FED WATCHING

The G-8 meeting in norther Ireland is a side show although there seemed today to be some intelligent noise-making about a U.S./Euroland trade agreement with the announcement that preliminary talks will begin later this year in Washington.  Of course, the usual Gall from Gaul was  this time about the concerning the loss of "Cultural Heritage" in the movie business if such an agreement were to be reached.  Memo to Frankie:  the last time anyone went to a French movie was "And God created woman..." which had a lot to do with Bridgette Bardot getting down to her knickers.  Chill, dude and let's see if we can make this happen.

Aside from that little vignette, all eyes were on the Fed in anticipation of what it will announce on Wednesday regarding "tapering."  From what I can determine, the betting is fairly split but judging from the performance of the stock market today (up 100+ at the close) the "smart" money seems to think that nothing specific will come out of the two days the boys (and girls) will have had hashing over how and when to get out of the almost $4 billion balance sheet they have managed to create without something bad happening.  The wording of this one is going to be Jesuitical or Rabbinical--or a combination of both which will probably get everybody mad which is probably exactly what the board wants.  Nothing to do but wait and see but in the mean time the data for Over Here which came out today--such as it was--was pretty good, helping the markets in their upward performance.

You might remember that just before I skipped out for the wedding and points East, our fiend, Carter, wanted to talk about the Co-operative Bank.  I had lunch with Carter in New York hosted by a mutual friend who is not unknown in this business.  I don't like these kind of lunches when I'm the dumbest guy at the table but they are stimulating.  Well, Co-op made some news today admitting that they were pretty much in the crapper and announced their thought/plans as to how they could get out of it.  I haven't gotten all of it yet so I'm going to wait until tomorrow to discuss this and a couple of other bank issues from around the globe.  It's a Monday and I have to admit I'm not too crisp.  So bear with me; I promise tomorrow will be better.