Archive - Nov 3, 2009

A question for you. Can gold move up against a basket of currencies? If it does what does it mean for Bernanke and the
QE party? Drink up, it's coming to last call. Seven years ago Bernanke said that the Fed would never print money 'willy-nilly'. The gold market thinks he did.

My own views on fundamental indexing is that it has merits but it also has limitations.
Sure, AP2 will not suffer the same drawdowns as other pensions during bad years, but it will also not participate as much on the upside during good years.

After careful analysis Zero Hedge is calling this evening's elections...

The title says it all.....

What we've got ain't workin...

Should we go back to the gold standard? Should the government take over the Fed? Should we have state public banking? Local public banking?

As we indicated yesterday to start the week and the session, we feel the sell-off in risky assets has started to show some divergence in the short-term. We had highlighted this pointing out the commodity space which had started to turn yesterday. That divergence was confirmed with commodities screaming overall higher today, led by Gold. That is all the more interesting given that the dollar index was actually up on the day. Breakdown in correlations however is not uncommon around pivotal points, quite the opposite in fact.

AIG speculative mania has gripped the markets. not only was AIG stock up more than 15% on nothing really, but AIG CDS was also the biggest mover wider today, hitting 780 bps, 15 bps wider close to close. Additionally, GE, which we discussed earlier as having some pretty notable balance sheet issues, was wider by the same amount, as was yesterday's top mover Sempra. In the opposite category were Anadarko and ERP, as well as Buffett's latest stamp of approval, mentioned roughly 800 times on CNBC today, Burlington Northern, which tightened by 4 bps to 55.

Over the last 3 days, the 19-year old gamers running the multi-billion portfolios at TIAA-CREF and CalPers have "reduced risk" by turning off the 60-min. chart and are now using 15-second and 3-minute charts only. Of course, they are all following the same meatball tick for tick: The EUR/USD. But now some of the Algos are breaking down, and the fire extinguishers are now out hosing down the various grease fires in the computers.

The IPO window has closed. Just like in 2007, Blackstone once again times the exit opportunity perfectly (too bad you can't IPO twice), while firms like AEI and now Aviv REIT end up having to pull their initial public offerings. And this one happens to be the triple whammy of not just an IPO, and not just a REIT, but one lead managed by REIT reverse-interest expert (and short interest terminator) Bank of Countrywide Lynch. If Merrill was unable to find enough interest, then look out below.

One, and maybe the only, of the recent benefits of the FASB's meager attempts at providing balance sheet transparency has been the requirement for banks and financial companies to disclose the difference between the Fair Market Value and the Carrying (Book) value of their assets, especially as pertains to loans held on the balance sheet. And while even the FMV calculation leaves much to be desired, it does demonstrate which companies take abnormal liberties with their balance sheets, instead of performing needed asset write-downs as more and more loans turn toxic. A good example of just such optimism appears when one evaluates the disclosure by "banking" company General Electric. On page 38 of the firm's just released 10-Q, the firm indicates that the delta between its loan portfolio FMV and Book Value continues increasing, and as of September 30, hit an all time (disclosed) high of $18.8 billion. In other words, General Electric, whose market cap is about $150 billion at last check, is likely impaired by at least $19 billion if it were forced to access the market today and sell off its loans. The $19 billion is 13% of its entire market cap. And the real number is likely much, much worse.

One of the key unique premium features of Bloomberg, its universe of proprietary ID codes for securities in the stock, bond, options and other financial verticals, is going freeware. The entire data set can be now used by anybody at the following website: http://bsym.bloomberg.com. While unique pricing data will not be available (at least not yet, but give it a few weeks before some enterprising entrepreneur plugs this into some free pricing data feed), and even though CDS data still seems to be missing, this is a curious step by Bloomberg which heretofore has guarded its security universe dataset with religious zeal.

Do you agree or disagree?

Saudi Arabia has been a long time number one supplier of crude oil to the US. But as recent data shows the historical trend hit a reversal and not only have the KSA oil exports to the US fallen, they have fallen so much that the present number represents less than half of the number which denominated the KSA exported US oil from its peak in 2008. The number now denominates a 22-year low.

Get those SDRs ready Ben.

One must also take seriously the possibility that policy actions that have the effect of reducing stress in financial markets may also promote excessive risk-taking and thus increase the probability of future crises. As I indicated in earlier remarks, it is not the responsibility of the Federal Reserve--nor would it be appropriate--to protect lenders and investors from the consequences of their financial decisions.

Although the Federal Reserve can seek to provide a more stable economic background that will benefit both investors and non-investors, the truth is that it can hardly insulate investors from risk, even if it wished to do so.

Market participants are learning and adjusting--for example, by insisting on better mortgage underwriting and by performing better due diligence on structured credit products. Rather than becoming more crisis-prone, the financial system is likely to emerge from this episode healthier and more stable than before.

- Chairman Ben Bernanke, 2007