Business

And just like that last week's junk bond debt fund liquidation and redemption suspension, which first struck at the mutual fund giant Third Avenue and promptly spread to a hedge fund launched by the former heads of distressed and high yield trading from, get this, Bear Stearns, and was supposed to be quietly buried, went front page and nuclear following a WSJ report that the CEO of Third Avenue, David M. Barse, who had been with the company for 23 years, has been fired.

Submitted by Salil Mehta via Staistical Ideas blog,

Confirming what we explained here, Goldman Sachs notes that the publication of a new CNY exchange rate index suggests an increased focus on broader CNY moves against other non-USDollar currencies and reinforces the likelihood of further depreciation versus the USD.

Goldman Sachs writes...

Two weeks ago, we predicted that if the same September storm clouds return, and if December, which is increasingly looking as shaky as August as a result of a return of China deval fears, soaring dollar concerns and - the cherry on top - the collapse in junk bonds, forcing the Fed to have some literally last minute concerns about a rate hike, then the Fed's official mouthpiece, Jon Hilsenrath will be very busy...

Yesterday, we highlighted the all too eerie coincidence that the very first hedge fund (not mutual fund) to gate investors late on Friday, was operated by none other than the two former heads of distressed/high yield trading of the bank that started it all, Bear Stearns.

Today, things get even eerier, because while we already have the Bear Stearns link, an even more curious coincidence emerged when according to the BofA-Merrill index of "CCC and below" bond yields, the index just hit 17.24%, soaring nearly 2% in just the past two weeks, and rising fast.