No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die

I have added some new links to the sidebar so we can all watch the cascade of Eurozone defaults with our own eyes. Well, until the adults step in and put a stop to it, anyway. (RSS readers will have to click through to see the sidebar, of course.)

GGBs are Greek Government Bonds.

OTs are Obrigações do Tesouro. I do not speak Portuguese, but I imagine that means “Obligations of the Treasury”.

OEs are Obligaciones del Estado, which obviously means “Obligations of the State”. Spanish state, that is.

BTPs are Buoni del Tesoro Polianuali, which I am pretty sure means “An offer you can’t refuse”. (Never ask Mr. Berlusconi about his business.)

Bunds are Bunds. These are the “risk-free” reference because, you know, Germans.

I learned these names while attempting to find or guess the Bloomberg tickers. This was harder than I expected; according to Google, at least a few of these links appear nowhere else on the Internet (yet). And I actually failed to find anything for short-term Portuguese and Spanish bills; if you have access to a real Bloomberg terminal and can fill me in, I would be much obliged.

All of these links provide “Bloomberg generic” prices, which I believe means they are Bloomberg’s best guess based on the markets they monitor. Unlike the U.S. stock market, there is no single bond market, not even effectively. There are multiple markets, and some of them have low volume and high bid/ask spreads. So Bloomberg does its best. The prices are updated a few times per day.

An old but good joke. Q: What do you call a portfolio that is long precious metals and short sovereign debt? A: The “Goldfinger Trade”. (Loves only gold; expects Mr. Bond to die.)