Bank Failure Friday, More Inflation fears and Hockey Trivia

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UPDATE: Bank Failure #33: Westsound Bank, Bremerton, Washington.

UPDATE: No failures yet, but FDIC so busy they will open temporary East Coast Satellite Office to help close banks.

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Well... it's the day after the results for the infamous US Bank Stress Tests has been released. Will it also be Bank Failure Friday as well?

As faithful readers know, bank failures in the US always seemed to be delayed until late on Friday afternoons, and there have been so many regular failures week after week that Friday has jokingly come to be called 'Bank Failure Friday' in many economic blogs.

2009 is off to a record breaking year with 32 failures so far. Updates in red/blue at the top of this post as they come in from the FDIC (click on blue portion to see press release from FDIC).

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INFLATION FEARS

Bond market watchers are all a tither. Check out this chart (click on image to enlarge)

This is the intraday chart on the long bond futures. For those who follow such things, this is one nasty chart. The dramatic line going straight down represents the drop in demand for US bonds. As a resuIt the yield (interest rate paid on those bonds) had to spike upward in order to sell the bonds. The US government just sold $14 billion of long bonds at a whopping 4.288% yield. That was far above pre-auction forecasts for a yield of 4.192%, according to Bloomberg.

This prompted China to issue its clearest warning to date about worldwide inflation.

"As more and more economies are adopting unconventional monetary policies, such as quantitative easing (QE), major currencies' devaluation risks may rise," the People's Central Bank of China said in its quarterly report.. The bank fears a "big consolidation" in the bond markets, clearly anxious that interest yields will surge as western states try to exit their QE experiment.

Simon Derrick, currency chief at the Bank of New York Mellon, said the report is the latest sign that China is losing patience with the US and aims to diversify part its $1.95 trillion (£1.3 trillion) foreign reserves away from US Treasuries and other dollar securities.

This has a tremendous potential to impact our economy and the real estate market so we will explore this in the coming week.

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HOCKEY TRIVIA

Meanwhile the Village on the Edge of the Rainforest Canucks let one slip away from them last night. Series is tied 2-2 instead of the Canucks being up 3-1.

Therefore two hockey trivia questions for you today in symmetry with the 2-2 series deadlock.

Who has his name on the Stanley Cup the most times AS A PLAYER (11 times)? Click here for the answer.

Now... who has his name on the Stanley Cup the most times (10 as a player, 7 as a club executive, total 17 times)? Click here for the answer.

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Email: village_whisperer@live.ca