Archive - Jun 2009

After hitting a record high in April, RealtyTrac has announced that the pace of foreclosures has slowed down, and in May dropped by 6%. Nonetheless, “May foreclosure activity was the third highest month on record, and marked the third straight month where the total number of properties with foreclosure filings exceeded 300,000 — a first in the history of our report,” said James J.

And some thought yesterday's bankruptcy of LV casino Fontainebleau would be the end of it. Today a new lawsuit has erupted, this one seeking unspecified damages from a variety of defendants, most prominently Bank of America. According to the Las Vegas Sun:

• Largest smuggling bust ever: $134.5 billion in bonds seized from Japanese nationals in Italy (AsiaNews hat tip Gayle)
• Must read Jonathan Weil: Nouveau DeTARPed ETF traders rejoice - Banks trade TARP for bonuses, debauchery, jets (Bloomberg) [Scores reopened?]
• Retail landlords need a "reality check" (R
  

Everyone's favorite SPY gunner, chain smoker and owner of the 60th fastest supercomputer in the world is putting retirement plans on hold (hopefully not because he plans on driving the SPY to infinity+Pi), and instead is trying to dump a multi-billion portion of RenTec to China Investment Corp, just as that great regulatory Rip Van Winkle f/k/a SEC woke up from hibernation and decided to poke a tad in the East Setauket books.

Are we the source of the meme, or simply the source for uncredited idea generation? Who knows. At least we aren't the only Ricardo fans out there.

The below piece is a good analysis of a hypothetical Treasury/Dollar black swan event, courtesy of Eugenio Aleman from, surprisngly, Wells Fargo. Eugenio does the classic Taleb thought experiment: what happens if the unthinkable become not just thinkable, but reality. Agree or disagree, now that we have gotten to a point where 6 sigma events are a daily ocurrence, it might be prudent to consider all the alternatives.

Thinking the Unthinkable

Spreads were broadly wider in the US as all the indices deteriorated (albeit with a wide range day and spreads pushing significantly wider open-to-close).

213 co-sponsors now support HR 1207, with 7 new names added today alone. Just 5 more needed. The Fed really needs to get its lobbyist to start pulling their weight and do some serious damage control i.e. organize a few Dominoes dinners, throw in some buffalo wings, a little Mumms, some Goldman elves, you know the drill. They can charge the Goldman expense account.

Looks like not even Lloyd can take on mighty Jamie and his ravenous ETF hoovermatic: today migrating from boring old SPY to the uber-insane IWM. Just a reminder for Jamie's unmovable bastion of ETF fortitude: here is Lloyd's message - loud, clear and in 360x280 pixels. Bid the market against "the machine" at your own peril.

Everyone's favorite populist Robin Hood (in tights) for the common (Wall Street) man, chimes in on Geithner's latest initiative to allow much more governmental (SEC) intervention in pay determination. Also amusing is how Frank throws Geithner under the bus. There seems to be a pretty concerted political push against TTT now: the Summers camp must not be happy. Regardless, Frank is boldly spearheading an initiative for full socialization of exec comp - 5 year plenary sessions to be introduced to discuss the effectiveness of these shortly.

The latest monthly report out of Hedgebay indicates that if you were in the market for a hedge fund and couldn't buy one for 80 cents on the dollar in March, you are fresh out of luck - time to pay up for that invaluable Ken Griffen LP interest at a cool 10%+ premium to the low price.

The latest monthly report out of Hedgebay indicates that if you were in the market for a hedge fund and couldn't buy one for 80 cents on the dollar in March, you are fresh out of luck - time to pay up for that invaluable Ken Griffen LP interest at a cool 10%+ premium to the low price.