Archive - Jan 2011

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....

2010 was not a kind year to the president. While Obama's economic policy was prevented from being an all out catastrophe courtesy of two last minute fiscal and monetary stimuli, US unemployment ended the year virtually where it started, a whisper away from 10%: a fact which many believe resulted in the democrats' rout following the midterm elections. And with the unknown variables surrounding the economy on par with a year ago levels, there are a few certian numbers that can be used to describe Obama's term in 2010. Marc Knoller of CBS News breaks down pretty much all of them.

The United States and its leaders are stuck in their own Catch 22. They need the economy to improve in order to generate jobs, but the economy can only improve if people have jobs. They need the economy to recover in order to improve our deficit situation, but if the economy really recovers long term interest rates will increase, further depressing the housing market and increasing the interest expense burden for the US, therefore increasing the deficit. A recovering economy would result in more production and consumption, which would result in more oil consumption driving the price above $100 per barrel, therefore depressing the economy. Americans must save for their retirements as 10,000 Baby Boomers turn 65 every day, but if the savings rate goes back to 10%, the economy will collapse due to lack of consumption. Consumer expenditures account for 71% of GDP and need to revert back to 65% for the US to have a balanced sustainable economy, but a reduction in consumer spending will push the US back into recession, reducing tax revenues and increasing deficits. You can see why Catch 22 is the theme for 2011.

If you think Gold's 30% gain last year is impressive, one base metal--Copper--even outshined the precious metal by rallying 33% on the year. After a short cover rally in Dec., looking ahead into 2011, the price direction of copper will likely still hinge on supply, and mostly China demand, but it also depends on a couple of new market factors emerged just within the last year or so.

The new year is finally here, which means the new composition of Congress and the Senate is now in play and tickets to another year of political theater are rapdily selling out. In the meantime, republicans are not wasting a single minute. Michigan Rep Fred Upton, who will lead the House Energy and Commerce committee, said today that he expects "significant" bipartisan support for a proposed repeal of the health care overhaul -- a vote he said would be held before President Obama's State of the Union address, reports Fox News. Politico chimes in: "We have 242 Republicans. There will be a significant number of Democrats, I think, that will join us. You will remember when that vote passed in the House last March, it only passed by seven votes." Of course, this is just more of the same theatrical BS that has made all of America sick and tired with the charade that is "democratic" governance. And wlsewhere, just to confirm that America's banana republic will be cemented in under three months, when Congress passes the debt ceiling to well over $15.5 trillion, Austan Goolsbee was heard advising America not to play chicken with the debt ceiling (i.e., to pass it to an arbitrary number with preferably one hundred zeroes). The alternative to not increasing the ceiling is per Goolsbee, in true kleptocrat fashion, untold misery and destruction.

Perusing the latest hedge fund trend monitor from Goldman Sachs, we find that the world's biggest groupthink stock and hedge fund hotel, Apple has just been upgraded from 5 stars to 6 stars. Compared to our last update, when we uncovered that a whopping 181 funds were long the name, this number has subsequently risen even more, and most recently 190 hedge funds (not including mutual funds) were long the name. Should the company, which is priced beyond perfection, have some unpleasant news to report ever in its future, just hedge funds will need at least 2 straight days to liquidate their holdings in the name.

The most powerful force in the universe is the seed of an idea that is embodied and made real, first in our minds and then with our hands. Often the cost of implementation is minor except for the activating ingredients, those most precious and rare elements called imagination, inspiration, initiative and leadership.

Here are my 10 most favorite/important articles from 2010, all of them are still relevant today.

Regular readers of ZH are all too familiar with the market-distorting impact of the various incarnations of QE on the equity markets. One interesting way of looking at the result is a histogram of daily returns on the S&P 500. The most relevant observation is the lack of symmetry in the daily returns since April 2009. In the prior decades, the bars immediately to the right and left of the mode (and on out the distribution) are nearly identical in size giving a VERY symmetrical distribution. Since April 2009, each pair of bars as you work away from the mode show a clear skew toward the more positive return than the less positive counterpart. The ability of QE to achieve these results in spite of Dubai, Greece, Ireland, commodity price spikes and a reversal in 10 year Treasury rates has been remarkable. That which cannot continue, will . . . until it does not.