Archive - Jan 2011

Small business sentiment (which misses badly), wholesale inventories, JOLTS, and weakly [sic] lack of confidence…Last POMO of current schedule ends at 11 am, and new schedule is released by several 20 year olds at 2 pm.

All the news that refuses to matter when bad, and causes manic surges in the EURUSD when not bad, continues to come out of Europe. All the other global news just refuses to matter period, unless it has to do with the Fed's linen printing habits.

For all cowards who did not put their life savings in the Banlgadesh stock market after yesterday's record plunge and subsequent halt, and obviously have no clue how modern markets work, we have one acronym for you: BTFD. To everyone else, who made 15% in one day and can now close the books for 2011, congratulations. A day after Brian Sack was rumored to be seen tweaking the Bangladesh stock exchange's 3 16 MHz 286 High Frequency Trading machines, which can execute a whopping 0.5 transactions per second, and lifting all 2 offers in Level 2 when put in Designated Market Maker mode, the Bangladesh stock exchange is surging, and 1,000% margin debt-laden speculator protesters who were rioting as recently as 24 hours ago, are basking in their newly rediscovered wealth effect.

All you wanted to know about why the world is bankrupt in many pretty charts.

Europe is now literally living day to day. After last night it was announced that Japan is joining China in purchasing a substantial portion of European debt, using its FX reserves to buy up to 20% of European issuance and thus becoming simply the latest selfish trade surplus country doing all it can to keep its key export partner afloat (to the detriment of USD bond purchasing, confirming the Fed's monetization of debt will never end), today that ultimate backstop, the ECB, has for the second day in a row been purchasing Portuguese bonds to make sure there is no collapse in the sovereign debt market. The good news: Greece managed to place €1.95 billion in 6 month Bills... at the ridiculous rate of 4.9% and 3.4 Bid to Cover, which nonetheless happened to be an deterioration in both rate from the previous November 9 Bill auction, printing at 4.82%, and had a much higher 5.15 bid to cover.

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

This hypothetical comes pretty close to the perfect definition of a TBTF FUBAR.

Retail traders are notoriously wrong at picking market direction/tops and bottoms. Most retail traders very naturally seem to adopt a counter-trend stance and this offers very accurate signals for individuals looking to trade against this group. This daily report is designed to help traders focus their efforts on higher probability pairs.

The week started off with a $7.8b POMO by the NY Fed, providing a breather for the USD’s recent rally. Risk remained muted, with the S&P closing down marginally, but with some intraday strength.

Is Florida's pension fund broke?

Over one year after Zero Hedge made POMO, and the Fed's open market operations group a household name, and Brian Sack a household curse, the NYT has finally decided to write an expose on the people who are charged with enforcing America's transition to central planning. And they just happen to be the grizzled 40 year old Mr. Sack, a 34 year old supervisor, two 29-year olds and a 26 year old ... who goes to NYU. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, these are the people who are gifting billions in commissions to the Primary Dealers on a daily basis. You see, the FRBNY whiz-kids have a "computer algorithm that works out which [offers] to [lift]. The computer compares the offers from Wall Street against market prices and the Fed’s own calculation of what constitutes a “fair value” price." In other words, taxpayers are getting raped during each and every single POMO but that's ok - the Fed's algorithm, probably created by yet another ex-Goldmanite, determines that said raping is "fair" and with absolutely no transparency anywhere in the process, except of course the Fed telegraphing in advance what bonds will be monetized, there is no way to ever check... Because that kind of mutually assured destructive disclosure would mean the financial world would promptly implode in a case study of total protonic reversal. After all, only smart people (and we are talking Wall Street smart) can handle the responsible truth... of daily Primary Dealer Subsidies.

In what may one day be heralded as the formal proposal that proverbially started it all, the Commonwealth of Virginia introduced House Resolution No. 557 to establish a joint subcommittee to "to study whether the Commonwealth should adopt a currency to serve as an alternative to the currency distributed by the Federal Reserve System in the event of a major  breakdown of the Federal Reserve System." In other words, Virginia will study the fallback plan of a "timely adoption of an alternative sound currency that the Commonwealth's government and citizens may employ without delay in the event of the destruction of the Federal Reserve System's currency" and avoid or "at least mitigate many of the economic, social, and political shocks to be expected to arise from hyperinflation, depression, or other economic calamity related to the breakdown of the Federal Reserve System." Most importantly as pertain to the currency in question, "Americans may employ whatever currency they choose to stipulate as the medium for payment of their private debts, including gold or silver, or both, to the exclusion of a currency not redeemable in gold or silver that Congress may have designated 'legal tender'." Whether this resolution will ever get off the ground, and actually find that the world is at great risk should gold not be instituted as a backstop currency, is irrelevant. The mere fact that it is out there, should provide sufficient impetus to other states to consider the ultimate Plan B.

We urge all legislators to carefully read this resolution.

Yum ...

Loughner's expression was impassive as he walked in [court], looked straight at the crowd at the back of the room packed with reporters, then turned around to speak to his attorney, Judy Clarke. He responded "yes" when asked if he understood his rights.

No government debt has ever been or can ever be repaid in full. This is especially the case when a government imposes a monopoly on what can be used as money by passing and enforcing “legal tender” laws. The US did this with the introduction of the Fed in 1913. Eventual default becomes an absolute certainty when government makes its own debt paper the ONLY “reserve” behind the “money” it alone can create. The US did this under President Nixon in 1971. The whole world went along with it because the US Dollar was the reserve currency and no government or people anywhere dared jettison it. The result is the global financial quagmire we see everywhere we look. - Bill Buckler