Archive for January 2011
While many of the talking heads on CNBC tried to make some noise of the month-to-month decline in yesterday’s numbers released in the Case-Shiller report, the CME Home Price futures markets brushed it off with a yawn. The results were … Read More
Nassim Taleb’s fabulous book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable,introduced into financial discussions a quick soundbite “a black swan” that has come to visually capture the shock that comes with encountering an unexpected event.
In trying … Read More
As with every job specialty, there’s a risk of looking at many of the world’s events in the narrow context of your own area of focus. As a former MBS trader, I would try to establish a link between any … Read More
I’m overdue posting feedback on my “Save the Date” notice for Jan. 11. While we didn’t get the trading that I had hoped for, there were some positive developments.
Spreads have continued to narrow and interest has appeared in other … Read More
S&P just released a report reviewing movement in, and components of, the Case-Shiller index for 2010. Follow the attached link for to their well-illustraded, 17-page report. http://img.en25.com/Web/StandardandPoors/S&PCaseShillerYearinReview_Jan2011.pdf… Read More
One way to trade Home Price contracts is on spread trades. This allows one to trade on the eventual price difference between two contracts. While trading spreads results in no net position (a spread trade results in a long in … Read More
“They” say that you can’t tell the players without a scorecard. I’ve had the question asked -where do I get a “scorecard”? That is, how do I follow the prices on these contracts.
While this should probably fall under the … Read More
Trading activity has picked up in the New Year with a number of trades each of the last three days.
Some notable events:
Here’s a table of year-end bids and offers for the CUS Home Price futures. 
Trades on Dec 31st helped tighten up Boston quotes.
Four contracts (BOS, CUS, NYM and SFR) now have quotes for all expirations.
The average bid/asked spread … Read More
