Archive - Jul 2009

• More on StevePerkinsGate: PVM taking a page from the oldest playbook in the world (FT)
• India joins China, Russia in questioning USD dominance (Bloomberg)
• Palin to resign as Alaska governor, will not seek reelection (WSJ) [not even worth discussing the Republican due diligence process]
• Ignoring prophetic predictors (Nader)
• Staffer at SEC had warned of Madoff (WaPo, h/t dartmont)

Rogue Trader in the Brent oil market causes spike in prices.

The chart below indicates that while the market is exactly where it was in early December 2008, the VIX has droped by almost 60%.

Sweden slashes repo rate to .25 with an implied negative interest rate of -.25

Proactive or Panic over the coming Latvia Default?

We are very pleased to offer Zero Hedge readers access to the RAN Squawk news feed. RAN Squawk delivers real-time voice and text based feeds targeted to the needs of traders, brokers and financial professionals.

Taibbi in his first TV interview since the "Squid" was let loose. Hat tip Calgary Schmooze

Failure Friday is early today: the first bank shooting green all the way to the grave is John Warner Bank, from Clinton, IL. Likely more to come today.

Tsk Tsk. Those pesky SPARCs. Anyone remember March 2007? In other news, Sky Net will be nominating a robo-president for 2012 shortly.

Shockingly, the 1% line hasn't been enough to get credit flowing in Euroland - interesting times in Euro long rates coming up.

It seems quite a few individuals noticed our post attempting to justify some very peculiar language in not just a certain Goldman Sachs Internet disclaimer, but also the strange wording prominently featured in critical GS-client agreements. One happened to be Goldman Sachs itself. We take this opportunity to present the response by Goldman Sachs' spokesman Ed Canaday

We know this is the one you have all been waiting for. Ever since we first reported on the Nigaz JV, our proverbial phones would have been ringing off the hook, of course, if we had any listed phone numbers. The upside - many sleepless nights at the NSA...

So we are considering it. In the meantime, some late morning amusement courtesy of the Daily Mail. Little commentary is needed... suffice it to say "Nigerians No Nigaz" is likely soon to eclipse "Dennis Kneale Idiot" as the most popular rising term in Google

If anyone had told us a year ago that Fitch would at least attempt to be a voice of reason, while Merrill Lynch, which has gotten destroyed on real estate, would be a CRE permabull, we would have punched them in the face. Alas, this seems to have become the case. While readers are all to aware of Zero Hedge's coverage of the Merrill REIT team's follies in "analysis land", a Fitch piece from last week has some surprinsgly insightful commentary on REIT. In a report titled "U.S. Equity REIT Liquidity Update: Hold the Applause" the rating agency paints a much more detailed and credible picture than i) expected and ii) than the 20 brand new analysts at ML/BofA could come up with.

Moody's sees likelihood of further gradual deterioration of Irish creditworthiness. Other things that will increase the sodium chloride and recycled beer and whiskey content of the Liffey include:

- Does not see any further changes to Ireland’s rating likely in short-term.
- Irish fiscal steps broadly appropriate, more spending cuts crucial.
- Ireland’s bad bank scheme positive measure.
- Sees less pronounced contraction in Irish economy in 2010, growth in 2011.
- Sees signs Ireland’s economic downturn may be bottoming out.

Lots of readers interest yesterday following Joe Saluzzi's Bloomberg interview. I present a White Paper by Themis Trading in which Joe elaborates on many of the concepts that may have flown over the heads of some of the more "beginner" readers. Additionally, I recommend readers search for specific concepts within Zero Hedge - we have covered the topic of program trading and liquidity extensively here over the past 3 months.