Presenting the Public Sector Credit Framework. A quantitative alternative to sovereign and muni credit ratings produced by the agencies has just launched. The idea behind the model developed by PF2 Securities and Marc Joffe is to get a view of sovereign credit free of the subjectivity and bias that could creep into more qualitatively-based ratings judgements. More details in Jospeh's post. How to profit from the Iran/Isreal stand-off. The lower likelihood of a missile strike means it's a good time to go long Israel by selling CDS protection, say analysts at Nomura (if betting on the probability of nuclear war is your kinda thing). Lisa's post takes a closer look at the trade. Is it time to invest in Europe? asked the Milken Institute at its annual conference this week. Hugh Hendry's verdict: "The reality is you just can't make up how bad [the situation in Europe] is." Watch the debate here. The Australian dollar has veered away from its usual path. Especially in its relationship with the S&P 500. That leaves a tantalising gap for correction - particularly where gold is concerned. David's post tells the tale of a correlation (temporarily) lost. Making eurozonians, or not. How "different" are countries from each other in a range of monetary unions which never existed, or are long dead, compared to the eurozone? Michael Cembalest at JPMorgan has found a way to chart it. Joseph's crunches the findings. News Corp's board has passed a vote of confidence in Murdoch on Wednesday, reports Reuters. Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendeon has apologised to investors, reports the WSJ, after a scandal over his right to buy stakes in each of the company's gas wells. Chesapeake shares closed 15 per cent lower. George Osborne has refused to defend EU bank. He told European ministers the rules would "make him look like an idiot," according to the FT. The bad-tempered exchange occurred at a meeting of finance ministers in Brussels, in which British demands to toughen up the rules stand to scupper agreement on a 600-page law to implement the Basel III accord. Even after 15 hours of talks, European Union ministers were unable to agree in the early hours of Thursday, reports Reuters. Spain sells €2.52bn of bonds. The sale exceeded the €2.5bn target, reports Bloomberg. French presidential candidates face-off in TV debate. France's two presidential candidates sparred during a nearly three-hour television debate Wednesday peppered with disputes over facts and figures but no knockout moment. Socialist candidate François Hollande, who is leading in the polls, attacked the economic record of Nicolas Sarkozy, saying the conservative president favored protecting the rich (Wall Street Journal). Lufthansa is to cut 3,500 jobs. The German carrier announced the job cuts after reporting a worse than expected operating loss of €381m in the first quarter of 2012. Analysts had been expecting a loss of €273m for the three months to March 31 but were reassured by how Europe's largest airline by revenue stuck to its previous earnings guidance for the year (Financial Times). SocGen Q1 profits fall 20%: The French bank said its first quarter net income fell to €732m compared, hit by a revaluation of its own debt and losses from the sale of a corporate loan portfolio. Despite the fall, the bank's results beat market expectations on a stronger than expected performance in fixed-income trading. Markets: Trading across asset classeswa s mixed and cautious as dealers appeared wary of second-guessing many possible headline risks over the next few sessions, the FT reports. The FTSE All-World index was up just 0.01 per cent, the dollar index was higher by less than 0.1 per cent and US 10-year Treasuries barely changed, yielding 1.93 per cent. Commodities were exhibiting no clear theme, with copper down 0.5 per cent to $3.77 a pound and Brent crude up 0.1 per cent to $118.32 a barrel. European bourses opened in the black - the FTSE Eurofirst 300 was up 0.4 per cent - though much of this advance reflected Wall Street's climb off its lows in the previous session rather than any new found optimism on the continent. This entry was posted by Masa Serdarevic on Thursday, May 3rd, 2012 at 10:38 and is filed under Uncategorised.