Archive - Sep 8, 2009

Tyler Durden's picture

On Why The Wall Street Casino Has Already Saved A Special Place In The History Books For Its Creators





"Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. The measure of success attained by Wall Street, regarded as an institution of which the proper social purpose is to direct new investment into the most profitable channels in terms of future yield, cannot be claimed as one of the outstanding triumphs of laissez-faire capitalism – which is not surprising, if I am right in thinking that the best brains of Wall Street have been in fact directed towards a different object." - John Maynard Keynes

 

Leo Kolivakis's picture

A New Era of Hedge Fund Transparency?





The rules of the game have changed. After the disaster of 2008, pension funds will be scrutinizing their investments a lot more carefully, especially their investments in alternatives like hedge funds, private equity, real estate and commodity funds. Those funds who refuse to adapt will find it extremely difficult to raise the money they need to compete.

 

twinkie's picture

RenTec Will Trade Transparency for More Institutional Money





P&I's article “Renaissance to open up a bit”, discusses the firm’s quest for institutional money and reads very much like a marketing piece. Yes, RIEF performance this year is just awful and assets have “plummeted 81% to $5 billion as of June 30, down from a peak of $27 billion” but, after "massaging" these numbers, P&I was able to find something positive.

 

Vitaliy Katsenelson's picture

Five Reasons to Avoid the Gold Rush





Here are some arguments why one should think twice before jumping in bed with gold bugs, or at least remain sober while determining gold’s weight in the portfolio .

 

Tyler Durden's picture

ABC Consumer Comfort Refuses To Play Ball With Propaganda Machine






Someone should send the UMich Confidence rolodex (which seemingly consists exclusively of Goldman executive committee members whose "in the moneyness" on Goldman calls translates into confidence of being able to buy a 14th Aston Martin DB - on a one to one basis with the market) over to the ABC Consumer Comfort people, as the two firms seem to never be able to spin the same "the consumer is violently recovering compliments of the $9 trillion in budget deficits" story. After hitting -45 recently, the index dropped yet again, hitting -48 today, a level the index has flatlined to ever since early June.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Daily Credit Summary: September 8 - GoldFingered





Spreads were tighter in the US as all the indices improved (with IG making its best day's performance since 6/2/09 and HY outperforming. HY-IG traded back below 700bps, HY-LCDX under 100bps, XOver-Main under 500bps even as intraday ranges remained narrow but gap tighter in HY and IG). Indices generally outperformed intrinsics driving HY skew back below $2 (an arbitrary inflection point for index arbers) but widening the skew in all other liquid indices.

 

Bruce Krasting's picture

SSTF Shocker - $6B August Deficit





A big monthly deficit for the Trust Fund. This was supposed to be a 2037 problem. Not any longer.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Warren Buffett To Endorse Speculative Trading Regulation





The fight against HFT, and intraday speculation just got serious. According to the WSJ, Warren Buffett, together with John Bogle and 25 others, have endorsed a petition that focusing on speculative stock gains "hurts the economy and may require regulation."

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Andrew Cuomo Has Had Enough With Bank Of America's Cowardice, Plans On Filing Charges





"We are at this stage in our investigation in which we are making charging decisions with respect to Bank of America and its executives."

How poetic would it be if Madoff and Ken share a jailcell?

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Daily Summary





To recap our earlier prognostications:

"Another day in which the market was driven by the ongoing dollar cataclysm, the EUR-JPY carry trade, and some speculation on what gold will do. Also, another day in which stock direction was absolutely not based on fundamentals, and momos gunned every move higher on micro volume and every reversal was meet with a huge volume ramp."

 

RobotTrader's picture

Wash, Rinse, Repeat.....





Once again, the Perpetual Motion Machine is working to perfection.
Another round of Treasuries sold off at absurd yields as the GS Prop Desk engineered a "Gap and Crap" with the SPY, sending Grandma, Fidelity, and the Bank of Japan fleeing to the safety of T-Bonds.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Consumer Credit Plunges By Record $21.6 Billion As The Main Driver For GDP Growth Says "Enough"





A record plunge in consumer credit, and the American middle class has just given the new and improved Obama-endorsed "spend spend spend" recovery and confidence plan the middle finger.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Dollar Dislocating From Stocks, YEN-EUR Carry In Lockstep With S&P





As the dollar picks up steam intraday, HFTs take over market action (it is a low volume day after all) after the two trading in lockstep early in the morning. The complete lack of market logic is somehow completely not surprising.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Guest Post: Observations On Unusual Bond Deal Behavior





If fear is gone you would expect primary bond dealers to reduce considerably the current holdings of bonds. However that it is not the case and hoarding in treasuries continue. The latest uptick shows a net long position at over $16 billion. A very rare and unusual behavior from bond dealers. We look for long term treasury prices to go unusually higher.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Stocks Refusing To Chase Dollar Weakness





In an odd intraday development, stocks are now largely ignoring any attempts to gun the market higher via the recent mechanism of choice for market push: the EUR-JPY carry trade. With the Yen repeatedly hitting intraday lows, courtesy of its brand new yet old and familiar carry role redux, the stock market seems poised to take out day's lows.

 
Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!