m22au,
Good to see you back. Did you see the action today?A few things jumped out to me in the negative side
-WFC rumor that they were raising capital
-Rumor of a large bank failure
XLF dropped 5.3% in these even in the face of a 53 ISM Mfg. The financial crisis look to be alive and well.
The green shoots and 2nd derivative lifted everyones spirit and made the market immune to bad news, looks like they overdosed and now they are immune to good news.
Treasury is running out of TARP money, Fed could be forced to disclose everybody who used the discount window/TAF, Bove says bank stocks are trading at levels only justified by 2011(!) earnings. Stress test shows banks are going to lose a lot of money over the next quarters
What Bernanke dubbed a 'rellapse of financial conditions' could be well in the cards for the next 6 months, bank fears, liquidity problems, bailout weekends, plummeting XLF(which triggers more fears). This stuff could come back. I will participate in these with more XLF puts
As far as RBA rates go, IB doesnt seem to offer anything other than a stock future in the Sydney futures exchange. Maybe they are doing me a favor, I dont know much about AU except that its like the US(housing bubble, current account deficit)
The short sterling call thing was laying me 5-1 on no hike till Jan 2011, the eurodollar calls laid 4-1 on no hike till Jan 2011. The better odds might not be worth it as I dont know much about the BOE. I rather stick with reading the Fed which I consider to be my strength