Frontrunning: March 3

• China's hidden debt to reach 96% of GDP, compared to the IMF's estimate of 22% (Bloomberg)
• Here come the idiots - Banks summoned to EU to discuss sovereign CDS market (Bloomberg)
• Upwardly biased ADP continues longstanding tradition of prior downward revisions (Bloomberg)
• US said to tell hedge funds to save euro records (Bloomberg, first reported on Zero Hedge)
• SEC supervisor surfed tranny porn to cope with stress [and self-loathing from working for an incompetent bureaucracy] (Dealbreaker, h/t plastic man)
• Europe's original sin (WSJ)
• Rumors of Ukraine's default to become certainty: Tymoshenko loses Ukraine vote, moves into opposition (Bloomberg)

Greece Threatens EU It Will Go To IMF For Bail Out Unless Merkel Stops Changing Her Song Every Fifteen Minutes

From Dow Jones: Greek PM Says If EU Doesn't Help Greece It May Go To IMF. Also, this is the definition of a complete lack of leverage: Greek Cabinet Member: PM Says Greece Needs EU To Show Its Support Now, and that the Time for EU Help Has Arrived. And screw strikes - here comes the civil war:

• Greece to cut public sector salary benefits by 30%,
• Cuts wages across the board.
• Establish emergency tax of 1% for salaries over €100,000
• Freeze public sector hiring in 2010, and in 2011 one new job will be filled for every 5 retirements

And all this is followed by a cold water throwing Angela Merkel who just said that the Friday meeting will be purely on the "State of things" and no aid to Greece will be promised.

As always, pure anarchy - should be enough for some 1-2% worth in computerized S&P buying on a few hundred ES blocks.

What CDS Speculators? The Reason Why Greek Spreads Blew Up Is Because Of Bond Selling, Not CDS Buying

There is nothing quite as liberating as jumping on the bandwagon of scapegoating that which one does not understand. The idiocy of the chorus which blames CDS "speculators" for the mysterious kidnapping and rape of the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus' stomach stapling, not to mention the imminent Greek implosion (NOT as a function of a funding crisis, but due to the one soon to be unending strike, which will commence once Greeks realize their wages are about to be cut by 250% and the new retirement age will the same as that of Yoda), is just getting surreal. And if the cheap seats housing the portly derrieres of all those CDS "experts" need yet more proof just how full of excrement their pointless multi-syllabic exhortations are, we present Credit Trader's very diplomatic presentation (diplomatic, because our version would have included a preponderance of breathless f-bombs, which is why we wisely decided against writing one), which is sufficient and necessary to hopefully shut all these empty chatterboxes up for good. Alas, that ain't happening. Either way, here is the data, which will certainly not make an impression on anyone except those why actually do understand how the CDS market works. For everyone else (the "it's like selling a warehouse full of feces... in backwardation, thank you speculators... buying crap insurance on the warehouse and then redirecting the Chipotle lunch hour crowd into it" people), start writing your disgruntled, opinionated and Thesaurus-worthy retorts. Oh, and by the way, are speculators guilty that CDS spreads on Greece have collapsed by over 120 bps in the past two weeks? Oddly, we have not heard anything about that at all in the idiotstream media.

Guest Post: The 5% Solution

As we continue to move through 2010, we suggest benchmarking against the 5% 50 day MA demarcation line. Again, we wish there were Holy Grails in the wonderful world of investment management and technical analysis specifically, but there are no guarantees. These patterns of cyclical bull market development and maturation have been very consistent historically when looking at this 5% 50 day MA experience. Remember, although there are no guarantees in the financial markets, this pattern has been consistent for over a half century now, through generational credit cycles and otherwise. Over the very short term and amidst the heightened and perhaps unexpected volatility of the moment, we want to make sure we stay in harmony with the message and movement of the market. And this is what we hear when we “listen” to the risk management lessons of the last half century. A half century of human decision making represented graphically. Don’t forget the old Jesse Livermore truism. Human decision making never changes, only the wallets do.

Golf Resort Linked To Tiger's Apology Files For Bankruptcy, Goldman Implicated (No, Seriously)

It's official - Goldman Sachs is the new American Idol. The firm has taken over American public interest and its airwaves (both metaphorically and soon, if Canada is any example, literally) - after serving as ground zero for the financial system bailout, after facilitating the fudging of EU entrants' books over the past decade, after going after iconic soccer clubs, and after actually rebranding marine wildlife, the firm is now implicated as the key lender, and, after pulling liquidity at the last moment, soon to be owner, of the Sawgrass Marriott Gold Resort & Spa, which has just filed for bankruptcy. The resort, which is home to the associated TPC Sawgrass golf course (which has not filed for chapter 11, at least not yet, and also happens to be the headquarters of the PGA Tour), is where Tiger Woods decided to apologize on February 19 for having sex with "those women." We are positive that the latest reality series to come out of Hollywood brain trust "Who wants to marry a Goldmanaire" is just months away.

Renewed Battle For The Falkland Islands Suits The Embattled British, Argentine Leaders, And Others

The artificially-engendered revival of the dispute, which began in February 2010 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic, has been portrayed as a posturing by embattled Argentine Pres. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, taking advantage of both the start of exploratory oil and gas drilling by British company Desire Petroleum in the Falklands waters, and the talks by Latin American and Caribbean leaders of the Rio Group in the Mexican resort of Playa del Carmen, beginning on February 22, 2010. But the crisis may well play into the political posturing of equally embattled United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who faces a general election by June 2010 at the latest.