Archive - Apr 9, 2010

• China central bank adviser: conditions are right to return the yuan to a managed-float regimen.
• China may post first trade deficit in six years, undermining Yuan critics.
• Euro gains against Yen, credit risk drops as Trichet calms Greece concerns.
• Most Asian markets are higher, with coal stocks giving Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 a lift.
• Ambac Q4 net income at $558.1M vs. net loss of $2.34B in the same period a year earlier.
• AMD to book one-time, non-cash gain of $325M on deconsolidation of GlobalFoundries Inc.
• Apple steps up rivalry with Google, to add own advertising system to iPhone.

RANsquawk 9th April Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc.

RANsquawk 9th April Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc.

The WSJ has compiled some data that gives us hope about the future of the MSM journalistic model (and makes us blush for not having thought of it first). In sorting through PD weekly repo holdings, the WSJ has observed a pattern in which End Of Quarter positions tend to be among the lowest of any reported during the quarter. The WSJ study goes back 5 quarters. Zero Hedge has performed a comparable analysis (incidentally we were looking at Primary Dealer holdings just 3 hours earlier) and we present the preliminary results. They are stunning, and we are scratching our heads how this glaring observation could have been missed, not just by us but by everyone else as well. In a nutshell, in the past 9 quarters, beginning with Q1 2008 or about the time Bear failed and things started going downhill fast, the Primary Dealers (a set of banks that as everyone knows includes Goldman, BofA, JPM, and included Lehman and Bear), in 8 of the these quarters closed out quarters at the lowest level of net asset holdings! Whether this is by Repo 105-type transactions, or via BofA type "roll" trades as discussed in detail in the WSJ, is irrelevant: the simple purpose of this phenomenon was to make balance sheet leverage more palatable and easily presentable: the lower the asset base, the less the equity required to satisfy regulatory leverage ratios. How nobody has observed this scheme previously is simply stunning, and a real testament to the PD's collective ability to keep this crucial data to the distribution list of a select few.

With everyone focused on the US bond market, it was of course inevitable that the failed bond auction would occur not here, but in that other great liquidity pump and Keynesian playground: China. Market News reports that the Chinese Ministry of Finance was unable to sell all of its planned issuance of 91- and 273- day bills. The bond failures were attributed to increasing concerns of monetary tightening which, of course, would impact short-term rates and make investors skittish about locking up capital. Although being unable to fill a 3 Month order book is stunning - Chinese bond vigilantes are now officially on the prowl, and their (in)action guarantees either a hike, or much more serious liquidity withdrawal over the next 91 days, which would spell doom for stocks which trade now only on the combined efforts of the PBoC and the Fed to drown the world in colored pieces of paper. Throw in the unpredictable events of CNY revaluation, and the training wheels of the biggest reliquification experiment are about to come off. We caution readers not to be surprised if in light of these failed auctions, any overtures toward a CNY hike are indefinitely postponed.

Someone had to do it. So we applaud Jason Hommel of Silver Stock Report for submitting the first official complaint to the United States Department of Justice over the recent revalations of unprecedented manipulation and fraud in the silver (and gold) market. The named party - none other than JPMorgan Chase & Co.