“All we need is just a little patience” for a Greek bond deal to get signed already. Hours have turned into days which have since shifted into weeks and its turned us all into market spectators and not players, hence the pathetic trading volume. The WSJ highlighted the remaining issues as Oli Rehn, EU head, said this morning that things should wrap up in ‘coming days.’ In the mean time, the Greek 1 yr bond is at a new low at .25-.28. The market is also in a tug of war between the feel good drug of central bank largesse (still) on one hand, and the most challenging earnings season in years on the other. For now of course central banks are winning in lifting asset prices and the Feb 29th LTRO Part II will likely sustain that for a period of time until the market goes into withdrawal and we do this all over again. Meanwhile, the current batch of LTRO continues to be redeposited back at the ECB as they reported this morning that 486.4b euros came their way vs the 489b euros they lent out for 3 yrs. Spain sold debt with maturities from ’15-’17 and while they sold a touch more than the maximum target, yields are moving higher. In the category of ‘you’ve come a long way baby,’ the Irish 2 yr yield is back below 5% at 4.71%, a 1 yr low and down from 23.2% at the panic July ’11 high. Portuguese yields are also in off their highs. In the US, individual investor sentiment has somewhat moderated its recent extreme bullishness as Bulls fell to 43.8 from 48.4 and Bulls rose to 25.1 from 18.9.
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