Economists like to kvetch about “barriers to entry.”
So I’ve been keeping vague track of global economic news lately. In particular, like so many others, I’ve been kind of watching — catch as catch can — the Greek economic…thing. Their bond market, in particular, is doing poorly.
I know that, because I read this:
Greek Bond Risk Jumps to Record on Signs of Sputtering Recovery
June 24 (Bloomberg) — The cost to insure Greek government bonds against default jumped to a record on speculation the slowing economic recovery will add to the country’s debt woes.
Credit-default swaps on Greece rose 145 basis points to an all-time high of 1,077 basis points, according to CMA DataVision. Contracts on Portuguese government securities climbed 16 basis points to a two-week high of 336.5, while Spain rose 4 to 269.
Huh. Basis points. I don’t know what that is. Luckily, I was reading this on my computer, so it was a quick jaunt to the search engine, by which I found:
What Does Basis Point – BPS Mean?
A unit that is equal to 1/100th of 1%, and is used to denote the change in a financial instrument. The basis point is commonly used for calculating changes in interest rates, equity indexes and the yield of a fixed-income security.
So when the first story said: “Credit-default swaps on Greece rose 145 basis points to an all-time high of 1,077 basis points,” what it means is: “Credit-default swaps on Greece rose 1.45 percent to an all-time high of 10.77 percent.”
So why the hell don’t they just say that?
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