Business

Authord by Chris Whalen via The Institutional Risk Analyst,

Almost as soon as it started, the excitement surrounding earnings for financials in Q3 2017 dissipated like air leaving a balloon.

Source: HedgeEye

Results for the largest banks – including JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM), Citigroup (NYSE:C) and Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) – all universally disappointed, even based upon the admittedly modest expectations of the Sell Side analyst cohort.

Global markets traded near all-time highs on Tuesday, with S&P futures, Asian shares and European stocks all flat this morning, while oil continued to gain on Kurdish geopolitical concerns while most industrial metals fell.  The euro extended its recent slide and stocks drifted as Spain’s escalating hard-line response to the Catalonian secession threat fueled concern the crisis may intensify.

After seemingly sending out trial balloons (via Bloomberg and Reuters simultaneously) on tapering last Thursday, which had almost zero impact (see “ECB Reportedly Considering Slashing QE in Half in January, EURUSD Shrugs), Draghi’s minions have been busy again.

All IPO’d up and no place to go? UK portfolio managers with $6.9 trillion resist rule bending by regulator to achieve Aramco London listing

Another potential problem for the world’s biggest ever (potential) IPO…

A lobby group representing UK portfolio managers with $6.9 trillion AUM has warned the UK financial regulator that bending the rules to accommodate Aramco’s IPO will damage London’s status as a global financial centre.

Since the ECB launched its sovereign debt QE, initially known as PSPP, in March 2015 and later expanded to include corporate debt, or CSPP, in June 2016, the world's biggest hedge fund central bank has created enough money out of thin air to purchase bonds with no consideration for price to grow its balance sheet, i.e. investment portfolio, by €1.89 trillion.