Archive - Apr 18, 2010

Surprises these days come from everywhere: one day we find that some of the wealthiest hedge fund managers are only so thanks to clever schemes involving the enabling of investment banks who have the biggest rolodex of "putzes," finding the last remaining "greater fools" available, another day we discover that a deal that Goldman had no qualms about, was passed on by what may well have been the last remaining ethical bank, Bear Stearns. Greg Zuckerman, as pointed out by Wall Street Manna, in his book "The Greatest Trade Ever" describes Paulson's meetings with Goldman, Bear and Deutsche to "ask if they could create CDOs that Paulson & Co. could essentially bet against. Ironically, it was Bear Stearns that rejected the offer: "[Bear Stearns trader Scott Eichel] worried that Paulson would want especially ugly mortgages for the CDOs, like a bettor asking a football owner to bench a star quarterback to improve the odds of his wager against the team ... he felt it would be improper." Eichel told Zuckerman, " 'It didn't pass our ethics standards; it was a reputation issue, and it didn't pass our moral compass." Sure enough, Goldman et al (allegedly) took down Bear shortly thereafter, and gave it away to Jamie Dimon for pennies on the dollar. In the world of Wall Street, where everyone tries to destroy the dumbest, those who play by some ethical historical rulebook all end up seeing a "run" on their liquidity sooner or later.

A former Goldmanite who failed to bail out the world and was called a Chump by Elijah Cummings, proceeded to chopped down trees for kindling and fight off bears in the backwoods, is now stuck peddling a second-tier equity product for a bond fund. The world sure is messed up.

Before the SEC announced the charges, Goldman seemed unstoppable. It seemed like even countless tons of water pressure or scores of invading armies could not touch Goldman.

Now, there is a crack ...

Even if the timing of the SEC's announcement was wholly political, tons of public pressure and hordes of lawyers are probably on their way.

Claims GS “controls the wind”

One of the most ludicrous claims over the past few days has been that the shady aspect of Goldman's mortgage unit operations began and ended with Fabrice Tourre, as per the SEC's complaint. The NYT's Louise Story has just disclosed the far too obvious: "By early 2007, Goldman’s mortgage unit had become a hive of intense activity. By then, the business had captured the attention of senior management. In addition to Mr. Blankfein, Gary D. Cohn, Goldman’s president, and David A. Viniar, the chief financial officer, visited the mortgage unit frequently, often for hours at a time." Louise presents a comprehensive analysis of the chronological shift in mood over US real estate among Goldman's ranks, in which it become obvious that the very heads of Goldman were instrumental in making the critical decision to part ways with Wall Street's optimistic groupthink, driven primarily by the input of Goldman salesmen who listened to hedge funds and advised the firm's executives and analysts (coupled with the input of Tourre and Egol) that some of the "smartest" money was turning bearish on real estate as early as 2006.

What's the possible impact of the volcano on global trade? That depends. It could be significant.

On April 13 we pointed out that Citi put on a long EURUSD recommendation with a 1.349 stop. The cynics in us were confident that this was merely a way for Citi to dump its EUR book.

[Citi] has just issued a long EURUSD call at 1.359. The call by technical
analyst Aron Gera, proposes a stop at 1.349. In other words it is now
Citi's turn to offload its EUR book. Gera's recommendation is based on
technical analysis, which, in the form of momentum chasing, is all that
seems to work these days. Aron thinks the EUR could surge to an 11-week
high, even as the GBPUSD could jump as high as 1.5966 alongside EUR
strength.

Mission accomplised. The euro is plunging (last at 1.346, just barely above the 1.345 option barrier) as Shanghai is dropping, Japan is not doing all that well, and half the world is lining up to sue Goldman Sachs. A surging dollar will do nothing to help a market that has just had its first reacquaintance with risk after three months (sorry Bernanke, even endless liquidity is not omnipotent). At least Citi managed to sucker in a couple of its best clients. Will these clients now sue Citi if they found out that Citi was, gasp, shorting the EUR against them?

While the significance of Friday's high volume reversal has yet to be determined, the set up has the making of a market top - the majority of investors are poorly positioned and the precipitating event (i.e., the government's charges against Goldman Sachs) was not foreseen.

"Although Goldman Sachs held various positions in residential mortgage-related products in 2007, our short positions were not a 'bet against our clients.'"

That claim, from Goldman's letter to its shareholders,
is easily refuted. The S.E.C. has brought fraud charges on one of
Goldman deals known as synthetic subprime mezzanine collateralized debt
obligations, or CDOs. While most of these deals remain shrouded in
secrecy, one of them, Anderson Mezzanine Funding 2007, Ltd.
lays out its blueprint in sufficient detail so that we can pinpoint how
and why this transaction's failure was never in doubt.

Most are watching Bloomberg TV Goldman special. Others are selling. The buy only algos are still stuck in traffic on the LIE for now.

"And then the Volcano. Needless to say, at this early stage it is very difficult to say anything meaningful about the effect on the European economy, but here are my very preliminary thoughts (surely subject to possibly significant revisions): First, if the disruption to air traffic is contained to a week or less, then I think the total effect will be minimal. My guess would be that the effect on Q2 GDP would be within a rounding error (of 0.1pc) around our +0.8pc qoq forecast. Off the top of my head, air transportation is no more than some 0.1 pc of European GDP, and one would assume that a lot of what's been lost in the air will be made up in coming weeks. Also, ground transportation is having a field day, as illustrated by the fact that all trains out of Florence was fully booked for the next 3 days and none of the car rental companies had cars available for the next 9 days." Erik Nielsen, Goldman Sachs

A day before the GS news broke, we pointed out that the market is poised for a correction at least based on Fib. Sure enough, the ludicrous non-stop rally from the February lows topped at exactly a 61.8% extension of the previous sell-off (1211.6). Was the Goldman news predicated by the SEC's religious following of Fibonacci signals? Is the 100% Fib retracement next (1144)?

Though the Greek push-of-war between the ECB and IMF has been postponed until Wednesday, a new FTSE/ATHEX-CSE Banking index futures contract begins trading on Monday. With the fiscal future of Greece literally hanging in the balance, what could possibly be more fitting in the interim than the launch of a new futures contract containing the words 'Greek' and 'bank' ?

Crude futures ended at their lowest point this month Friday, as investors fled riskier assets after regulators charged Goldman Sachs with fraud. Nonetheless, industry insiders are fully expecting this still intact seasonal pattern: a rise in gas prices in the months ahead during the summer driving season (from April 1 to Sept. 30).

Watch volcanic ash diffusion in super slo-mo, as EuroControl reports: "At the current time, air traffic control services are not being provided to civil aircraft in the major part of European airspace. This includes Austria, Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, most of France, most of Germany, Hungary, Ireland, northern Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia, north Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine and the UK."