Archive - Apr 21, 2010

madhedgefundtrader's picture

Will Obama Pack the Federal Reserve Board With Doves?





This decision will rank only second after his selection of the new Supreme Court justice in importance for the country, the economy, and your portfolio. The betting is that he will pick three monetary doves who will keep interest rates lower for longer, continuing the steroid injections of free money for the economy. The ghost of libertarian Ayn Rand will no longer be welcome on this board. Setting up a layup for the 2012 election.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Breaking: South Korea Finds Cheonan Ship Sunk By North Korean Submarine Torpedo





In a stunning revalation, Reuters reports that according to South Korean intelligence, the Cheonan ship sinking in late March is due to a torpedo fired by a North Korean submarine. The Kospi is down just 1% right now: we have a feeling it won't stay that way for long once this news is digested. After many had thought that South Korea was clearly covering for what was an overt North Korean act of aggression, this news is sure to take the Pacific Rim market to the edge. If Seoul is overtly accusing North Korea, it can only mean that South Korea will demand direct or indirect retaliation against the North as its government has already come out looking like both incompetent and cowardly. What kind of retaliation by the North this would in turn generate is completely unknown and could potentially escalate into full out conflict. According to South Korean intelligence and the US military, North Kora is now stepping up "drills to infiltrate a submarine south of the naval border, and wage a surprise attack against the South." Next stop - war? It may even cause the S&P to end on a downtick in tomorrow's session. On the other hand, global thermonuclear warfare surely is a victory for the gamma radiation scraper bulls.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Greece Welcomes Its New IMF Overlords With Day Of Rioting And National Strikes





What do you do when you are the prime minister of a bankrupt country and your only recourse is to get the Washington D.C.-based IMF to come in and tell you you have to cut wages by about 120% and fire 75% of the country (especially after the same Germans you recently demanded WWII reparations from, mysteriously have decided in the eleventh hour to have their last laugh at your expense). Why, you send in the national guard, armed with fake six-pack ridged bulletproof vests and gas masks, to repeat the miracle of Thermopylae against the marauding population which has suddenly realized that the past 10 years of chimeric happiness were a one-time miracle thanks to Mr Goldman and fat, and somewhat stupid, uncle Almunia. The next thing you do, once you realize you are about to have a [revolution|uprising|civil war] is to declare a moratorium on your €300 billion of debt, make your people happy and stick it precisely to the same bankers that you complain about every single day for "speculating" against you. Tomorrow Greece will face the trifecta of a much delayed hangover as 1) its bonds hit 9% as the hedge funds who have been buying up in expectations of a snapback capitulate, 2) EuroStat declares its deficit was officially 14%, and 3) a Greek civil servant strike in their fourth national walkout this year.

 

Leo Kolivakis's picture

Second Wave of Financial Crisis?





Jim Bianco warns that "punishingly high" rates are coming in the second wave of the financial crisis. If he's right, it will be a bloodbath.

 

asiablues's picture

IMF: No China Asset Bubble, Healthy Growth to Continue





Olivier Blanchard, chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), talks with Bloomberg this morning about the prospects for an asset bubble in China. Blanchard, speaking from Washington, also discusses the impact of sovereign debt on global economic growth.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Open Thread: This Reader Is Not Making Any Payments On Just Under $100,000 Of Credit Card Bills, Are You?





From the mailbag:

Brief update on my lenders' attempts to collect credit card debt. Stopped making all payments over a year ago.

BANK OF AMERICA   $35,000
CHASE BANK            $16,000
CITIBANK                 $30,000
DISCOVER                $10,000

Chase Bank has been singularly aggressive, in January filing civil suit represented by Zwicker & Assoc. As to the others, collection company mailings and phone calls have mostly ended, leaving the impression that they are following the Chase case. Not at all surprising, but hopefully informative. Perhaps time for another solicitation of related anecdotes?

So, dear readers, which is it? Are you all dutifully filing taxes, paying off your bills, sending in your monthly mortgage checks and prefunding Goldman's now-quarterly bonus payments? Or have you maxed out your last remaining credit card to buy Kindles (that's a given) and bars of silver? Let us know.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Guest Post: Revolution In Central Asia: Who’s Next?





On April 7, 2010 the President of Kyrgyzstan Kurmanbek Bakiyev fled the capital city of Bishkek that was under a state of emergency after antigovernment protesters started clashing with security forces following incidents that started in the Northern city of Talas, close to the Kazakhstan border. By the end of April 7, Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty was reporting 40 dead and 400 wounded, numbers that have over doubled since. In this context, one can only wonder which country in Central Asia could be next, if any, and which Central Asian leader could find himself out of a job and possibly on an airplane.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Daily Oil Market Summary: April 21





It was a peculiar session on Wednesday. If one looked at the benchmark expiring crude oil contract, one saw a market unable to build on Tuesday’s gains, a market that was lightly lower despite a generally improving mood among investors that he economy is coming right. In a lower front-month crude contract, traders saw a very disappointing weekly DOE report, which had shown builds in all three major categories, in marked contrast to the more prmosing report that had come out Tuesday evening from API, which showed drawdowns in all three categories. One might also have seen the stronger US dollar, the very mild gains in the DJIA and lingering concern over the impact of last week’s volcanic eruption in Iceland, which had grounded most of Europe’s air transportation fleet up through yesterday. Most of Wednesday’s inputs were bearish.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Richard Koo Says If Banks Marked Commercial Real Estate To Market,It Would "Trigger A Chain Of Bankruptcies"





Richard Koo's latest observations on the US economy are as always, a must read. The critical observation from the Nomura economist explains why the realists and the naive idealists are at greater odds than ever before: the government continues to perpetuate, endorse and legalize accounting fraud in the hope that covering everything up under the rug will rekindle animal spirits. The truth, as Koo points out, is that were the FASB to show the real sad state of affairs, the two core industries in the US - finance and real estate, would be bankrupt. "If US authorities were to require banks to mark their commercial real estate loans to market today, lending to this sector would be extinguished, triggering a chain of bankruptcies as borrowers became unable to roll over their debt." In other news Citi, Bank of America, and Wells just reported fantastic earnings beats on the heels of reduced credit loss provisions. Nothing on the conference call mentioned the fact that all would be bankrupt if there was an ounce of integrity left in financial reporting, and that every firm is committing FASB-complicit 10(b)-5 fraud. One day, just like Goldman's mortgage follies, all this will be the subject of epic lawsuits. But not yet. There is some more money to be stolen from the middle class first, by these very firms.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Bernie Sanders Says It Is Time To Break Up The Big Banks As They Are Nothing But Monopolies





Paging Christine Varney. Finally, what Zero Hedge has been pounding the table on for months is starting to make it through to (some of) the ruling elite. In an interview with Dylan Ratigan, Bernie Sanders, who unfortunately is not quite representative of the prevailing DC groupthink yet), says: "it is not just a too big to fail problem, it is monopolistic control of the economy and the incredible concentration of ownership. If Teddy Roosevelt were here right now, the guy who broke up all the big special interests in his day: if he believed that two-thirds of the credit cards were being issued by four banks, does anyone think we should not be breaking these guys up."

The argument for breaking them up is blatantly simple: to protect taxpayers against another TBTF episode, as well as to preempt  their concentration of ownership which means "unbelievable power and monopolistic influence over the whole economy."

Sanders, following in William Black's footsteps, is also painfully blunt: "the issue is not whether Congress regulates Wall Street, it's the degree to which Wall Street regulates Congress."

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Daily Credit Summary: April 21 - The Great Divide





Spreads managed to hold onto modest widening today in the US as IG underperformed HY, indices underperformed intrinsics, single-name activity was extremely muted, and low beta underperformed high beta. Notable underperformance in Europe, spreading idiosyncratic sovereign risk to SovX to FINLs to Main and up to XOver was not enough to upset the optimistic US investor today, though it was one of the least convicted days in a long time.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

John Paulson - A Credible Defense?





John Paulson, the hedge fund investor behind the toxic CDO
referenced in the S.E.C. complaint, ratcheted up his
nobody-saw-it-coming rhetoric, with a letter nominally addressed to his own investors but clearly intended for a broader audience of ignoramuses and amnesia victims:

"It is easy to forget that before the collapse, the
overwhelming view of investors, ratings agencies and economists was
that the housing market was strong and would continue to get stronger."

The opposite is true. Nobody was saying that the housing
market was strong and would continue to get stronger during the weeks
prior to April 26, 2007, the closing date of Goldman's notorious Abacus 2007-AC1.
There are countless ways to discredit Paulson's statement, just as
there are countless ways to discredit his claim that he operated in "good faith." (As Vanity Fair was kind enough to point out, Paulson's bad faith manipulations were first highlighted here on HuffPo seven months ago.)

 

RANSquawk Video's picture

RANsquawk Market Wrap Up - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 21/04/10





RANsquawk Market Wrap Up - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 21/04/10

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Associated Press Warns Of Katla Eruption Danger





Recently we posted seismic readings of Iceland's Katla volcano, which indicated the tremors around the area have increased substantially in the last few days. Today, the Associated Press covers just how much of an imminent threat an eruption at Eyjafjallajokull's cousin, Katla, could be.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

All Shall Be Well - Goldman's Latest Perspectives On Greece





Delegations from the IMF, European Commission and ECB – a reported total of 20 people – are arriving in Athens today to start negotiations on the macro conditionality of the rescue package. Its been indicated that the IMF loan could be a 3-year Stand-by worth up to €12-15bn, co-financed by a €30bn package of bilateral loans from the other 15 Euro-zone members disbursed during the next 12 months. Meanwhile, markets are reacting very negatively although– to my knowledge – there are no new news. - Erik Nielsen, GS

 
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