in” posse.

Canada will introduce legislation to implement a "bail-in" regime for systemically important banks that would shift some of the responsibility for propping up failing institutions to creditors.

The proposed plan outlined in the federal budget released on Tuesday would allow authorities to convert eligible long-term debt of a failing lender into common shares in order to recapitalize the bank, allowing it to remain operating.

Source: CNBC

“Housing in Vancouver is insane — it was insane when I left and it’s more insane now.”

That’s from 33-year-old Kevin Oke, co-founder of LlamaZoo Interactive who left Vancouver for Victoria two years ago because he couldn’t afford to buy a home in his native city even while earning a generous salary as a lead designer at a video-game company whose clients included Atari and Ubisoft Entertainment SA.  

Yesterday we presented the latest note from UBS' technical analysts, Michael Riesner and Marc Muller, who said now that the S&P had hit their near-term top target of 2,050, it was time to "sell" the "most overbought market since 2009." We suggested that, based on their recent accurate track record, that it would be prudent to follow their advice instead of Gartmaning it. So far they have been correct.