Let's get right to it with a lead-in from Prieur's recent, "Credit Crisis Watch":
"In order to gauge the progress being made to unclog credit markets and restore confidence in the world’s financial system, I monitor a range of financial spreads and other measures. By perusing these, as summarised in this “Credit Crisis Watch” review, one can ascertain to what extent the various central bank liquidity facilities and capital injections are having the desired effect.
First up is the LIBOR rate. This is the interest rate that banks charge each other for one-month, three-month, six-month and one-year loans. LIBOR is an acronym for “London InterBank Offered Rate” and is the rate charged by London banks, and which is then published and used as the benchmark for banks’ rates around the world... "
Source: StockCharts.com
Head on over to Investment Postcards to find out more about what the credit markets are telling us.
There you'll find charts and analysis of the movements in Libor, US three-monthTreasury bills, the TED spread, Barron's confidence index, CDX and iTraxx credit indices, and more.
We hope Prieur's insightful post will prove helpful to readers who want to learn more about the action in the credit markets, and what they may tell us about the state of the financial markets and the economy.