Archive - Apr 2009

Initial jobless claims: upward revision for February to 657K, March survey: 650K, actual 669K

Continuing claims: upward revision for February to 5567K, March survey: 5590K, actual 5728K

• Geithner’s Non-Recourse Gift That Keeps on Giving to Bill Gross (Bloomberg)
• Roubini: "Another bear market rally"...
  

• Geithner’s Non-Recourse Gift That Keeps on Giving to Bill Gross (Bloomberg)
• Roubini: "Another bear market rally"...
  

This article has been making the rounds over the past day as the especially downtrodden finance guys angrily shake their fist in white collar populism while the more astute have to shake their heads at this faux-expose. The basic gist is that after excoriating Wall Street for excessive bonuses, Capitol Hill went ahead and allocated out a - wait for it - $9.1MM bonus pool to the various congressional staffers who constitute the invisible army of our legislative branch.

The Australian current account came in way above consensus numbers; $2.1B vs an expected $700MM. Keeping in line with our overall view, we were ready to dismiss it as a one time blip but after digging through the numbers a larger story emerged.

The full complaint filed against Fairfield Greenwich by the State of Massachusetts. As engrossing a read as any John Grisham novel, which is to be expected: this is what earning over $100 million a year from complicit illegal transactions will usually result in.

As we have noted before, we are big fans of the the clearinghouse idea for derivatives - particularly CDSs.  Overall, Geithner's plan is going to have a tremendous influence on the financial markets going forward and Zero Hedge is closely following any details that emerge.

In a letter released by Barney Frank, the Chairman of the Committee of House Financial Services is requesting information from Geithner and Bernanke as to how AIG may have treated its U.S. bank counterparties differently from foreign banks.

Frank is referencing a letter by Spencer Bachus in which the latter raises yet another aspect of the AIG debacle, namely that disproportionate treatment by AIG may have benefited foreign banks by up to 70%.

Reader Michael points out an interesting observation on the lagging versus coincident nature of unemployment as an indicator of economic health. His thoughts below:

I am skeptical of a lot of the "good news", and note that a recent mini-bounce in the Conference Board Leading Indicator was only due to the expansion in the money supply; all other variables were negative. I also think Rosenberg is on the right track in terms of higher than expected savings rates, and the over-extrapolation of recent housing and production data.

Reader Michael points out an interesting observation on the lagging versus coincident nature of unemployment as an indicator of economic health. His thoughts below:

I am skeptical of a lot of the "good news", and note that a recent mini-bounce in the Conference Board Leading Indicator was only due to the expansion in the money supply; all other variables were negative. I also think Rosenberg is on the right track in terms of higher than expected savings rates, and the over-extrapolation of recent housing and production data.

Creditresearch.com notes: Spreads were mixed to mostly wider in the US today with IG worse, HVOL wider, ExHVOL weaker, XO wider, and HY rallying. Indices generally outperformed intrinsics with skews widening in general as IG's skew decompressed as the index beat intrinsics, HVOL outperformed but widened the skew, ExHVOL outperformed pushing the skew wider, XO's skew increased as the index outperformed, and HY outperformed but narrowed the skew.

TrimTabs is out with their most recent employment data, which compares to the earlier ADP report, that the market forgot about after the first 30 minutes of trading. According to TrimTabs "the U.S. economy lost 700,000 to 750,000 jobs in March as wages and salaries plunged 4.5% year-over-year. TrimTabs estimated that the economy shed 4.3 million jobs in the past 12 months, the largest annual job loss since 1970."

TrimTabs is out with their most recent employment data, which compares to the earlier ADP report, that the market forgot about after the first 30 minutes of trading. According to TrimTabs "the U.S. economy lost 700,000 to 750,000 jobs in March as wages and salaries plunged 4.5% year-over-year. TrimTabs estimated that the economy shed 4.3 million jobs in the past 12 months, the largest annual job loss since 1970."

TrimTabs is out with their most recent employment data, which compares to the earlier ADP report, that the market forgot about after the first 30 minutes of trading. According to TrimTabs "the U.S. economy lost 700,000 to 750,000 jobs in March as wages and salaries plunged 4.5% year-over-year. TrimTabs estimated that the economy shed 4.3 million jobs in the past 12 months, the largest annual job loss since 1970."

Soon coming to a certain Greenwich marina corporate campus near you.

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