Modern Banking Explained Or The Importance Of Saving Money
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/18/2009 - 10:25Missed this the first time around, but it explains pretty well what modern banking means for the retail investor and why it is oh so critical to save, save, save.
The Internet Sells No Hope... Yet
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/18/2009 - 10:07
No downward inflection points on the horizon in this set of primary data (here and here). Then again, we did not yet run it through the CNBC filter.
Dark Pools And Karl Denninger
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/18/2009 - 09:34No direct correlation between the two, but a couple of good videos to start off your morning: Denninger on Kudlow - ever wondered what a bear in a Pamplona stampede looks like, here is your chance - this proves again why the Brady Bunch talking head box format is the most useless medium to convey any sort of informative message (but works miracles for those Mercedes commercial CPMs). And also a much more informative piece on Dark Pools.
Guest Post: Supply Side Economics – How Is Gold Going to Fare This Year?
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/17/2009 - 20:47Gold started the summer doldrums looking strong and has retreated since, but what are its prospects for the rest of the year and beyond? That will largely be determined by the interplay between supply and demand; let’s take a look at the supply side.
Guest Post: The Past Week From A Lindsay Model Perspective
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/17/2009 - 20:36Banking analyst Meredith Whitney made a bullish “trading” call for the financial sector over the weekend,
on the premise that the govt had driven down the cost of capital so low for the banksters that they had
made it easy for them to make money and ramp up their depleted tangible book values. Whitney’s call
alone drove the stock market up 4% on Monday July 13 from its overnight lows. By Wednesday, the stock
market had round-tripped and taken out its previous month high and was up 8% from its intraweek lows.
Radio Zero: DMCA Fridays
Submitted by Marla Singer on 07/17/2009 - 20:30And you thought they were done. Nope! Zero Hedge has gotten two more takedown notices. No, we aren't kidding. This just means more Radio Zero for you.
11:30 Eastern. 15 minutes prior for URL details (as usual). I'll be fashionably late (as usual).
The URL: http://cdo.zerohedge.com:8000/listen.pls (Our new test server!)
Radio Zero is EXPENSIVE. Consider donating to Zero Hedge.
Weekly Credit Summary: July 17
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/17/2009 - 18:56Spreads were significantly tighter this week with HY dramatically outperforming IG as tighteners outpaced wideners by over twelve-to-one. LCDX appeared to be the long credit vehicle of choice though as investors moved into the most senior part of the capital structure systemically. High-beta underperformed low-beta names (in large part due to CIT's impact on the tail risk names) as we saw IG, HVOL, and ExHVOL indices considerably outperform intrinsics and widening the skew almost 10bps in IG12.
Interactive Brokers Having A Really Tough Day With Locates, Meg_C Wishes It Was Tomorrow
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/17/2009 - 17:16Based upon information available through 14:30 today, we remain unable to locate and borrow / re-borrow the shares necessary to meet delivery obligations on certain short stock positions in your account. As current SEC regulations now strictly enforce delivery obligations, these short stock positions will be subject to forced buy-in by IB should our continued efforts to borrow or re-borrow the necessary shares today be unsuccessful.
Goldman Sachs Principal Transactions Update: Humming Nicely
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/17/2009 - 16:56
Goldman principal PT shares transacted increased by over 40% from the prior week: 550 million to 765 million, clocking at near 50% of total NYSE principal volume - about par for the course.
Stop Trading
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/17/2009 - 14:25One trader's (to be named as XXX) attempts to understand why his money has to go straight to the big banks' top line following a DDRX buy in courtesy of Interactive Brokers. The following is the record of the chat session that transpired minutes ago.
Goldman's $4 Billion High Frequency Trading Wildcard
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/17/2009 - 13:16A recent story in Advanced Trading goes after some of the minutae of High Frequency Trading and provides a glimpse of the total value that HFT may provide to behemoth PT powerhouses such as Goldman Sachs. The article presents a very valuable perspective on just why HFT is so critical these days, especially when cash traders go for 6 hour Starbucks breaks between 10 am and 3:30 pm: "high frequency trading firms, which represent approximately 2% of the 20,000 or so trading firms operating in the US markets today, account for 73% of all US equity trading volume. These companies include proprietary trading desks for a small number of major investment banks, less than 100 of the most sophisticated hedge funds and hundreds of the most secretive prop shops, all of which operate with one thing in mind—capture profit opportunities by being smarter and faster than the closest competition." And as the market keeps going up day in and day out, regardless of the deteriorating economic conditions, it is just these HFT's that determine the overall market direction, usually without fundamental or technical reason. And based on a few lines of code, retail investors get suckered into a rising market that has nothing to do with green shoots or some Chinese firms buying a few hundred extra Intel servers: HFTs are merely perpetuating the same ponzi market mythology last seen in the Madoff case, but on a massively larger scale. When it all blows up, the question is whether the SEC will go after the perpetrators of this pyramid with the same zeal that it pursued Madoff himself. We think not.
CIT To Be Bailed Out By Goldman And JP Morgan
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/17/2009 - 11:39Developing Story: I am the great vampire squid's total lack of surprise. So the government and FDIC will not touch CIT, but Goldman and JPM which have tens of billion in dollars owed to the FDIC via the TLGP can bail them out and make it seem like a private bail out? Red pill please. Are all conversations between 85 Broad and Tim Geithner/Sheila Bair over the past 48 hours FOIAble? Also explains the two banks' recent commingled dinning patterns.
Market Plunge Prevention: Friday Lunch Edition
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/17/2009 - 11:19Rolling buy-ins compliments of our favorite TARP recipients are back in full force. If you are short, you are screwed. Get out of the market right now.
Goldman Sachs Full Frontal
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/17/2009 - 10:55The full scale media war against Goldman Sachs is now on and Mssrs. Canaday and Van Pragg can't hardly wait for the weekend to come already. The most recent exposure comes courtesy of Time Magazine and CBC Radio. The interesting thing here is not the publicity - everyone who is anyone knows all this stuff, and as for Joe Sixpack knowing the facts, well: absent a pitchfork billion man march on Wall Street, nothing will really come out of it. But the key thing to keep track of is whether Goldman will do a placating PR media campaign or merely stay shut in their shell. At this point the media avalanche is in full onslaught mode, and the insightful thing is whether Blankfein thinks it makes sense to preemptively approach the situation. The CEO of GS knows full well that the "full market support mode" will last only so long, and once it breaks and the floor out of the 666 S&P drops, the public will again demand blood (or Trueblood for all you vampire squid fans out there).
