Archive - Dec 2010

Mark Wiseman, CIO at the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, is increasingly focusing on opportunities in Asia...

Assange is only guilty of being a cad ...

Now that the Fed is firmly number one in the world in terms of US Treasury holdings (actual marketable paper, not the mythical paper held by various insolvent trusts) with $926 billion in Treasury paper post today's POMO, providing Fed balance sheet updates seems like a moot point. After all, most people by now realize how this will end. And once Trichet starts monetizing debt too (not if but when, which will be followed by Japan, Switzerland, and China), the global Weimer endgame will come quickly. But for now, for the sake of tradition, here is the weekly update of the Fed's most recent balance sheet.

In an amusing turn demonstrating just how manic-depressive the market has become, stocks have gone from fearing an all out onslaught in Europe, to complete euphoria, based on a favorable ADP payroll number (which in the past several months had been broadly ignored due to its consensus misses). What is even more stunning is how the two main rumors that forced the market to surge: that Trichet was commencing a debt monetization program (refuted) and that the IMF would increase its funding contributions to Europe (mysteriously leaked by a "source" in the administration to Reuters, then also promptly refuted but only after it had already raised stocks another 50 bps) ended up being false. In the meantime we got an initial claims number that was weaker than expected, and an ISM that missed consensus, and a pending home sales that was so low it could only go higher, and which will likely result in half of the transactions falling due to the spike in mortgage rates. But hey: at least Goldman managed to boost the value of the stock portion of its bonuses, after the firm upgraded the economy, but more importantly, all banks, itself most certainly included. It is yesterday's ISM that we wanted to focus on. Much as we hate to rain on the parade, we (unlike Princeton educated Ph.D. economists) continue to firmly believe that the market does not make the economy, especially when even your cab driver knows it is all a ponzi scheme (or, rather, it's a buy the dip scheme). As John Lohman, and David Rosenberg subsequently, remind us, the spread between the inventory and the new orders components of the manufacturing ISM came at a spread unseen in over 30 years, and a phenomenon which without fail leads to at least a sub 50 print in the ISM, if not outright (re)recession.

Earlier today, Irving Picard, trustee of the Madoff liquidation trust, filed a lawsuit against JPM, accusing the bank of enabling massive fraud and seeking over $6 billion in fees and damages from Jamie Dimon's bank. As per the press release (full copy below), the reason for the lawsuit is that "JPMC admitted in the months before Madoff’s arrest that BLMIS’s returns were too good – especially in down markets – to be believable, but for years they pretended that was not the case,” while on the banking side, the complaint charges, JPMC should have been more vigilant in seeing illegal cash flows. Instead, “JPMC was willing to ignore decades of suspicious and inexplicable activity." As a result "given that the main BLMIS account was held by JPMC, the bank was in a perfect position to investigate,” Mr. Sheehan said. “It had only to review its internal account records to determine whether there was a legitimate explanation for the cash moving in and out of the BLMIS accounts. And when there ultimately was suspicion of illegal activity, JPMC had a duty to take action. It failed to do so." The release goes on further to indicate that the full complaint has been filed under seal in bankruptcy court, undoubtedly per JPM's demands that its dirty laundry not be exposed, very much the same reason why Goldman is seeking a sealed courtroom hearing during its lawsuit against Sergey Aleynikov. Luckily, ABC has managed to obtain what appears to be a key part of the evidence confirming just how much JP knew. Curiously, we find that it may have been a major redemption by none other than JPM in October of 2008 that set off the avalanche leading to Madoff turning himself in once the ponzi was over.

Adam Smith is rolling in his grave ...

What's the Fed hiding?

It appears Paolo Pellegrini, the brains behind Paulson & Co. most profitable trade, is coming back... as a quant. As we reported in August, the billionaire manager's former fund - PSQR - had decided to return all capital to investors citing "challenging market conditions." It only took Paolo 3 months to realize that money is no longer to be made in a macro world dominated by central bank infighting, in which a schizophrenic market goes up or down by several percentage points on a daily basis depending on what word feels out of place in any given central banker's speech, and instead will focus on "quantitative disciplines" along the lines of DE Shaw and RenTec. And why not: the only ones left making money in this market are momentum chasing strategies which have millisecond frontrunning arbitrage over the rest of what is left of the heard. As to the visionary's current market views, his mantra is "don't fight the Fed" even as he sees bond trading at ridiculously high levels, although with a caveat: "of course you don’t want to fight the Fed, until the Fed loses control which is what happened obviously in the sub-prime and financial crisis.  That is very difficult, though, to predict." As we predicted earlier in the year not only are macro funds soon going to be extinct but the same fate lies in store for the traditional long/short 130/30 group. Very soon every fund will need to have their own quant/HFT group (SAC has already quietly amassed almost 20 HFT pods) just to be able to attract outside investors. After all why else is the woefully underpaid SEC admitting it has no idea how to fix the market now entirely dominated by HFT, and will merely extend its completely worthless "circuit breaker" model for another three months, then another three months, and so on.

S&P flexes its chicken wings, and nobody cares. After all it's not like a CCC- rated Greece will not have access to the global Bernanke put: "On Dec. 2, 2010, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services placed its 'BB+' long-term sovereign credit rating on the Hellenic Republic (Greece) on CreditWatch with negative implications. Standard & Poor's has also placed its 'BB+' rating on the individual debt issues of the Greek government on CreditWatch with negative implications, reflecting both the action on the sovereign credit rating and the possibility of a downward revision of our '4' recovery rating on this debt...We could affirm the ratings on Greece if our current expectations about the impact of subordination and undefined restructuring triggers are not borne out by events after we have analyzed the full ESM proposal. If, on the other hand, our views are borne out, we could lower our long-term rating on Greece, probably by one, but not likely more than two notches, depending on the details of the ESM."

When an economy is growing rapidly, then the waste, fraud, duplication, inefficiency and bloat go unnoticed because tax revenues and the budget are rising even faster than the bloat and inefficiency. The problem arises when tax revenues fall. Then the bureaucratic impulse to never-ending growth is stymied, and the various bureaucracies turn inward as they muster their forces to wage internecine warfare with other protected fiefdoms....At some point, the mission of the bureaucracy is completely lost, and the citizens' patience with institutional incompetence and self-aggrandizement finally runs out. Although it seems "impossible" in an era where the Federal Reserve just conjures up $1 trillion and the Federal governments sells $1.3 trillion in bonds every year to fund its ballooning deficit, bureaucracies can and will implode.

The current recession is the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, inviting comparisons with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR had the advantage of taking office three years into the Depression when the unemployment rate was near 25 percent. The verdict was in: the system needed change. President Obama took office as the crisis was deepening. Those who had designed the system could still argue it could be revived and as establishment insiders they had the upper hand. But that argument is done and today the prospect is of long stagnation.

And now for what you've all been waiting for....InAction Jackson--The Movie!

The noose around Wikileaks' Julian Assange is tightening. It appears that not only does British police know where he is, but that he himself is currently residing in South-east England, awaiting his own arrest. In fact, his only ongoing reprieve is that British police is delaying the arrest while Sweden fixes a technicality in its arrest warrant. From the Sunday Morning Herald: "The legal situation surrounding Mr Assange, the hacker who was born in Queensland and co-founded WikiLeaks, was still unclear last night, with reports that he was in a house in south-east England waiting for British police to arrest him. British newspapers said police could not act as Sweden had filled out a European arrest warrant incorrectly." Furthermore, any return to Sweden would likely be game over for Bank of America's most hated person: "The Swedish Supreme Court said last night it would not consider Mr Assange's appeal against the arrest warrant." Of course, Wikileaks continue to plead there is no legal basis in the arrest warrant issued against Assange: "'There has been a lot of talk about legal actions,'' he said. ''But we have not seen any reference to how we are supposed to have broken the law.''" That said, at this point, Julian's days away from captivity are numbered (or, as some of the conspiracy theorists claim, so the media circus would claim). Either way, Bank of America is likely breathing a sigh of relief.

RANsquawk Market Wrap Up - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 02/12/10

Just when you thought the parasitism at the SEC could no longer surprise, we find ourselves stunned yet again: "The Securities and Exchange Commission, facing the probability that resurgent congressional Republicans will cut its budget, has put on hold part of the work it has been tasked with by the Dodd-Frank financial law. The SEC will delay setting up five new offices mandated by the law, including a new office to field tips from informants about wrongdoing that was a signature accomplishment of SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro. The so-called whistleblower office won't be staffed; its functions will temporarily be carried out instead by existing enforcement staff, the SEC said on its website. A new credit rating office, an office for municipal securities and two separate offices focused on investors and women and minorities are also on hold." In other words, let's all just sing Kumbaya and pretend our markets are supervised even as Wall Street continues to funnel trillions of NPV dollars in its pockets today, while sticking future generations with what is now nearly $14 trillion in debt.