Archive - Jan 22, 2010

Precious metals are going to be attractive to con artists, just like anything else of real value. No question about it. But there are some decent safeguards already built into the system. If you supplement them with your own knowledge and common sense, it shouldn’t be difficult to avoid becoming a victim. And for goodness sake, look after your own interests and don’t fret about what’s in Fort Knox. If it truly is full of tungsten, so much the better for your own holdings.

Politico has obtained the phone log of conversations performed by then FRBNY President Tim Geithner during the period of the financial crisis, or specifically September 14, 2008 through the end of the year. Some of the people called include (many of them repeatedly) pretty much all the usual suspects... And who is mysterious ex-Goldmanite Dan Jester and why was he, together with another ex-Goldmanite, Hank Paulson, the first two people called the day Lehman filed?

New measures by Chinese authorities to curb bank lending reversed a rally in energy prices early in the week, bringing West Texas Intermediate futures down more than 4% in the second half of the week to below $75 a barrel by Friday. China continued its efforts to slow down its economy and prevent overheating, and told some banks to stop making certain kinds of loans. The Chinese move on Wednesday hit all commodities across the board, from gold to lead, with the prospect of slower economic growth in the country.

Whether this week was THE turning point or A turning point we will not know for a while (though we have our suspicions) but it was the largest week-over-week widening since JUN09 in absolute and relative terms for IG credit. IG has not closed a week above 95bps since 12/4 and HY still has some room to go to revert empirically back to same date levels of risk.

As the attached chart indicates, the primary support trendline is here. The robots that have been pushing the market higher on diminishing volume need to reverse the massive volume surge that has wiped out over 3 week of profits in 2 days (yes, that's why we show those VWAPs over and over). Even more troubling is that the support line and the 100 DMA intersect, and we are right on top of it. Should we drop below current levels on higher volume, the next major resistance is over 80 points below.

All my pre-hybrid sketchy experiences with NYSE have left me with a sour taste. If you were to sit at my desk, you would hear how I’d pay higher ECN fees to EDGX or get worse fills rather than to give any business to NYSE. I refuse to send any orders through them. And it is not like my 50Mln shares a year would really make a huge difference. Call me loco but I just don’t give them my business.

Just in case you needed a good analogy to the Predator recommending an acid-dripping Alien as your next house pet, here comes the one and only Maestro saying Bernanke is doing a swell Job. In the meantime James Inhofe (R.OK) is the latest vote against Bernanke. Most recently updated table below. In the meantime, and much more importantly than what some discredited, incompetent fossil says, Tennessee's Lamar Alexander is a Yes. That bring the "nays" to 14.

I'm just here to help you blow your money.

Markets were roiled once again today as the mouseclickers were busy selling giant baskets of stocks. That's the beauty of stock investing, instantaneous liquidation or position reversal. Now we need to figure out if fear has "gone too far, too fast", or if this is simply another ruse to offload more bonds at 2%, 300% oversubscribed.

This was at 17 last on Tuesday, a 60% rise in one week.

9 months of "who wants to be short over the weekend?" Time to flip that one around. This has now been the fastest correction in the bear market rally. Where are the HiFTers providing the bids and liquidity? But the biggest question: why are treasuries unchanged? The Fed's biggest nightmare is slowly materializing...

Bernanke is one vote closer to retirement. Fox Business reports that Alabama Sentor Jeff Sessions has said that he will not vote to reconfirm Ben Bernanke.

Recently Goldman Sachs has been attempting to downplay the impact of prop trading on its operations, with various executives, among them both Lloyd Blankfein and David Viniar, claiming that proprietary trading accounts for a mere 10% of total revenue. This is likely a major misrepresentation and a substantial underestimation of the true impact of prop trading to the firm if an earlier analysis by third party credit analysis firm CreditSights is correct. According to CS analysts, Goldman's true prop exposure is at least 30% and probably inbetween 30% and 40%. This would imply that the proposed ban will have a truly material impact on Goldman, much more so than Goldman's executives claim.

Q: Is Avatar a metaphor for "capitalism?" A: Yes, in James Cameron's populist vision of "capitalism." Q: Is the rape of another planet capitalism? A: No. Q: Is the movie left wing Hollywood schlock propaganda? A:Yes. Q: Is the movie marvelous entertainment? A: Yes. Q: Is it also something else? A: Yes.

A recent Senate poll of Bernanke support indicates the following (partial) results: of 34 senators polled, 5 (all democrats) are still undecided, 17 support Bernanke (13 Democrats, 4 Republicans), while 12 support the Pink Slip (7 Republicans, 5 Democrats/Indeps). 41 are needed for Bernanke to take a hike.