Archive - Dec 3, 2009

The most actively downloaded credit snapshots on DARPA recently are the following:

• Dresser-Rand Group - snapshot and writeup
• Cornell Companies - snapshot and writeup
• SPX Corp - snapshot and writeup
• DaVita - snapshot and writeup
• Whiting Petroleum - snapshot and writeup
• Alimentation Couche Tard Inc  - snapshot and writeup
• Warnaco Group Inc/The  - snapshot and writeup
• SEACOR Holdings Inc - snapshot and writeup
• Valmont Industries - snapshot and writeup
• Buckeye Technologies - snapshot and writeup

For those of you still pondering Dubai or do you sell, you're missing the rally of a lifetime.

How times change. Managing expectations, we think, may be a lost art. Under promise, over deliver. Did no one teach this administration that?

Yesterday was a quiet day in CDS with broad tightening despite a weak equity market. Some of the only names wider were former CNBC owner GE, REIT BXP, XL Financial and COF. Today's data should provide for much more reddy goodness.

Simultaneous bearish signals registered across Market Internals (TICK, VOLD, ADD, VIX) at exactly 3:27 pm, which directly presaged 5 increasingly greater TICK lod readings that registered over the next 30 minutes; demonstrating an overwhelming desire to sell by market participants. Today’s bearish instance is a perfect exemplar of a practical nuance within technical analysis and just one of many which successful traders effectively employ on a daily basis.

The Federal Reserve's balance sheet declined by $15 billion to $2,183 billion from the prior week, after the Fed presumably offloaded $2.7 billion in MBS: this is the first time since QE started that MBS holdings have declined. If anyone can tell us just who the idiots are who bought MBS from the Fed (and at what price), and who the even greater idiots are who are supposed to believe this, please send us an email.

Congressman Kucinich said today:"America is in the fight of its life and that fight is not in Afghanistan -- it's here ... We are deeply in debt. Our GDP is down. Our manufacturing is down. Our savings are down. The value of the dollar is down. Our trade deficit is up. Business failures are up. Bankruptcies are up."

Call and write your senator ... keep up the pressure to change insane fed policy.

You should be out there pushing Webistics Zero Hedge.

First dumb taxpayers, now even dumber investors: your money is much appreciated. In other news: use of proceeds - meet black hole. Black hole - meet use of proceeds.

With a whole lot of posturing in the Senate today, long-winded monologues, and propaganda, there was little actual coherent Q&A with the Chairman. Which is why the segment below with Senator DeMint (courtesy of Austrian Filter), is quite valuable, as the South Carolina Republican asks so many of the right questions which his colleagues seem to believe they know the answer to (hint: you don't). Bernanke's responses, of course, leave much to be desired, but at least he is on the record with his arrogant evasiveness.

Farewell IPO window. European infrastructure company Hochtief was forced to cancel the IPO of its concessions business once investors became unwilling to pay more than €20 for the new shares, with the bottom of the range at €24 previously. Furthermore, according to market participants, the company was able to only fill half a book, after a hatchet job by Credit Suisse analysts, as well as management disclosure during a roadshow lunch that the Dubai jitters made finding investors complicated (to say the least). Watch for some material downside to HOT GY when it opens in Europe tomorrow.

These days catching the Fed chairman telling the truth as opposed to a b(a)ld faced lie is in itself a six sigma event. Sadly this post will continue with hugging the median. Some observations on the most recent fabrications by the chief money printer himself, which go to show just how willing Bernanke is willing to bend reality and/or his perception of it as the occasion suits.

Shockingly, Bank of America's ability to pay massive bonuses (i.e. TARP repayment) was not quite the market positive event CNBCOMCAST thought it would be. On the bright side, at least BAC first year analysts will be able to afford their own island in Nakheel's "The World" artificial archipelago.

Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) conveys to Ben essentially our view, but does it with an absolutely blistering delivery. Ouch.