Archive - Apr 2011

I awakened Sunday morning on three hours of sleep, lucid of mind and filled with dread from an essay linked below that I’d read before going to sleep. Amidst the desiccated hell of Colorado’s, and the entire Southwest’s, pine-forest die-off and a disturbingly winterless winter, even my wife still doesn’t get it. She seems to think that because peak real estate valuations have held up so far in our Rock Creek neighborhood, that they will continue to hold or even rise. It’s difficult to say why prices have stayed aloft in here in Superior, Colorado, which lies just south of Boulder, about 20 minute from downtown Denver. Most likely is that it involves a combination of factors.

And so the real goal of the Libyan "No Fly Zone" succeeds: Reuters reports that the Libyan rebel alliance, which already has its own central bank and supposedly fiat printing machines, is about to sell its first oil cargo in the coming week."The agency said Liberian-registered tanker Equator was due to arrive in the rebel-held eastern Libyan port of Tobruk on Monday to load a cargo of Serir/Mesla blend crude oil. The agency quoted Wahid Bougaighis, head of the newly established oil company, as saying: "They are coming for sure because there was a contract signed already."" It remains to be seen how K-Daf feels about honoring contracts signed by insurgents. In the meantime, the chocolate lovers lobby is finally stirring about imposing a comparable No Fly Zone in Ivory Coast. You know, for human rights violations.

The debate over the future of QE2 continues, this time with dovish comments out of NY Fed President Dudley on Friday. Economic releases are light today after Friday’s positive labor data. Look ahead to inflation numbers later in the week with PPI on Thursday and CPI on Friday. We are now experiencing a slew of firms downgrading growth forecasts in FY2011, which should put even more pressure on the job market to drive Fed policy. The IMF has officially denied any reports that the organization had pushed for a haircut on Greek sovereign debt. Euro zone PPI increased 0.8% MoM v a revised down 1.3% prior and 6.6% YoY v a revised down 5.9% prior. Food and energy prices led the increase, but the rise was seen across most goods. Libya’s conflict moved to negotiations as rebels called for a cease fire on Friday. Reports out yesterday indicate that two of the Libyan leader Qaddafi’s sons are calling for an end to the conflict, proposing a transition to democracy that would push their father out of power. A breakdown of Japan’s Tankan manufacturing survey released this morning showed that expectations for the sector are negative with confidence dropping to -2 this June from 6 in March.

• Goldman lowers Q1 GDP, sees rest of year outlook as "messy: (Zero Hedge)
• GOP Aim: Cut $4 Trillion (WSJ)
• Trichet Seen Burying Ailing Nations With Interest-Rate Rise (BusinessWeek)
• ECB criticised over expected rate rise (FT)
• Important for China arbs: BOC HK Cuts Yuan Deposit Interest Rate (Bloomberg)
• In Tripoli, Growing Murmurs Of Dissent (WSJ)
• Inflation Surge May Cause Hike in Won, Rates (Korea JoongAng)
• Us Foreign Policy "Shocker": U.S. Shifts to Seek Removal of Yemen’s Leader, an Ally (NYT)
• Next Problem for Oil: Nigerian Elections (WSJ)
• Geithner Says Strict Policy on Currency Hurts China (NYT)
• China closes half the nation's dairies (Telegraph)
• Ireland to Push for Better Bailout Terms (WSJ)

At this point it is certain: the Fed is determined to baffle them with bullshit.

Back On March 14th, Zero Hedge first disclosed data originating from the SPEEDI (System for Prediction of Environment Emergency Dose Information) database, which showed that while radiation in the Ibaraki prefecture were about 30 times above normal, the core affected regions were "Under Survey." In subsequent posts we compared the "Under Survey" category to one step below what the BLS does on a daily basis - i.e., make up stuff. But at least in Japan, they did not even make data up: they just refused to release it. Well, we now have official confirmation from NHK that once again our well-grounded skepticism (and cynicism) was as usual absolutely spot on: "It has been learned that the Japanese government withheld the release of
computer projections indicating high levels of radioactivity in areas
more than 30 kilometers from the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
power plant. The estimates were made on March 16th following explosions at the plant by an institute commissioned by the government using a computer system called SPEEDI. The system made its projections on the assumption that radioactive substances had been released for 24 hours from midnight on March 14th, based on the available data." Of course, had the disastrous SPEEDI data been reveled in time, not even the hundreds of billions (or trillions in Yen) of emergency money pumped by the BOJ, would have been able to prevent a complete market disaster. In other words: Nikkei 1; Human Life 0. In the meantime we wonder what superpowers the X-Man from the affected regions will soon develop.

Read about all the latest developments in the fiasco that keeps getting worse, more improvised, and more out of control by the day.

Silver for immediate delivery has gained another 1.7% to $38.50 an ounce, the highest level since February 1980, the year silver reached a record of $50.35/oz. An ounce of gold bought as little as 37.32 ounces of silver in London today, the lowest level since September 1983. Silver has come out of backwardation and returned to contango with longer dated future prices again higher than nearer month contracts and spot for delivery (see table below). This suggests that default on the COMEX, as warned of by some analysts, is not imminent and the tightness seen in the physical silver market may have abated somewhat. However, the Dec12 contract trading at only cents over spot for delivery (less than 10 cents) suggests that tightness remains. Given the degree of tightness in the physical silver market, silver may return to backwardation sooner rather than later. The latest COT report shows speculative long positions, or bets prices will rise, outnumbered short positions by 37,139 contracts (see news and chart below). This is a level of net longs by hedge fund managers and other large speculators that was seen as long ago as 2002.

We live in
Belgium, a little country right in the heart of Europe. The country is in many
ways a small version of Europe. Most have heard of Brussels, which is not only
the capital of Belgium, but of the whole of Europe. Belgium is becoming a divided
country, with the two largest communities – the Flemish (Dutch speaking) and
the Walloons (French speaking) –  opposing
to each other on different levels, but mostly about financial issues.

RANsquawk European Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 04/04/11

AUDUSD and EURUSD are building a firm position in the strong long zone GBP pairs with the exception of EURGBP are in neutral territory. Today we have Construction PMI at 4:30 am EST, if this event results in a strong deviation from consensus its likely that we could see some changes in retail positioning

Even if you're not at risk of foreclosure, there could be legal ramifications for a homeowner if the chain of title has been lost. Watch the "60 Minutes" report and listen to Pelley's discussion with "60 Minutes Overtime" editor Ann Silvio about the findings of his reporting team.

The big news in the market on Friday was the release of the (No) Labor Department's NFP Jobs Report (more commonly known as the Labor Force Participation Rate Report, or fiction) which showed the ponzeconomy™ ....

The dose makes the poison...

On March 31st, David Sokol appeared on CNBC Squawk Box (to the most distraught Becky Quick we have ever seen) in an attempt to explain why his purchase of of Lubrizol Corp, prior to Berkshire Hathaway's purchase of the Company, was perfectly acceptable. In attempting to provide evidence of this“perfectly acceptable” practice David Sokol said a curious thing (17 minutes 15 seconds in):

I don’t believe I did anything wrong. Charlie Munger owned 3% of BYD before he asked me to go look at it.

Because we all know if everyone is doing it, then it isn't illegal or unethical. Especially if everyone is a member of the Berkshire inner circle. But if the SEC as is now widely reported, is about to make a public spectacle out of David Sokol (if not actually press civil charges because, well, the SEC doesn't actually pursue large scale securities fraud), shouldn't they be looking at ole' Charlie "Suck It In" Munger?