Beige Book Now The Street's Focus

Ben Bernanke's comments last week that "we will pay particularly close attention to the timeliest indicators, as well as information gleaned from our business and banking contacts around the country" is causing traders to focus their attention on the Beige Book, which is out at 2:00 today.

The Beige Book is a survey of economic conditions, conducted in the Federal Reserve’s twelve regional banks, in preparation for Federal Open Market Committee meetings; it is prepared twice every quarter. This report will likely reflect data that was collected before August 27th. This could be a market mover.

Lots of talk about downside and upside price risk to the brokers, and when to get in (and how long to stay out). Credit Suisse, for example, this morning saying downside price risk is 10%, upside "well in excess of 20%" due to healthy global GDP growth and ample liquidity. That said, it certainly was an ugly August for brokers: according to Dealogic, investment grade debt underwriting was down 26%, high yield down 43%.

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