Monday, September 26, 2016

Tuesday September 27 20916 Housing and Economic stories


Debt buybacks boom as companies cut borrowing costs - (www.ft.com) Klépierre, a French commercial real estate company on Monday joined a growing list of entities taking advantage of low borrowing costs and buying back their existing debt. Companies are replacing existing bonds with new debt, offering investors less interest despite holding on to their money for longer. The practice reflects central bank policies that have pushed down the cost of long-term borrowing, giving companies the chance to refinance at some of the lowest rates on offer ever, and the limits of a policy when many businesses do not need fresh capital. “Companies are taking the view that new issue market conditions are extremely good and not to be missed,” said Vijay Raman, head of liability management at Société Générale.

SEC charges hedge fund manager Leon Cooperman, Omega Advisers with insider trading - (www.cnbc.com) Billionaire Leon Cooperman and his Omega Advisors hedge fund were charged Wednesday with insider trading, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced.  The SEC accused Cooperman of buying into Atlas Pipeline Partners ahead of a deal, using his status as one of its largest shareholders to acquire nonpublic information about an upcoming transaction. "We allege that hedge fund manager Cooperman, who as a large APL shareholder obtained access to confidential corporate information, abused that access by trading on this information," said Andrew J. Ceresney, director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement. "By doing so, he allegedly undermined the public confidence in the securities markets and took advantage of other investors who did not have this information."

Mexican Peso Plunges against Dollar, in Toxic Cocktail of Forces - (www.wolfstreet.com) On Monday morning the world’s tenth most traded currency, the Mexican peso, set a historic precedent that few Mexicans will welcome. For the first time ever, one US dollar fetched as many as 20 Mexican pesos in some of the nation’s banks, including its biggest, Bancomer, following eight consecutive days of losses. Of all the international currencies tracked by Bloomberg, only the Surinamese dollar fell more against the U.S. dollar last week. The peso also holds the dubious distinction of being the worst performing major emerging market currency of 2016, having lost close to 12% of its value.

$195 Billion Asset Manager: "The Time Has Come To Leave The Dance Floor" - (www.zerohedge.com) "When the supposed solutions to the Fed’s dilemma are merely new “problems,” you know you are approaching the cycle’s end... long-term investing is predicated on not just knowing where the happening parties are during the reflationary parts of the cycle but more importantly, knowing when the time has come to leave the dance floor. In our view, that time has already come."

US election: Are we in for an October Surprise? (opinion) - (www.cnn.com) As September comes to an end, presidential-election observers are beginning to wonder if there will be an October Surprise. In a campaign where the unexpected has become normalized, both parties -- but particularly Democrats -- suspect that the next month could bring a shocking revelation. The notion of an October Surprise gained widespread popularity in the 1980 election, when Ronald Reagan's campaign feared that President Jimmy Carter would announce a resolution to the Iran hostage crisis only weeks or days before Americans went to vote. While Carter was in fact working on an end to the crisis, irrespective of the election, the Iranians did not release the hostages until after Reagan's inauguration.




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