Archive - 2010

Watch a live congressional hearing on executive compensation which is certain to get rather contentious as none other than vocal financial policy critic Joseph Stiglitz is present.

Live feed found here.

Larry is asked on his view of the ever escalating war with Wall Street
and its implications: "If you do the right things for the fundamentals
and for soundness, over time markets tend to work out. And if you let
your policies be guided by day to day market movements, that's what
tends to be the problem. If you ask yourself 'how did we get here?' one
central part of how we got there, one central part was all those people
who believed all those prices, believed all those credit spreads, who
let day to day market levels be their guide through 2006 through the early part of 2007." Wow, Larry - maybe Obama's speechwriter should tone down the constant reference to the "Dow Jones" in that case to highlight just what a great job the increasingly clueless president is doing.

As the administration's every TV appearance is predicated first and foremost by indicating just how high the market has "risen" in the past x minutes, hours, days, and months, Larry's statement that it is perfectly ok to use the market response when things are going ok, but to ignore it when its says the administration has fucked up beyond compare, is the supreme epitome of hypocrisy.

Yet more tactical allocation thoughts from Damien Cleusix, this time on the topic of Fixed Income.

• A declaration of war on Wall Streeet (FT)
• Mort Zuckerman: The Great Recession continues (WSJ)
• Obama's bank plan impact hinges on how to define client trades (Bloomberg)
• Goldman, JPMorgan may be forced to sell buyout units under Obama proposal (Bloomberg)
• Goldman's escape route might be the private road (Bloomberg)
• Obama bank plan shows lack of global coordination (Bloomberg)

• Asian stocks, oil fall on China rates concern, Obama bank plan.
• Asia-Pacific bond risk jumps on Obama bank threat, China growth.
• China is expected to soon surpass Japan as No.2 economy on its revision of 2008 GDP.
• China’s growth surge may make inflation task tougher: Chinese Premier.
• Gold heads for biggest weekly slump in six on Dollar's gain, China outlook.
• Iraq signs Zubair oil field deal with Italy's Eni, US firm Occidental and SKorea's KOGAS.

Well, it looks like Blankein, Dimon, et. al. really should have tried harder to make that meeting with the President a couple of weeks ago. It appeared as if he may have had something important to discuss. Here is a clear break down of the how much principal and prop trading adds to the top and implied bottom lines of Goldman, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Bank of America.

With regulation rising, fees shrinking, and taxes about to take a quantum leap up, who needs it? The scapegoating and demonization of hedge fund managers. Why become a witch, just as the Salem witch trials are starting? Have they no shame? You might as well pour sugar in the fuel tank of my Gulfstream.

RANsquawk 22nd January Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc.

Is Obama's best policy to date a mere farce to replenish political capital ahead of midterms?

One of the largest state-operated workers comp fund had massively misrepresented its performance. And you thought only Bernie could pull off multi-billion dollar scams...

As we drill down into the details of ideas for breaking the economic and political power of oversized banks, we need this litmus test against which serious suggestions should be judged: Does a proposal, at the end of the day, imply that Goldman Sachs should break itself up into at least four or five independent pieces, with the biggest being no more than 1 percent of gross domestic product, or roughly $150 billion?

If the answer is yes, we are making progress in moving our financial system back toward where it was in the early 1990s, when it worked fine (and Goldman was a world-class investment bank) and was much less threatening to the global economy. If the answer is no, we are merely repainting -- ever so gently -- the deckchairs on the Titanic.

Jesse points out an interesting observation coming from our friends over at Contrary Investor, that MBS purchases by the Fed as reported in H.4.1 tend to cluster around OpEx dates. This can be seen graphically on the attached table. The implication is clear: provide liquidity around the time most needed to "sustain" the market each month. Alas, we are willing to relieve the Fed of any allegations of wrongdoing, at least in this particular instance...

Since we can't understand a single word he is saying, we assume it is just the usual worthless drivel we have all grown to love and expect from the adorable megalomaniac. One part we could understand that caused an immediate liquification of our collective frontal lobes: we didn't feel like proposing the type of sweeping reform seen today, because "how do we not know that the next administration will not undo it and cause the kind of problems we had before." Then the Frankster says he will push off asset sales for 5 five years - just in time for this hypothetical "next administration" to come in an undo everything proposed by Obama. It is time Barney Frank follow the example of Dodd and spend much more time with his wife and children...

The Nikkei just wiped out all gains for 2010 in less than 3 hours. Elsewhere it is not much better: Shanghai down 1.52% and Hang Seng down 1.63% at last check. Furthermore, in taking a page from the rating agency playbook, the Hang Seng Index broke earlier as a result of excess selling.

This is it - we have gotten to the stage where every week we expect the Fed's balance sheet to reach new record highs. As the Fed has practically rolled off its emergency liquidity measures (foreign FX swaps are practically zero this week), the only variable on the margin will be direct securities holdings... and those are going to continue growing for at least 3 more months, and likely much longer. Look for the Fed's balance sheet to be at least $2.5 trillion by mid March.