Archive - May 19, 2009

Spreads improved (tightened) across the board as all the indices rallied today (as a late day sell-off in stocks dragged a short-squeezed IG off its tights). Indices typically underperformed single-names with skews mostly narrower as IG underperformed but narrowed the skew, HVOL underperformed but narrowed the skew, ExHVOL intrinsics beat and narrowed the skew, XO underperformed but compressed the skew, and HY outperformed but narrowed the skew.

800 million shares priced at $10 a pop. Very timely upgrade by Goldman Sachs yesterday.

Steve Sakwa, whose work product Zero Hedge has not spared its praise for in the past, has left the building. The "top rated" REIT analyst, who gained prominence in the past 2 months for such great work as an upgrade of virtually all companies he covers, has departed for greener, although unknown, pastures. It is quite odd that Sakwa would leave the bank at a time when his group was generating more revenue than virtually any analyst/trading group on Wall Street.

Porsche, which last year thought its "hedge fund" division was smarter than all the actual hedge funds in the world and with the implicit complicity of the BaFin created the Volkswagen squeeze monster, might very soon be at the mercy of the same hedge funds it nearly guillotined.

As Zero Hedge expected a few short weeks ago, the Fed realized that its TALF revision 364.5 for CMBS was worthless, so today, after many deep thoughts on how to force feed U.S. taxpayers even more toxic garbage, the wise and grizzled Ben Bernanke issued TALF directive 364.6 and decided to extend the acceptance threshold to all past legacy CMBS loans as eligible for TALF.

The IWM unwind is getting more and more desperate, and as the IOIA chart below demonstrates, some brokers seem to be nicely axed with a solid inventory in the name: note the indicating broker and the constant barrage of trades (times are PST). One wouldn't really call it domination, but if the word fits. Readers who wish to catch up on the Indications Of Interest (IOIA) Bloomberg function and its implications, please click here...

The IWM unwind is getting more and more desperate, and as the IOIA chart below demonstrates, some brokers seem to be nicely axed with a solid inventory in the name: note the indicating broker and the constant barrage of trades (times are PST). One wouldn't really call it domination, but if the word fits. Readers who wish to catch up on the Indications Of Interest (IOIA) Bloomberg function and its implications, please click here...

The IWM unwind is getting more and more desperate, and as the IOIA chart below demonstrates, some brokers seem to be nicely axed with a solid inventory in the name: note the indicating broker and the constant barrage of trades (times are PST). One wouldn't really call it domination, but if the word fits. Readers who wish to catch up on the Indications Of Interest (IOIA) Bloomberg function and its implications, please click here...

At 2 pm, the House Financial Services Committee will hold a live webcast hearing (here for the link) discussing credit rating agencies, which should be quite entertaining and potentially violent as the RA storm clouds have been gathering for a while now, even more so since recently CT AG Blumenthal has made it his crusade to destroy the monopoly of S&P and Moody's with the current administration.

The UST 2s10s30s curve is breaking out of recent resistance levels, with the 2s10s steepening much more than the 10s30s, implying the 10Y is the most out of whack in the treasury curve. The trend has persisted since December implying not only that Quantitative Easing has lost all its power (is the Fed refocusing its purchasing efforts elsewhere?), but that the spread to mortgage rates which are 10Y duration hedged will continue suffering until it goes negative pretty soon.

The UST 2s10s30s curve is breaking out of recent resistance levels, with the 2s10s steepening much more than the 10s30s, implying the 10Y is the most out of whack in the treasury curve. The trend has persisted since December implying not only that Quantitative Easing has lost all its power (is the Fed refocusing its purchasing efforts elsewhere?), but that the spread to mortgage rates which are 10Y duration hedged will continue suffering until it goes negative pretty soon.

Taking a cue from the Renaissance conference call, in which Jim Simons stated that the main reason for RIEF's massive underperformance was the fatal positioning with regards to stock betas (long low beta stocks, short high beta stocks), Zero Hedge decided to analyze the performance of stock by beta bucket.

Taking a cue from the Renaissance conference call, in which Jim Simons stated that the main reason for RIEF's massive underperformance was the fatal positioning with regards to stock betas (long low beta stocks, short high beta stocks), Zero Hedge decided to analyze the performance of stock by beta bucket.

Taking a cue from the Renaissance conference call, in which Jim Simons stated that the main reason for RIEF's massive underperformance was the fatal positioning with regards to stock betas (long low beta stocks, short high beta stocks), Zero Hedge decided to analyze the performance of stock by beta bucket.

For readers who want to learn all about insolvency, and its interprestation by the Commitee Of Science And Technology, please click this link.

The questions are shockingly relevant and to the point - multiples more interesting than any Barney Frank scapegoating session.