Zero Bids In First Bank Of England Dollar Repo Reopening

As part of the reactivation of its FX swaps with the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England also reactivated its dollar repo operation. As announced, "these operations will be at fixed interest rates with counterparties able to borrow any amount against eligible collateral. The first tender will be held on Tuesday 11 May. The Bank will keep the frequency and maturity of its US dollar operations under review, in light of market conditions." And in light of the assumed scarcity of dollars in Euroland it was somewhat surprising that today's dollar repo reopening after a 5 month hiatus (the last such transaction occurred on January 27) saw exactly zero bids. We speculate that since the dollar repo was attempted at 10 am GMT, that the swap line is now active, although we have not yet seen anything in the form a term sheet or a press release from the Federal Reserve. But who are we to presume that the Fed would be accountable to anyone, let alone us, and disclose something as irrelevant as information to the general public. Yet the take home is that England, at least so far, is not in need to dollar denominated funding. Which means, as we have long speculated, that "lack of USD liquidity" ground zero is most likely France, and Germany is probably in second place.

Guest Post: Brother, Can You Spare A Trillion

In what has now become the normal in expectations, European policy makers have announced a 750 BILLION EURO bailout policy late Sunday evening in defense of the Euro currency and a show of force between the USA FED, the European Central bank, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England. In a nutshell they will buy bonds and will intervene in markets and "do what they have to" in order to avoid a meltdown. This is akin to the USA bailout of 1 Trillion dollars. This will only buy time, but it is all that can be done right now. For the moment the term being touted this Monday morning is "putting a floor on risk assets”. This time they mean stocks and bonds and not commodities. In the same manner as the USA announcements, this move is being looked upon as "SHOCK AND AWE." What happened to cause such a turn in policy? While I am not certain, the plunge in liquidity of the world stock markets last week certainly must have played a role. The plan will buy private and sovereign debt. Virtually unlimited funds will be provided.

FX Swap Lines, From The Horse's Mouth

A month ago, the New York Fed came out with a paper discussing everything one needs to know about FX swap lines. We did not post it at the time, as we were somewhat confident a much more appropriate time to post would be just around the corner. Sure enough, the time has come. The below paper, written by Fed staffers, should provide the full picture (at least from the Fed's point of view) on what swap lines are, and how the Fed uses them every time the world needs to be bailed out.For our in-depth analysis of the mechanics of a global FX swap line based "bailout" posted previously, see here.

SEC Admits Cluelessness About Market Crash After Intimate Meeting With Guilty Parties Who Refuse To Take Blame

It appears that the SEC's extensive deliberations on what the cause for Thursday's crash was, have yielded no answers. Mary Schapiro, proving again that she is nothing less than an intellectual titan, met with all the guilty parties in last week's market crash, in a meeting in which shockingly, none admitted that the crash was all their doing directly and indirectly. Bloomberg reports: "The chief executive officers of NYSE Euronext, Nasdaq OMX Group Inc., Bats Global Markets Inc., Direct Edge Holdings LLC, International Securities Exchange Holdings Inc. and CBOE Holdings Inc. saw no evidence that a mistaken order caused the plunge, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions were private." No, instead of raising their hands and saying it was all their fault, the execs all said that the SEC needs... circuit breakers. Which is funny cause the market already had those in overabundance. We all saw how much good curbs and circuit breakers did when the Dow was dropping by 100 points every second. So sure, let's deflect a little longer until the next market structure induced crash comes, which will take the market down by not 10% but 30%, 40%, or more. And, as usual, the SEC will say "Well, we tried, but nobody really foresaw this." And that wold be ironic, because even though the SEC could be excused for not reading blogs or anything else that is not linking externally from www.transvestitemidgetporn.com, one would think they do on occasion turn on Bloomberg TV. Which is why we bring your attention to this clip from February of this year, in which Themis' Joe Saluzzi pretty mich predicted to the dot what would happen. And instead of consulting with those who actually predicted the whole collapse, the SEC instead seeks advice from the parties responsible for the crash, and whose entire business model is dependant on perpetuating the status quo. This is the thought process of an an agency which receives $1 billion in taxpayer funding each year.

Morgan Stanley Capitulates, Sees No Rate Hike Until 2011, Pushes Back Call For 4.5% On 10 Year By Two Quarters

The one biggest bond bear since December 2009, Morgan Stanley, has just thrown in the towel, and instead of expecting 4.50% on the 10 Year by June 30, the firm has now pushed back its target by 2 quarters. Which means that its longer 5.50% Target on 10 Years has been scrapped. The firm's strategists have also adjusted their call on Fed hikes (now expected to occur no sooner than 2011 instead of September 2010). Lastly, the firm's most vocal call, one for a substantial 2s10s steepening to 325 bps has also been moderated from Q2 to Q4. We also include the latest Rates Strategy slide deck from MS.

Ron Paul Supports Vitter Amendment That Is Endorsed By About 80% Of American Citizens

"At a time when Greece, Portugal, Spain and other countries are experiencing dire financial crises and have their hands out to the international community, we need to know if our Federal Reserve is at all involved in bailing them out. As weary as we are of bailing out companies, the American people would not stand for bailing out entire countries. Our government is wasteful enough in its own affairs without contributing to the waste of other countries. Yet the Fed currently has the tools it needs to do just this, and to do it in secret.

If we cannot take away the Fed’s ability to waste trillions of taxpayer dollars on failing companies and failing countries, at the very least, we can take away their ability to do this with no transparency or accountability to the American people. While the Sanders Amendment no longer contains a full audit, Senator David Vitter has introduced an amendment which contains the Audit the Fed language that passed the House last fall. The Senate must pass the Vitter amendment for full disclosure and full accountability going forward." Ron Paul