Archive - Mar 2009

More news on Six Flags, some good some not so good... First, I reprint what Six Flags PR department would like ZH's readers to know, so we present that with no comment:

Dear Tyler,

I hope this email finds you doing well this afternoon, here is another update for you.

Communist States Of America Taxpayer Capital LLC expanding. Next it will hire Boaz Weinstein to play the sovereign basis trade. Also: Bernie Madoff's resume has been passed around as primary candidate for running Social Security.

Good news for PIMCO. The Fed purchased 4.468bb out of 6.875bb submitted, which was by far the largest amount purchased in this sector program-to-date. Previously the Fed had purchase programs from the 4yr to 10yr agencies, but given last week's purchase in the 30yr sector, the Fed Purchase programs are now divided differently (~ 3/10 to 3/11, ~3/11 to 3/13, ~3/13 to 7/15, ~7/15 to 7/32). Prior to last week, the Fed would purchase the ~3/13 to 6/18 sector.

Bloomberg reports William Ackman may finally get something in exchange for the nearly $2 billion he has blown on PSIV, aka the Target Fund. Ackman will propose himself as well as a Richard Vague, Jim Donald, Michael Ashner and Ronald Gilson to Target's Board of Directors.

Anyone hearing anything? Presumably this is not in response to a lynch mob.

First rumor of the day: AIG physical shares are soft, extra absorbent and two ply.

Second rumor: as ZH speculated previously, gov't is recalling financial shares from repo window causing massive squeeze... Disclosure: ZH is long Citi stock just for this event.

A gripping analysis done by the good folks at stateline.org demonstrates just how much more pain is in store for state and local pension funds.

A gripping analysis done by the good folks at stateline.org demonstrates just how much more pain is in store for state and local pension funds.

The musical chairs on the Cititanic getting a slight rearrangement. The 4 new directors are:

Jerry A. Grundhofer

Continued strength from secured debt of junk mail distributor Valassis, while Neiman Marcus just can't catch a bid second week running.

Today smallish E&P Energy Partners Limited (EPL), in a pretty horrendous development for bondholders, announced that it had received notification from its bank administrative agent that its borrowing base was being reduced from $150 million to $45 million.

Ken Griffen's Citadel received $200 million of AIG taxpayer bailout money (FIN Alternatives)
G-20 prefers talk over action on toxic assets (Bloomberg)
An old ZH favorite: pension bills to surge nationwide (WSJ)

Trading commenced last week with the S&P 500 registering a new 12 ½ year closing low on Monday. That low was followed by four consecutive positive sessions that comprised an 11.8% gain. The upside momentum was fueled by an assortment of better than expected (although weak) economic data, bank CEOs emerging from hiding to talk up their operating businesses and finally, government jawboning regarding relief for issues on which vanilla investors place high value.

Late Sunday, AIG, which all of a sudden "recognizes the importance of upholding a high degree of transparency with respect to the use of public funds", finally caved to pressure to disclose the full list of recipients benefiting from collateral payments after its repeated rescues. No major surprises among the bank recipients: the top 5 include Societe Generale, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Calyon. Additionally, of the top 20 beneficiaries, 14 banks are non-domestic!

As Zero Hedge prides itself on its objective pessimism, I wanted to bring to your attention an email received from the PR department at Six Flags in response to ZH's post from Friday, commenting on the company's long-term prospects, especially in light of recent market levels of SIX's publicly traded securities.

ter?ror?ist? /?t?r?r?st/ [ter-er-ist]

–noun
1. a person, usually a member of a group, who uses or advocates terrorism.
2. a person who terrorizes or frightens others.
3. (formerly) a member of a political group in Russia aiming at the demoralization of the government by terror.
4. an agent or partisan of the revolutionary tribunal during the Reign of Terror in France.
5. American International Group