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Morning Update

Spanish and Italian yields, especially in the short end of the yield curve where the ECB has said it would concentrate its purchases, have continued last week’s slide. Spanish 2-year yields are 36 bps lower at 3.37% and Italy 21 bps lower to 3.07% today. Lower yields in the Euro periphery have typically sent the Euro higher and dollar lower, which provides fuel for US stock market gains.

The Spanish stock market has been halted for over four hours due to a “technical glitch”. The Ibex, Spain’s benchmark index, last traded up 1.6% on the day.

Economic news looks light for the week ahead, especially relative to last week’s central banks meetings. The most significant news will likely be Thursday’s International Trade and jobless claims numbers. So far in 2012 both the trade deficit and jobless claims have been trending down. Most likely traders will be watching Eurozone bond yields and continuing to react to last week’s promised for central bank easing in the US and Europe.

Best Buy founder Richard Schulze has offered to buy shares of the electronics company for $24-$26 per share. A $25 share price would value Best Buy at $8.5 billion, a 30% premium to Best Buy’s Friday close. Schulze plans to put up $1billion of equity and finance the rest through “premier private equity firms with deep experience in retail” (Bloomberg).

Knight Capital, after losing $440 million last week due to a faulty trading algorithm, has announced that it will raise $400 million in capital via convertible bonds. The bonds will have a conversion price of $1.5 and will dilute shares by 60%.Shares are down 30% pre-market on this news.

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