Archive - Dec 2009

December 24th

Tyler Durden's picture

Democrats Pass Temporary Debt Ceiling Extension With No Vote Error Margin





Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke can both sleep well - the Great American Ponzi ("GAP") can continue for at least one more month, courtesy of Senate Democrats who all, with the exception of Evan Bayh, voted to raise the debt ceiling by $290 billion to $12.4 trillion. 59 Democrats all did their job in pretending that an exploding budget deficit is nothing to write home about, as there is this thing "called the printing press" yet with 60 votes needed America could have been on the verge of its first ever technical default. The savior: Republican George Voinovich of Ohio, who voted against party lines, and 39 other Republicans, and voted "for" unlimited printer cartridges.

 

Marla Singer's picture

Frontrunning: December 24





  • No Christmas cheer for Goldman. Bear takes up the slack. (In Bailout Nation alumnus of bankrupt firms party harder than employees of the profitable) [bloomberg]
  • Ford to sell Volvo to Chinese.  (Part of strategy to eliminate non-core auto manufacturing activities to concentrate on defined benefit and health care management units) [freep]
  • Fannie and Freddie throw millions to politically connected senior execs. (Largest fiscal black holes emit Bekenstein-Hawking radiation in the form of salary. Perhaps evaporation will finally result?) [reuters]
  • Obama sneaks COBRA extension into defense bill. (G.I. Joe shocked. "The More You Know" segment in the works). [washington post]
 

Leo Kolivakis's picture

Betting on Big Rise in Yields?





More and more top hedge funds are reportedly betting on a big rise in bond yields. Are they right? Sort of, but the bond bears are mistaken if they think this is the beginning of a secular bear market in bonds.

 

December 23rd

Tyler Durden's picture

Sprott Calls The Fed "A Ponzi Scheme" As Half A Trillion In Treasury Purchasers Are Unaccounted For





"As we have seen so illustriously over the past year, all Ponzi schemes eventually fail under their own weight. The US debt scheme is no different. 2009 has been witness to spectacular government intervention in almost all levels of the economy. This support requires outside capital to facilitate, and relies heavily on the US government’s ability to raise money in the debt market. The fact that the Federal Reserve and US Treasury cannot identify the second largest buyer of treasury securities this year proves that the traditional buyers are not keeping pace with the US government’s deficit spending. It makes us wonder if it’s all just a Ponzi scheme." Eric Sprott

 

Tyler Durden's picture

The Fed Has Officially "Spread" Itself Too Thin





Recently there has been much speculation that the US government will do anything, anything, to rekindle the housing bubble. Even if that means providing Option ARMs at blue light special prices and hiring Angelo Mozillo as Mortgage Czar (we hope we are kidding about the latter). Yes, those very same Option ARMs which banks' balance sheets are still expecting to be neutron bombed by, courtesy of the long gone days when there was private sector mortgage origination risk. Now that all the mortgage exposure is borne by taxpayers, we decided to analyze how the ARM spread to the traditional 30 Year Mortgage has moved throughout the year. Somehow we were not surprised that the 30 Yr - 1 Yr ARM spread for Freddie Mac just hit a record wide this past week. The government is presumably actively encouraging borrowers to approach the GSEs, and using the same NINJA protocols, to ask, nay, demand, an Adjustable Rate Mortgage. Who cares what happens one year down the line? Certainly not the US government which has $3 trillion in T-Bills to roll by this time next year.

 

Travis's picture

Mirror Mirror on the Wall. Who's the Most Materialistic of Them All? China?





There’s an article published in the WSJ Online noting how luxury goods manufacturers are hoping the holiday shopping sprees will regain some exclusive tastes in self-indulgence, particularly the luxury watch markets- which have traditionally looked to Wall Street’s bonus pools to mark their sales horizon “uptick” for the year; but with this year’s bonus season either hit or miss, depending on who you talk to, what’s the luxury maker to do? Look to China, of course- because they consume a quarter of the world’s luxury goods. Right?

 

Marla Singer's picture

Was Debate Ever Properly Closed?





Of course, we do not intend that Zero Hedge should become a center of excellence for the review of obscure Senate rules, but, as a consequence of the full-court-press-rush to pass the health care bill, this was too interesting not to reprint.

 

Travis's picture

Madoff Transferred To a Medical Facility Within Prison... Hmmm...





Why should we care anyway? Oh please, we know he's not going to get through all 150 years of incarceration...

 

Marla Singer's picture

Slippery Sands





In the annals of bailout history, commitments don't get a lot more slippery than this.

 

RobotTrader's picture

Updated: "Inflation" and "Risk Trades" Again...





Another harried day where the dollar sells off and the robots immediately start buying anything and everything associated with "risk". Anxiety is building. Many hedge fund managers have already cashed out having "made their year", and are now sitting on a Caribbean beach somewhere. Other more enterprising, hungrier gamers are hunkered down in snowstorms staring bug-eyed at the screens trying to get a jump on the "hot trade" for 2010.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

A Three-Month Flat Market? Yes...If You Exclude The Constant After Hours Manipulation





Anyone looking at their 401(k) portfolio performance since the end of August will undoubtedly be very happy (and extremely surprised), as the market has climbed steadily higher despite i) increasingly declining trading volume and ii)consistent and material withdrawals from domestic equity mutual funds. Furthermore, if anyone was merely looking at the trading action in regular hours, one would think there was absolutely no profit made since early September. The reason for that: all the upside since September 14th has come exclusively from after hours action. The chart below demonstrates the relative performance of regular hour trading in the SPY as well as that in the extended session. The notable observations: gaps, gaps, gaps. Every single day, minimal volume pushes the futures index higher. Good news, bad news, it don't matter to the Goldman S&P and Russell 1000 futures desk: they just lift every micro offer, giving the impression that the market is unstoppable, often leapfrogging each other as the latest viagra'ed GDP or unemployment rumor is spread. Come morning, it is time for the HFT brigade to come in and scalp their trillions of pennies while leaving the market unchanged, then at 4pm handing it off again to leveraged futures manipulation and dark pools. In a nutshell, this is the secret of the past quarter's phenomenal market performance.

 

Marla Singer's picture

Separated at Birth?





Vladalloyd?

 

Zero Hedge's picture

He is All Seeing





Greetings from our supreme ruler Lloyd.

 

madhedgefundtrader's picture

Santa Claus Tells All in a No Holds Barred Interview





This job is a bitch, but somebody's got to do it.

 
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