Archive - Dec 2010

Jim O'Neill, who after migrating to his latest and greatest position within Goldman as Chairman of GSAM, was expected to keep a low profile, has realized he has yet to meet his match at Goldman in the permacheer department. Which is why he now has a weekly column sent out as pep talk to all Goldman clients. His latest, "2010 was exciting with risks. 2011 will be even more so!" is basically a call to arms, in which he gives everyone to all clear to buy double inverse VIX ETFs on margin. And yes, in pursuing the last margina consumer, O'Neill has once again abandoned the BRICs and continues to pound on his latest N-11 concept, which contains such pent up purchasing powerhouses as Nigeria, the Philippines and, yes, Iran. Although with the prevalent thought for 2011 now being an inverse decoupling, in which the US is supposed to lead the world to new heights (so contrary to just 4 months ago... and all it took was a payroll tax cut), we fail to see how any of this is relevant. Then again, we often have the same question about Jim's writing in general. Full commentary presented below.

Come join me for lunch at the Mad Hedge Fund Trader’s Global Strategy Update, which I will be conducting in Chicago on Tuesday, December 28, 2010 at a Monroe Street Venue. I’ll be giving you my 2011 view on stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, precious metals, and real estate. A chance to meet me in person and praise me for my brilliance, or berate me for my ignorance. Or both.

Last night Doug Kass appeared on CNBC's Fast Money and caught the attention of the few who were watching the show with his gloomy prediction that gold would drop by 25% in the next year. As we noted last night, Kass' "thesis" was nothing more than a recap of the bearish half of the "All that glitters" letter released by Oaktree's Chairman Howard Marks, and not even a mention of the bullish section of the letter. That's fine. In fact, we welcomed this development as it at least partially offset the bullish sentiment on gold espoused by Kass' partner at The Street Jim Cramer, whose glowing recommendation of gold has had us very concerned about the price action in the precious metal into year end: after all there is no surer kiss of death that Cramer liking something. That said, as for Mr. Kass' predictive abilities, we would like to present his prior set of forecasts, specifically his prediction for 2010 issued a year ago almost to the day. With a predictive "hit rate" of about 25%, it is rather safe to assume that gold's path to $2,000 and higher is probably quite safe...

As gold is currently breaking out courtesy of another concerted take down of the dollar, which has sent futures surging, and the EURCHF to a fresh all time, and very ominous, low, FMX Connect provides some insight on how to trade the current gold bounce.

• Snow Extends European Air Travel Delays as Holiday Nears (Bloomberg)
• Bank of Japan Pledges to Steadily Buy Assets, Provide Liquidity (Bloomberg)
• China's Wang Says `Concrete Action' Taken on EU Debt (Bloomberg)
• Spain Says its Regions Are Financially Sound (WSJ)
• Senators in Bipartisan Push to Cut Deficit (FT)
• The great bank heist of 2010: Commentary: Wall Street wins, Main Street pays — again (MarketWatch)
• Bond Market Rejects Fed's Unconditional Love (Bloomberg)
• ECB Reins in Government Bond Buying (FT), as reported first on Zero Hedge

One look at the overnight EURUSD chart shows a straight vertical line up earlier in the session (at least before an almost comparable and equal line straight down following the Portugal action by Moody's), which was driven by news that Chinese vice premier Wang Qishan expressed his support for EU efforts to ensure financial stability. Yet the biggest indicator of just how bad sentiment in Europe continues to be, China support or not, are the results from the Spanish T-Bill auction. And after auctioning €3.88 billion in 3 and 6 Month T-Bills off earlier today, the yields rose once again to record highs. The 3-month T-Bill auction for €3Bln came at a bid to cover 2.14 vs. Prev. 2.34, at a yield 1.804% vs. 1.743% previously. Just as disappointing the 6-month T-Bill for €0.88bln, came at a bid to cover of 5.15 vs. 2.65 previously, importantly at a yield of 2.597% vs. Prev. 2.111%. In other words, despite billions of ECB sovereign bond purchasing, and despite the recent shift in sentiment that Europe is not in free fall, arrested after Reuters spread false rumors that the IMF would bail out Europe, things are once again turning ugly for the continent, as there is no way that a country can sustain its funding needs when the 3 Month cost of credit is at such a huge differential over 3M Euribor, which today clocked at 1.022%. If not even the arbs, who are the only ones left active in this market, want to put the compression trade between unsecured and sovereign debt, then there is little reason to be optimistic.

After S&P put Portugal on "watch negative" on November 30, citing "little progress on any growth-enhancing reforms to offset the fiscal drag from these scheduled 2011 budgetary cuts" by the government, today Mark Zandi's rating agency, with a 3 week delay, has decided to prove once and for all, that in the ascent to the rarefied intellectual air of the now obsolete business model of the rating agencies, S&P always takes the not too long bus. In what can be classified as a virtually plagiarized report, Moody's says: "Moody's says that an important driver of its decision to review Portugal's ratings is its concerns over the economy's sluggish growth, driven mainly by weak domestic demand. In addition, deflationary pressures as a result of fiscal consolidation and bank deleveraging may put additional downward pressure on nominal GDP growth." There was a time when the EUR would plunge on news like this. Now that nobody really cares about any newsflow (and certainly not about the rating agency's opinion), this is barely sufficient to push the EURUSD down 40 pips.

One stop summary for all the events that are making the markets in this snowy, volumeless day.

RANsquawk European Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX – 21/12/10

RANsquawk European Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX – 21/12/10

Retail traders are notoriously wrong at picking market direction/tops and bottoms. Most retail traders very naturally seem to adopt a counter-trend stance and this offers very accurate signals for individuals looking to trade against this group. This daily report is designed to help traders focus their efforts on higher probability pairs.

One of F. William Engdahl’s latest articles is titled “Wikileaks, a Big Dangerous US Government Con Job”. In this article, Engdahl implies that Wikileaks is a US government-run propaganda operation with an end goal of restricting freedoms on the internet. Here are some of the key excerpts from this article.

E Benron Scrooge lived all alone in an old house...

The market crept up again today like Jessica Simpson's pants or like Pete Townshend at...

Doug Kass appeared on CNBC today and attempted to present a bearish case on gold (along with his 3rd, or is that 33rd, case for a market top...) based on a verbatim recitation of half of Howard Marks' letter that we posted as a must read over the weekend. Naturally, had he recited the other half, he would have had to defend a diametrically opposing view, as that is the difference between great minds, who present both sides to the argument, and, well, everyone else. Nonetheless, we thank the bottom and top-ticker for offsetting some of the fervor his far more amusing boss at theStreet has imparted on gold, and which we find extremely worrying, as any time Cramer stands behind an asset, it is time to sell, no matter how much we like it. That said, and since we enjoy providing Doug and others with reading material for their "original" content for the next time they appear on CNBC, here is an excerpt from Bert Dohlmen's latest letter which explains not only why gold is an "investment for the ages" but also ties it in with the much discussed here topic of commodity manipulation: a far more important concept that we are surprised receives far less attention on such momentum chasing shows as Fast Money.