Archive - Nov 2009

"Resisting – and thereby achieving success as a contrarian – isn’t easy. Things combine to make
it difficult, including natural herd tendencies and the pain imposed by being out of step, since
momentum invariably makes pro-cyclical actions look correct for a while. (That’s why it’s
essential to remember that “being too far ahead of your time is indistinguishable from being
wrong.”) Given the uncertain nature of the future, and thus the difficulty of being confident your
position is the right one – especially as price moves against you – it’s challenging to be a lonely
contrarian." Howard Marks, Oaktree

The biggest topic in the upcoming week will undoubtedly be the escalating debate over whether the People's Bank of China (PBoC) will relent to Obama's persistent pleading, and in addition to de-pegging, allow the renminbi to appreciate against the dollar. The debate is simple: the US needs the dollar to hit the bottom of the currency stack post haste, and for that to happen, China's currency needs to appreciate. This is merely in keeping with the Fed's current strategy of inflating assets at all costs via monetary manipulation as both fiscal and "consumer" based attempts to increase prices have largely failed (record unemployment may be a lagging economic indicator but it is a very much coincident wage-deflation indicator). It is in this environment that the PBoC has been sending mixed signals, with a variation of the "party line" language in its Thursday release being read as a prompt that China is willing to play Russian Roulette with over 1 billion increasingly unhappy citizens in the biggest communism-capitalism experiment in history. Yet as the Telegraph pointed out today, there is absolutely no risk (so far) of any accelerating renminbi appreciation becoming the policy course for China. So for a slightly more than "soundbite" level evaluation of the pros and cons of "de-pegging", we present the following curious piece of fiction from none other than paperback experts Morgan Stanley, and specifically its Chief Asia strategist, the mellifluously named Qing Wang.

Zero Hedge's Inkmaster John Redmann contemplates the question of "National Prowess."

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation on Friday said its potential exposure to future pension losses had increased to about $168 billion in fiscal 2009. The PBGC's ongoing deficits will require another massive bailout down the road. That's why Uncle Ben will let this bubble blow for as long as he possibly can.

Let’s say there are 100,000 barrels of oil in the world and 10 are sold each day and they are shipped from various places in various amounts but generally there are, at any given time, 30 days of oil at sea (300 barrels). If I am taking straight delivery, I would contract with the producers to deliver me 1 barrel of oil per day for a year or 5 years or whatever for $50 a barrel. My interest is to have a steady supply and the producers interest is to have a steady demand. He wants to charge as much as possible, I want to pay as little as possible.

The updated Goldman Sachs 13F is out. With 10,244 security holdings, amounting to $180 billion in gross exposure, split among 7 institutional investment managers (Goldman Sachs & Co; Goldman Sachs Asset Management; Goldman Sachs International; Goldman Sachs AG; Goldman Sachs Execution and Clearing; The Ayco Company; Goldman Sachs Trust Company), it presents an interesting picture of Goldman's core equity positions. The bulk of the security holdings are held at GS & Co. ($94.5 billion of market value), followed by Goldman Sachs Asset Management ($80 billion of market value). Furthermore, Goldman breaks down holdings based on value of Calls and Puts, in addition to underlying stock.

Wherever his spirit rests, Benjamin Franklin must be livid. When the hardearned savings of ordinary people are looted to enrich greedy bankers, and when they are told that this process is necessary to make America prosperous again, no wonder so many citizens have displayed so much anger at “Tea Parties.” - Coxe Report

The one must read report this weekend.

→ Washington's Blog.

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An impressively comprehensive presentation by Bill Dudley before the Center for Economic Policy Studies Symposium earlier, discusses, and ties in, all the key concepts Zero Hedge has been discussing over the past several months, among these the tri-party repo system, bank runs (what and why), collateral, moral hazard, maturity mismatch, unsecured markets, Primary Dealer Credit Facility, Commercial Paper Funding Facility, and liquidity. In fact, at some points in the speech we get the feeling Mr. Dudley is indirectly refuting some of Zero Hedge's recent allegations vis-a-vis the Fed's actions and regulatory oversight. The presentation is largely devoid of bias except for some of the proposals on how to avoid future systemic meltdowns, which of course are moral hazard prevention lite and philosophy heavy. Not a lite piece of reading, yet recommended for all who want a grasp of the big picture from the Fed's perspective.

The latest Paulson & Co. 13F is out: the man who inspires a million hedge fund clone portfolios has made some interesting changes to his holdings. The most notable is the documented addition of 300 million shares of Citigroup, a new position for the firm. Offsetting this is the sale of 8.2 million shares of Bank of America (which at 160 million shares is still the firm's second largest holding). Paulson has also divested his entire 2MM share Goldman Sachs stake.

As expected, yesterday was a CDS bloodbath straight out of Kandinsky Composition VIII. Today's action, which we will post later, will be a page out of Picasso's blue period. The market, even the formerly rational CDS one, is now a leveraged gyrator, which moves only based on how much daily pounding Bernanke feels like administering to the middle class by round-housing each and every green-tinted portrait of Washington, Hamilton, Jackson, Grant and Franklin (and a few more, less memorable ones) that the bald Chairman encounters.

Tactical asset allocation should give some exposure to unexpected shifts in interest rates.The problem owes itself to a duration mismatch in asset classes held today.

Equity duration is similar to bond duration. It measures the sensitivity of equities to interest rates. The research on this subject is fascinating. Each year Standard & Poor publishes a report with the duration for the S&P 500. They estimate the duration of the S&P 500 index to be 34 years at the middle of 2009. The index is very high in view of the history of the data.

If anyone still cares about the equity market, here is a pretty good summary of what the computers did this week, courtesy of the holidaypartyless folks at Manhattan's southernmost skyscraper (something tells us the elves, contrary to disclosed information, will be there, and we will be whereever the elves are).

After today's action, thousands of technicians will be pulling out their slide rules in order to mull over the "double top" or "head and shoulders" pattern on the NY Composite. With millions of traders worldwide all looking at the same moving averages, the same patterns, the same 5-min. charts, all in real time, the fate of the stock market and the fate of mankind will now be determined by a few squiggly lines. Which way will it go?