Archive - Apr 2010

 The IMF has recently released the results of their staff consultations with Greece. Some may find
it interesting, particularly where it intersects with relevant
BoomBustBlog research. Let's not mince words here. Greece is going to
effectively default on its debt, one way or another, and it is probably
going to do it relatively soon. Shall we walk through the IMF findings
from LAST YEAR and how they are actually optimistic compared to the facts that my
team and I have dug up?

RANsquawk 5th April US Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc.

• Asia stocks, commodities rise as US employment data lifts recovery view.
• California hotel foreclosures climb as unemployment curbs business travel
• Construction spending in U.S. declines to seven-year low amid foreclosures
• Crude oil climbs to 17-month high amid signs of global economic recovery.
• Manhattan apartment sales double as buyers seek bargains after price drop
• Mortgage rate on 30-Year fixed U.S. home loans rise to 5.08%
• Service industries in US probably grew at fastest rate since June 2007: Bloomberg survey.

Once upon a time, Western opinion leaders found themselves both impressed and frightened by the extraordinary growth rates achieved by a set of Eastern economies. Although those economies were still substantially poorer and smaller than those of the West, the speed with which they had transformed themselves from peasant societies into industrial powerhouses, their continuing ability to achieve growth rates several times higher than the advanced nations, and their increasing ability to challenge or even surpass American and European technology in certain areas seemed to call into question the dominance not only of Western power but of Western ideology...

Last week, one of our 3 bullish candidates, DNR, was the 2nd greatest gainer (+11.2%) across the S&P 500. For this week, our scans say energy complex up, consumer discretionary down. The energy patch, utilities included, appears primed to pump higher. Weekly charts with explicit trade setups ~ DELL, NKE, PCLN, F, BIG, HD, HAS, MAT, UNG, CNX, AES, FE, MFE & QID.

The carry trade rout is accelerating, even as the euro keeps hitting new spec short records. After the prior week's (March 23) net short exposure hit a new record of -74,917, net euro shorts hit a new all time record of -85,326. This is occurring even as the cable saw last week's record shorts of -71,624 tighten marginally to just -67,073. Yet the biggest stunner was the whopping collapse in Yen net short positions, which moved from +10,161 to -30,866: the biggest net short in the Japanese currency since 2007. This is happening just in time for the Yen to hit fresh 7 month lows against the dollar, as the Yen is back to being the funding currency for all carry trades. The one currency which is openly being sold by its central bank, the CHF, saw shorts increase by 5.5k from -1,088 to -6.540.

With the US economy expected to drop to third place, behind China and India, with almost virtual certainty, by 2050, emerging markets, especially those that have a positive trade balance with the US, not just BRICs, will play an increasingly important role, especially now that the US trade deficit has become extremely politicized. Attached is a useful snapshot of the key emerging market trends, particularly in the context of waning economic powerhouses such as the US and Japan. As the authors observe: "The overriding common interest of China, India, Russia and the developed world is to find technological and political solutions to the challenges of energy security, climate change and the rebalancing of global demand. But free trade and free capital flows did not in fact survive the replacement of the UK by the USA as the world’s leading economic power, and this directly contributed to the Great Depression and huge undershoot in global equity returns of the 1930s. History warns that this could happen again, despite a strong common interest in “mutually assured prosperity.” However, this is just another way of saying that it is macro factors rather than micro ones that are most germane to the valuation debate. When people assert that the market is overvalued, they are really expressing their skepticism about the future of US productivity growth and/or the future of globalization. Logically enough, the reverse is also true: if you believe in the potential benefits of accelerating technological change and the dramatic rise of the emerging world, then the next decade for US equities is likely to be a bright one."

In this must watch Real News Network interview with William Black, the outspoken critic of all that is wrong and broken with the current system spares no words to once again denounce the (purposeful) ineffectiveness of the administration, and rightfully predicts that with Obama's current track record of inactivity in dealing with the corruption and criminality at the nexus of finance and politics, there will be a massive loss for Democrats at the upcoming mid-term elections. In Black's words: "We knew as soon as we saw Summers and Geithner that the finance side of the administration would be a disaster, but we hoped that political side would be preeminent and say a) this is substantively wrong to continue get in bed with finance and b) it's terrible politics. The democratic party will be crushed if it does this. The political side has failed to get involved. This is one of those rare things where doing the right thing is really good politics, so support candidates that will actually do the right thing. And if the Obama administration continues this way, it's going to have a record disaster at the mid-term elections. There's going to be a massive loss of democratic seats."

Bob Doll, Vice Chairman of BlackRock (BLK), the world's biggest money manager, appeared at CNBC on March 29 sharing his latest views with Ken Langone.

Dear human race,

First of all, you’re welcome. In the last few days I’ve been overwhelmed by your letters and calls expressing your gratitude to Apple, and mostly to me personally, for inventing yet another life-changing, mind-altering product. All I can tell you is that with iPad, as with all of our products, all we did was create something that we want to use. We’re just so glad that you want to use it too. It’s humbling, actually. When you devote your entire life to the endless, selfless quest to improve the lives of others; when you live a monk-like existence, and focus all of your power and genius on the singular goal of creating objects that nourish souls and transform people’s lives with magic and wonder; and when people tell you that this is, indeed, what you’ve done — well, it’s gratifying. Namaste, entire population of Spaceship Earth. I honor the place where your desire to consume becomes one with my desire to create.

- Fake Steve Jobs

The recently (in)famous Michael Burry, writes a blistering op-ed for the NYT, in which he implicitly asks one simple question: just how dumb are Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke? The man who foresaw it all, subprime crisis, banking system collapse, counterparty risk, CDS scapegoating and emerged from the second coming of Great Depression 2.0 a much wealthier man, has so far had exactly zero invitations to share his insight with Washington's Wall Street proxy legislators, and, in addition, has had his forecasting skills called a "statistical illusion" by the very same Greenspan who took the economy to the brink, and whose successor is now doing just that in the second doomed great reflation experiment. At this point one has to be an immaculate idiot (read Chairman of the Fed) not to see, that what the Fed is doing with the pursuit of the same catastrophic monetary policy which failed the first time around, and will fail now, is pushing us straight into the abyss, from where America just barely managed to crawl out in 2009 via $3 trillion in additional public debt issuance to date (a number which will likely hit $10 trillion within the next 5 years, to result in a debt-GDP ratio of approximately 200% when including the GSEs). It has gotten so bad that even Fed governors are begging Bernanke to stop the madness before it is too late: a first sign of internal mutiny. Alas, just like when everyone ignored Michael Burry, who laughed into the face of conventional groupthink in the mid-2000's (which by definition is always wrong, and will be this time around as well), so will Wall Street and its proxy, Washington D.C., ignore that which is all too obvious until it is once again too late. Hopefully by then intelligent and very rich life on Mars will be discovered, cause there will be no one left to bail out not just the US, but the world.

What expands asses across America alongside narrowing ranges on the NYSE? Easter chocolate, of course! A quick look at 30-minute, daily & weekly charts of Hershey (HSY), Kraft (KFT) and Tootsie Roll (TR) across several of our proprietary trading screens.

For all the gold bugs, let's run some numbers.

...and we bet that was a trip and a half.  Radio Zero returns, ready to act in your preemptive self-defense to fend off the horrors of in-laws and contrived egg hunts.  And really, we know wherefrom we speak.  To wit: ("Gee, great job Suzie.  Who would have thought the egg was hidden in the same flower pot as last year?  No, it is true.  You are a child prodigy.  Yes, of course I mean it.  It takes a special kind of child to stay obese all this time in the face of the massive Adderall doses your mother feeds you out of her own prescription.  Oh, no, don't cry!  It just means there's more of you to love!")

No, I haven't been invited back- so now we can spin for you.  I'll jump on the decks first.  But that means I'm just the opening act.  Our headliner tonight?  Jana von Alpha.  ("Brace for trance impact!")

http://radio.cl.zerohedge.com

Dreading the in-laws?  How about chatting up the DJ (and the other Sunrisers) via our new and improved IRC server: chat.zerohedge.com.  Instructions for the new security protocols here: http://chat.zerohedge.com.

Need personalized instruction?  Can do.  Just AIM ("instant messenger) us here: aim:radiozh or (for assistance at the speed of ObamaCare) leave a comment in this thread).

Standard connections on port 6667, SSL encrypted via port 6697

Join us.

1:30(ish) am ET.

Imagine a world without bankers. That thought either rattles you to the core of your being, or it brings on the kind of ecstasy heretofore only available in a Southeast Asian massage parlor. If you are a Congressman, addicted to the effluent from the wallets of your owners on Wall Street and their lobbyists in Washington, if you are a real estate developer who believes no amount of office space and no amount of luxury condominiums is too much, or if you summer in the Hamptons and Nantucket, then you are clearly in the first camp. If you are a typical ZH’er, spending your weekends at the range with your Beretta or sharpening the tines on your pitchfork, then welcome to SE Asia and the world of your wildest fantasy.