Archive - Sep 2010

The place where the global crisis, culminating as a result of 30 years of cheap money, began, Iceland, may well be the place which sees the first ever criminal conviction stemming from the Depression v2. Globe and Mail reports that Iceland's former prime minister has been referred to a special court, which could make him the first world leader to be charged in connection with the global financial crisis.

RANsquawk Market Wrap Up - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 28/09/10

Has it maybe ever occurred to any of our glorious regulators that the reason why nobody has any faith left in the stock market, which has become just a teetering house of cards, supported constantly by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, is due to precisely the kinds of totally nonsensical ramps in the market just as the one we are witnessing right now? Consdering that the economic data could hardly be any worse, how is anyone supposed to trade this complete binary gibberish? We realize there are another ten minutes in trading, which means the S&P will likely make another valiant attempt at 1,150 just to get nothing but more algos to do the buying once limits are triggered. Whether it will succeed is irrelevant, as nobody trades any more, precisely for this reason. And the end result will be merely another flash crash, that will drive absolutely everyone out, up to and including the last few vacuum tubes remaining.

In which we learn that that outspoken iconoclast has now taken on a $2 billion short position in Japanese credit, although presumably not cash-based as Ecclectica is well under that in AUM. For those who wish to recreate this position synthetically, we refer you to Dylan Grice's ATM swaption in the 10Y10Y forward which is the cheapest way to follow in Hugh's footsteps, and, ahem, may we remind you of Takefuji's recent bankruptcy...). His bet is in essence a gamble against the "China will never fail" bandwagon: "I am just intrigued as to the optionality, as to the profits that could be made, should that revert. And because it's deemed to be impossible, the trade is actually asymmetric. By golly if I am right, I can make a lot of money." Another topic is the already much discussed malinvestment in China, which was the centerpiece of the argument between Hendry and Faber from some time ago (link for clip). But back to what actual things Hugh is doing, he gives the following specifics: "I am shorting 10 year industrial corporate debt with 1% yield. Should this ricochet, which began in America, should the west be grappling with fears of recession, it goes to Asia, it goes to China, and I do not believe they have the vitality and consumption to pull the global economy out." And just in case there is any doubt how Hendry view the endgame, here it is:"At these immense levels of yen strength, Japan is bankrupt. And when it's bankrupt it has given up hope, and there is huge political legitimacy to then do quantitative easing, which leads to the debauchery of the system." In other words: the nuclear response of monetary debasement is certainly coming. We won't spoil what Hendry says on gold (suffice to add the following quote: "We will see a joint meltup in US Treasrys and gold") - for his insights on where the metal will go, for a shoutout to all Zero Hedge Hugh Hendry fans, and for much more, listen to the whole interview.

Talking inspiration from the title of Fox Butterfield's book on China, we ponder the glut of dollars

More as we get it. For all those who want to find out what this action will mean very soon, read the following analysis from Bloomberg's Bob Ivry, Prashant Gopal and Jody Shenn: "Foreclosure Flaws May Slow Home Price Fall, Delay Recovery" - it a nutshell: nothing good.

Someone may want to advise the Peru Central Bank that when entering global thermonuclear FX and SPY-manipulation warfare, coming armed with a water pistol against Bernanke's armada of nuclear-armed B2 stealth bombers, may not be the most prudent thing. The Banco Central del Reserva de Peru announced on its website that it has just bought $12 million worth of dollars.... Yeah, $12 million.Which is about half of what Brian Sack pays in brokerage fees every other day when he does the TIPS-for-AMZN swap.

The demand for Tim Geithner paper continues to be insatiable, as today's 5 Year auction prices at an all time low yield of 1.26%, a drop from the previous record of 1.374% from last month. The Bid To Cover continues to demonstrate just how schizophrenic the market has become, where all normal investors buy bonds to front run the Fed, while the Fed-PD complex itself is buying stocks. Make sense yet? Either way, at 2.96, the BTC was the second highest ever, only lower than July's 3.06. And, just like in the previous auction, the Indirects continue to creep ever to the right, taking down the majority of the auction, or 50.1%, leaving 8.7% to the Directs, and a healthy 41.2% to the Primary Dealers, which of course are merely warehousing the paper for a few weeks/months until they flip it back to the Fed for a tidy profit, and use the proceeds for some more 100 P/E stock purchases. Thank you POMO!

A week ago we posted Dave Friedman's insightful piece on "Why We Must Care About Shadow Banking" as shadow banking, whose shadow liabilities comprises the bulk of the unreported M3, represents a critical component of the credit system. Today, we present the second part in this three part series for all who wish to get up to speed with some of the key issues in this most critical topic.

The flash crashes will continue until market confidence returns (this is the second one in Apple today). Who is even trading this insanity anymore? This entire market is about to break hard: any piece of bad news can topple Apple like a house of cards, and that, as we noted earlier, will take the entire market with it. Oh yes, this is supposedly the second most liquid name in the market!

Rumor making rounds now that either of Pimco's top two men could replace the man who destroyed Harvard's endowment. Should either of these two be forced to quit Pimco, it would mean that QE would have to be massive to make sure that the Fed is a backstop of last reserve in case the next head of Pimco is unable to replicate his predecessor's success.

After 831.8K SPY puts were traded yesterday (vs 521K calls), today the trend of aggressive protection buying continues, as almost twice as many puts as calls has traded so far: 496K vs 272K. As the chart below shows, the top five SPY option classes traded today are all Puts, all of which have an October maturity, and strikes of 108, 114, 115, 116, and 112 in terms of popularity. With today's outright criminal market intervention, the surge in popularity of hedging the Fed's market making does not surprise us.

Who the hell knows what is going on with the EURUSD - the only thing that matters now is which central banks will get away with more debasing of its own middle-class. Since Germany still recalls Weimar, the Fed may win this round. Yet, Brown Brothers sees som increasing short-term strength in the EURUSD, then a gradual decline as the increasing weakness in Europe unravels: "After rallying about 6.25% since September 10, the euro may enter a consolidative phase before advancing into the $1.38-$1.40 area in the first half of Q4. However, the euro may then surrender those gains in the second half of the quarter, as QEII is discounted (or not delivered at all), and the loss of economic momentum in Europe, ahead of a 2011 fiscal contraction, keeps debt restructuring fears elevated. The increased possibility that the EFSF has to be drawn upon may also spur speculation that the ECB may not be in a position to remove its emergency liquidity provisions; and indeed may have to actually embark on either more bond purchases or take some additional measures. All this may leave the euro trading around $1.30, if not lower, by year's end."

RANsquawk US Afternoon Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 28/09/10

War does not determine who is right, only who is left. - Bertrand Russell