Archive - Oct 2011

The official list of demands sucks ... oh, wait ... there isn't any official list of demands

Ignoring the knee-jerk reaction of stocks to rally 4% on the headlines that Dexia will be save and other banks will be recapitalized, it is worth thinking about what this really means and the next logical steps. For now I will not even focus on the fact that this was from a meeting of Finance Ministers and not heads of state.  I left my "EU Leadership" trading cards at the office, but so far, not many of the big names, who can actually close the deal, have spoken.  I won't even focus on the fact that Dexia has been on the fringe of "contagion" discussion.  Look at articles about "contagion" or "debt crisis" and PIIGS and French Banks and German Banks and Italian Banks show up in nearly every article.  Dexia is discussed less frequently, though ZeroHedge has been on top of it for awhile.  So stocks rose 4% on a plan of a plan to plan a plan for a bank they hadn't heard of until this morning.  Hmmm.

UPDATE: Moody's ITA downgrade took some shine off as EUR drops 60 pips and ES now 13pts off its highs. TSYs are 3-4bps lower in yields. Gold/Silver not moving much on it.

On the basis of old news, more promises, lack of any clarity, and Dexia's dump on the Belgian government, the equity markets staged a 4% rally in the last 45 minutes to end an incredible day. Our assumption is that this was simply the bounce that everyone expected as we seemed to have squeezed shorts into lunch and were limping back lower on AAPL disappointment. Quite clearly, there were a few uncomfortable equity shorts who were squeezed out rapidly and incessantly as the S&P massively outperformed credit as well as the broad basket of risk assets - even TSYs only managed to sell back to earlier day's high yields (as opposed to extending). Gold/Silver rallied (though well off week highs) as the USD dumped back near the week's lows and copper and oil rallied but again no where near as ebullient as stocks. Evidently, the equity move is exuberant at best but these squeezes seem able to maintain longer than anyone expects.

And here we go again. Ironically, this is nothing. Wait until S&P, which just telegraphed very loudly the next steps earlier, puts France on downgrade review...

Here are the key selected sections from the FT story that sent the Dow Jones soaring 400 points from its intraday lows: "Although the details of the plan are still under discussion, officials said EU ministers meeting in Luxembourg had concluded that they had not done enough to convince financial markets that Europe’s banks could withstand the current debt crisis... “There is an increasingly shared view that we need a concerted, co-ordinated approach in Europe while many of the elements are done in the member states,” Olli Rehn, European commissioner for economic affairs, told the Financial Times. “There is a sense of urgency among ministers and we need to move on.” Mr Rehn cautioned that while there was “no formal decision” to begin a Europe-wide effort, co-ordination among EU’s institutions – including the European Central Bank, European Banking Authority and the European Commission – on necessary measures had intensified." So, there is .... nothing definite, just more speculation, more rumors, and more innuendo. But hey, it worked last week with the Liesman rumor. It obviously would work for the FT which has become the End of Day rumor source du jour, first with China bailout rumors (since denied), then with recapitalization rumors (denied), and now with this joke. Pathetic.

If anyone had any doubt this market is broken beyond compare and controlled by complete idiots, this should put all doubts to rest. Anyone wondering why stocks are soaring, the reason is that according to non-news, because this was first reported yesterday by the FT, Dexia will park €180 billion in worthless assets in a bad bank. This is beyond ridiculous as Belgium, even in JV with France, will be unable to ringfence and hence fund this amount of capital for the now nationalized bank. It also means that Belgium is about to be downgraded following a long-overdue warning by S&P and Moodys to cut the country. It also means that Belgian CDS will soon trade points up front. It also means that Belgian funding costs will soar. It also means that French CDS will explode tomorrow and that interbank markets in Europe will collapse (even more) once the market realizes that France has just diluted its "bailout dry capital" by rescuing a Belgian bank. And so on. And so on. But for now the ripfest is here. Fade every uptick as this is sheer desperation out of Belgium which pretends it is Switzerland and can do with Dexia what the Swiss did with UBS. Hint: it is not and no, it can't.

I am amazed at how these Captain Obvious “analysts” do nothing more than state the obvious, and rather late at that.

We warned you of the crowded Apple trade last week.

Update: Apple.com appears back up for now. Which is more than we can say about Countrywide Financial.

Millions of middle class citizens in the U.S. sink deeper into despair every day. Day by day hope is being lost that the future for our children will be better than our past. The political, financial, and corporate leaders of our country are intellectually and morally bankrupt. The major Wall Street banks are bankrupt. Social Security is bankrupt. Medicare is bankrupt. The whole damned world is bankrupt. Anyone with an unbiased view of our planet would conclude that we are in unfathomable danger. The list of impending catastrophic issues that will blow up the world for millions in the U.S. and across the globe is virtually endless... When I started to detail the issues facing our country today, I expected to come up with 10 to 20 bullet points of key concerns. As I methodically worked through the categories of challenges facing the American Empire, the total reached 76 bullet points. The facts as presented above paint a picture of impending doom for America. The slogans and vapid “solutions” proposed by political candidates and entrenched Washington politicians do not even scratch the surface of what would need to be done to save this country from economic collapse. Many of these problems took decades to create and are not solvable in a reasonable time frame. With the country still delusion, overleveraged, and underemployed, it seems like the existing economic and social structure will need to be blown up to restore hope in this country.

UPDATE: AAPL -5.25%, $354.24 lows - holding at 200DMA!

Everyone was expecting an iPhone 5 to be announced today, and... instead got a 4S. Whether due to infrastructure issues, or forward demand analysis, or merely Apple releasing the 4S today only to announce the 5 in a few weeks, is unclear, but the market is not liking the development, and has now dragged America's largest publicly traded company over 3% lower. The bigger problem, as always has been with this company, is when does a whale holder decide to bail, and be the first defector on the most storied company in recent history. As the second chart below reminds us, everyone is in Apple. With 181 key hedge fund holders (leaving slow money out of it), what are the odds one will pull out?

Recession.   It is now becoming clearer, even to the mainstream media, that the "Big 'R'" is rapidly approaching, or already upon us.  Without further stimulus from the government the economy will continue its slide into negative growth.  Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the "Calvary" will be charging to the rescue anytime soon.   Bernanke, at this point has effectively punted to the Whitehouse for stimulative action.  The Whitehouse is embroiled in partisan politics which will keep any action from occurring until most likely after the next election.   This leaves the economy and the financial markets to their own devices, and much like kids without parental supervision, they are running amok. I have been very vocal as of late commenting on the fact that a recession is fast approaching.   The trends of the economic numbers have all soured to the negative.   From manufacturing to personal incomes to sentiment they all are signaling a recession lay ahead.   Another confirming indicator of a recessionary track is the spread in yields between junk bonds and high quality bonds.  The chart here shows two different yield spreads.   The blue represents the difference in yields between AAA rated corporate bonds to BB rated bonds while the red represents the spread between 10-yr government treasuries to BB rated bonds.   The dotted horizontal lines represent when these spreads have signaled recessions in the economy.

These charts tell us in no uncertain terms that the US financial system is once again under extreme stress. They tell us that the market is going down, down, DOWN over the coming months.  We're going to be seeing major banks go under, market crashes, food shortages, government shutdowns, and SYSTEMIC FAILURE.

Not just a bunch of uninformed hippies ...

I read the news today oh boy...