Archive - Jan 12, 2011

RANsquawk Market Wrap Up - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 12/01/11

Are we heading for long-term structural unemployment?

Earlier today we presented Bill Gross on Bloomberg TV, in a segment which confirmed that while the PIMCO boss is bearish on Europe, even though literally all the world is now involved in backstopping the PIIGS, he is bullish on bankrupt states and municipalities. Per Bloomberg: Bill Gross, who manages the world’s biggest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co., clashed with Meredith Whitney, the banking analyst, when he said he doubted there would be many local-government bankruptcies. “Ultimately, municipal bankruptcies will be at a lower level,” Gross said today on Bloomberg Television’s “InBusiness” program. “I don’t subscribe to the theory that there will be lots of them.” Alas for PIMCO and its billions in Build America Bond holdings, the Muni market at this point couldn't care less. As the charts below demonstrate, the muni carnage is again back on the main burner. And it will only get worse with every day that a BAB replacement program is not provided. From there, to a full blown domino effect, the line is very, very thin.

The topic of how much money the Fed is gifting to the Primary Dealers via POMO comissions has to become front and center right now. While we appreciate fluff "profile" pieces in the NYT addressing the issue tangentially, and assuring us via worthless promises by people whose one purpose in life is to pad the pockets of their future employers in preparation for that inevitable day when said parasites move from faux public service to doing the hard core biddings of a vampire squid, the truth is that this is daylight robbery and it is happening in front of everyone's eyes. As a reminder, per the NYT: "As offers to sell Treasuries flash on a bank of trading screens, a computer algorithm works out which ones to accept." We contest that this algorithm is costing tapxayer billions each and every month and demand that Bill Dudley, Brian Sack, Josh Frost or one of the 20 year old henchmen traders immediately disclose just wha the operatin terms of the algorithm are, and what the slippage is. The reason: we have reason to believe that the Fed's slippage rate is up to 5%. On a monthly POMO notional total of over $100 billion, this means that the Fed hands out well over $5 billion each and every month to the Primary Dealers. This is an abortion of the Fed's fiduciary responsibility and should be criminal if proven to be in fact correct.

After a week ago Zero Hedge speculated that China Green Agriculture (CGA) may be the "next Chinese fraud" based on an extensive report by J Capital claiming the company could be shell worth about 80% less than it was trading at the time, it appears that the SEC has finally shut down its midget porn TV station and realized that the microcap market it is supposed to be policing has become a playfield of fraud and 10(b)-5 lies, and has decided to launch an inquiry into the company's operations looking at the fraud allegations. Once again, Zero Hedge is happy to have brought attention to a problem some may consider epidemic: namely pervasive market fraud and lies.

Here's my updated list of top financial experts saying that the giant banks are too big, and that their very size is hurting the economy ...

While the fact that PIMCO is not a big fan of Europe is not surprising, nor is it surprising that Bill is talking his BAB book, and is therefore bullish on the muni question (especially on a relative basis, in essence saying that the US Treasury is in the same insolvency boat as California), what is surprising is that Newportbeachian, at least superficially, appears honestly confused what happens in June when QE2 ends. Which is funny: Fed's Fisher earlier said that the central bank has reached its limit of asset purchases... barring unexpected shock. Which of course means completely expected to the Fed. And since the Fed has to continue monetizing all the deficit issuance, it has no choice but to continue QE2. The conclusion is that in April or May, something "unexpected" will happen to give the Fed ammo to continue monetizing. May 6 anniversary anyone?

The New York Fed's equity crash prevention team of Sack-Frost has just released its most recent POMO schedule. Over the next month, ending on February 9, the Fed will purchase about $112 billion in debt in 18 discrete operations. And for the first time unlike the prior two QE2 monthly schedules, there is not one dual POMO day. From the release: "Across all operations in the schedule listed below, the Desk plans to purchase approximately $112
billion. This represents $80 billion in
purchases of the announced $600 billion purchase program and $32 billion
in purchases associated with principal payments from agency debt and
agency MBS expected to be received between mid-January and mid-February." The days when there is no POMO will be Monday, January 17 and Wednesday, January 26. All other days have a POMO operation scheduled.

Bastiat makes the mistake of looking at the economic problem from the point of view of SOCIETY which, it turns out, has little to do with Corporate Profits, where Keynes is right as the forced extraction of wealth from the lower classes... is BRILLIANT!

A few days ago, when it was first announced that Portugal is contemplating a direct placement of bonds (with amount and buyer undisclosed), we speculated: "Reuters reports that Portugal is in the process of making a private
placement of bonds, without announcing details on size or the buyer. Our
guess: buyer is China, and size is about €1 billion." We were off. By €100 million. The WSJ has just confirmed that China was indeed the buyer, and the amount purchased was €1.1 billion. It is unclear if, as we suspect, Goldman Sachs was the underwriter on the transaction.

Today's 10 year $21 billion auction closed at 3.388%, an increase from last month's 3.34% and the highest since May 2010. The Bid To Cover came at a strong 3.30 compared to the one year average 3.12, and much better compared to last month's 2.92. The reason for the strong auction, which has caused 10 Years to pare their losses on the day is that indirect bidding jumped, and took down a whopping 53.6%. Just as importantly is that Primary Dealers, read the Fed's shell intermediaries, bought just 31.6% of the auction (with 14.9% going to Directs): this is the lowest primary dealer take down ever (at least according to our database)! This is very surprising as the Fed continues to have to monetize every single auction eventually, which means that China et al, who make up the indirect bidder roster, will have to flip their bonds to the Fed sooner or later, presumably at a profit. This also confirms our observations that PDs have become allergic to US paper in recent week, with PD UST holdings plunging by a stunning $70+ billion since late November. This trend appears to not be reversing for now.

The reason for today's most recent bizarro boil up per Bloomberg: "The European Central Bank spent between 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) and 1.5 billion euros in government bonds in the last two days, according to Nomura International Plc estimates." No news yet on how much Japan, China, the Smurfs, and Uranus ended up having to purchase to bring you today's 1% surge in stocks.

Virtually every US media continues to ignore the situation in Algeria and now Tunisia, where rioting predicated by high unemployment (read massive economic slack) and surging cost of living (but, but, didn't you just say massive slack??? how the hell can cost of living be up if you have "massive" slack? that's unpossible - the San Fran Fed has said so repeatedly), especially food prices, has just escalated once again. According to RFI, Tunisian rioting has spread to the capital, following more protesters (killed by the Police), and where a curfew has just been imposed. "Weeks of unrest in Tunisia have spread to the capital, where the heaviest protests took place on Wednesday. Police opened fire on a demonstration in the central town of Douz, killing two, the AFP wire service reports." And, lo and behold: even in Tunisia politicians are accountable when surging prices lead to death: the Tunisian interior minister was sacked earlier in an attempt to placate the rioters. Alas, no such luck: "The sacking of the Tunisian interior minister and the deployment of troops has failed to bring calm to the capital Tunis which again erupted on Wednesday. Security forces fired tear gas on hundreds of demonstrators in the heaviest protests yet in the capital after weeks of demonstrations since December." What fools: do they not realize that Core CPI in the US is pretty much at the lowest it has ever been? They should all just disperse and eat 50% off LCD TVs post haste.

Facebook will have to hit 65% of today’s total (as in the ENTIRE) world population (not factoring in population growth/shrinkage) by c.2020 to justify anything approaching a $50B valuation

Quote the chairman: "This fear of inflation is way overstated. We've looked at it very, very carefully. We've analyzed it every which way... We will not allow inflation to rise above 2% or less... I am 100% certain i can control inflation." Presenting the Jefferies global commodity index (CRB) which just hit a 27 month high.