Archive - Jan 3, 2011

• Hedge funds offered weak returns in 2010 (Reuters)
• Wishful thinking: China's Inflation May Cool With Factory Slowdown (Bloomberg)
• And some more: Big Firms Poised to Spend Again (WSJ)... then again they have been poised for about a year now...
• And a little more: Investors' Forecast: Sunny With Chance of Overheating (WSJ)
• Albert Edwards, SocGen bear, takes a bite out of China (Guardian)
• Australia Hit by Devastating Floods (FT)
• Congress Targets Spending (WSJ)
• Euro Falls Most in Two Weeks on Concern Debt Crisis to Hamper Fund Raising (Bloomberg)
• Manufacturing activity helps European rally (FT)

Two years ago, Ken Lewis decided to scapegoat then General Counsel (and incidentally the guy who just happens to know more about BofA's dirty laundry than almost anyone else in the world, most certainly including Julian Assange - and that two year non-disparagement clause is pretty much over...) Tim Mayopoulos for no reason whatsoever, resulting in the termination of the latter without cause. Subsequently, we learned that this action was taken purely to prevent then head of Investment Banking at the world's laughing stock of a C-grade investment bank, and current CEO, Brian Moynahan, from going somewhere (rumor has it the 4th Bangalore Bank of Junk Bond underwriting had expressed a preliminary interest, and even provided a $0.69 retention bonus). Subsequently, Mayopoulos ended up as GC at perpetually insolvent GSE Fannie Mae. And since then, the bad blood has been flowing, most recently involving the dust up between the GSEs which have been demanding legal action against the zombie mortgage lender (BofA for the cheap seats) accusing it of Reps and Warranties breaches (and as the recent filing by Allstate showed, there sure are many of those). And this is just the beginning. As of a few minutes ago, we have learned that Fannie and its scorned GC just scored another victory against that other just-as-insolvent organization.

The key events driving futures where else but, yawn, higher.

A day which is a market holiday for many parts around the world, see the US reports its ISM and construction outlays… Also, since it is a day ending in "y", Goldman FX desk protege Brian Sack will be buying stuff: formally, $7-9 billion bonds due 2/15/2018 – 11/15/2020. Informally: 4.0x+ beta stocks.

RANsquawk European Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 03/01/11

Are silver and crude just happy to see 2011 or is that a tent in their minute charts? Silver briefly traded above $31 earlier, then penetrated the new magic number with aplomb, as investors had a chance to sit down over the weekend and realize that Bernanke, as we wrote over the past few days, has no choice but to start infusing his favorite WSJ with wafts of Large(r) Scale Asset Purchases via Goldman liaison Bill Dudley. Amusingly enough, we hear that Jon Hilsenrath has now developed a bit of cult following. Literally. Several "expert networks" are now rumored to be hot on the heels of the WSJ reporter as a leading indicator to the upcoming QE2extension . It is expected that his upcoming frequent visit clusters to the FRBNY, of which there have been many in the past two years, will be the best sign of when "the article" is about to go to print. And while we noted that it does appear to be mostly smooth sailing for PM longs, the same is the case for oil. WTI just hit $91.99 before backing off briefly. Look for $92 to be taken out cleanly and clinically as crude presses on to $100 some time in the next two weeks.

So far, Bank of America has been aggressively denying it will in any way be compromised by any possible Wikileaks disclosure. After all the bank claims it has done nothing to merit a take down based on what Assange has claimed is an "ecosystem of corruption." As everyone knows, Bank of America is the most non-MERS abusing, bonus non-extracting, putback over-reserved, and otherwise law abiding bank in existence. Which is why we are just modestly troubled by the fact that this innocent not until proven guilty but in perpetuity bank is doing all it can to demonstrate that there is in fact a very disturbing ecosystem just below the surface. The NYT reports that "a team of 15 to 20 top Bank of America officials, led by
the chief risk officer, Bruce R. Thompson, has been overseeing a broad
internal investigation — scouring thousands of documents in the event
that they become public, reviewing every case where a computer has gone
missing and hunting for any sign that its systems might have been
compromised." What goes unsaid is that BofA is really looking for what the disclosed dirty laundry is. Which really makes no sense: after all, for that to be the case, there would have to be dirty laundry in the first place, which would mean Bank of America is lying. How does one go about reconciling these two mindbogglingly contradictory facts...

Does the low VIX indicate overcomplacency in the market or is it a shift into a low-vol regime?

Perhaps you believe that integrating our economy, our currency and our government with the rest of the world would be a wonderful thing. If that is the case, please feel free to leave a comment explaining exactly why globalism is such a wonderful thing for all of us....