Archive - Jun 7, 2011

While not relevant to financial markets, our beloved friend and member of the financial community, Sachan Sapra, needs everyone's support. Sachan is taking part in a 160KM bike ride* for Oakville Hopsital's Palliative Care Unit. Palliative Care is a type of care that's given to patients when they are near the end to relieve and prevent suffering. It is the kind of healthcare that is overlooked and underfunded, but is very important as society ages. Sachan needs to raise a minimum of $1500 for this. But let's all unite and help him be the top fund-raiser.

http://www.thehealingcycle.ca/Rider/2049/

India's stock market about to tank?

While not making any specific recommendations (or precisely because of), and since it is not the product of some major conflicted sell-side "advisory" desk, the BNY/Economist's just released report on the "Search for Growth" is possibly one of the best and most insightful pieces of research into the prevailing popular opinion about the opportunities and risks in capital markets we have read recently. From the survey: "The search for growth remains challenging and unpredictable. For every indicator that points to a more sustainable recovery, there are others that suggest the emergence of new problems. Although it is not easy to make decisions about how and where to invest in this difficult economic and market environment, it does help to understand how peers from around the world are responding. Our survey of 800 respondents tackles a broad range of themes, including the prospects for growth across sectors, regions and asset classes. At its heart is a set of scenarios; we asked respondents to indicate how likely they thought each scenario was, and then asked them to tell us what impact it might have on their portfolio. The results provide a fascinating insight into the current mindset of investors and executives around the world."

Courtesy of ex-SAC portfolio manager Noah Freeman's cooperating witness testimony, we now know just what it takes to be a star trader under Stevie Cohen: i) trade on inside information at least 6 times, ii) run around San Francisco, in your underwear, high on shrooms, and iii) bang a hooker at a Taiwan bar called the Red Horse. And that's about all you need to make 1.3 million a year while in the employment of one SAC Capital.

Starting at 9pm Eastern, something lit up a fire under the Japanese Yen, sending all pairs, but specifically the USDJPY and EURJPY down sharply for no apparent reason. At last check the Dollar Yen was back under 79.85, the level at which the BOJ 3 months ago had to run like a petulant, crying child to its pedophile uncles from the G-7, begging for a rescue. The only mildly related news came out just prior when it was announced that China's net purchases of Japan debt hit a new record in April. From Bloomberg: "China’s net purchases of Japan’s long-term debt reached a record as the larger nation seeks to diversify the world’s biggest currency reserves. China bought a net 1.33 trillion yen ($16.6 billion) in Japanese long-term bonds in April, the biggest amount since records began in January 2005, according to data released today in Tokyo by Japan’s Ministry of Finance. The nation sold a net 1.47 trillion yen of short-term debt, the data shows. “As China tries to diversify its assets with its huge foreign-exchange reserves, it probably wants to have yen- denominated assets to some extent” in the longer term, said Tetsuya Inoue, chief researcher for financial markets for Tokyo- based Nomura Research Institute Ltd. “China has a strong trading relationship with Japan." If anything this would be dollar negative, not so much Yen positive... We will follow and update if anything is noted.

Two and a half years ago, Christina Romer, then still employed by the Obama administration in the position of Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers penned "The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan" - a report predicting the impact of a fiscal "stimulus" that took out $787 billion from the pocket of American Taxpayers (subsequently discovered to cost even more) and put that money...somewhere. We are not sure where, because according to a chart now made legendary for its complete failure to predict the future, it sure did not go into creating jobs. Below we present the original chart that made the January 10, 2009 presentation, and superimpose upon it the reality of the past two and a half years. It is simply stunning. And while we are here, and discussing the abysmal failure of QE2 (the impending arrival of QE3 notwithstanding), it is amusing to hear the whimpering of the likes of one Richard Koo, who is now claiming that all along the money from the Fed's monetary stimulus should have been invested in the form of a fiscal one. Well, Dick, below is the impact of your fiscal stimulus....AND it also includes the impact of $2 trillion in incremental monetary stimulus. Combined, both fiscal and monetary stimulus has now missed the worst case projection for US unemployment for 30 months running. Here is the simple truth: both monetary and fiscal stimuli are abysmal failures, when the economy is mean reverting to a state where it was hijacked from courtesy of 30 years of "great moderation" - and there is nothing that can be done to stop it. Correction: there is one thing - the Fed can destroy the dollar in its attempt to disprove simple physics. And, ultimately, it will.

Thomas Jefferson would have approved ...

Following the earlier note on the "irrational exuberance of QE3" at current conditions, Goldman does a one-two to the face of the long-only slow money crowd which are about to realize that what goes up the escalator, will go down the elevator, repeating that the next round of monetary easing "would require a notable further deterioration in the outlook to be considered seriously." As a reminder the only "outlook" the Fed keeps an eye out on is the 50 DMA of the Russell 2000.

As has been repeated on Zero Hedge many times, with the stock market just 15% off its post-Jackson Hole surge highs, the market continues to be irrationally exuberant that QE3 will come come hell or high water. No. That will not happen until all the mutual funds who have been holding for 2+ years realize that in order to get another heroin hit, some will have to be wiped out (thank near-record margin debt and record low cash holdings) before QE3 does arrive. The latest to confirm this is Goldman Sachs, which via a note just released by Dominic Wilson confirms our speculation that "QE3 optimism is excessive." Ironically, the only thing that will guarantee QE3 is a fresh round of significant pains which retraces the entire QE2 move higher. Nobody in the long-only community wants to hear it. Alas, it is the truth. As usual: he who sells first, will have a job tomorrow...

There is a great deal of uncertainty among investors about what the future of the U.S. economy may look like – so I decided to take a stab at what’s likely to happen over the next 20 years. That's enough time for a child to grow up and mature, and it's long enough for major trends to develop and make themselves felt. I’ll confine myself to areas that are, as the benighted Rumsfeld might have observed, “known unknowns.” I don’t want to deal with possibilities of the deus ex machina sort. So we’ll rule out natural events like a super-volcano eruption, an asteroid strike, a new ice age, global warming, and the like. Although all these things absolutely will occur sometime in the future, the timing is very uncertain – at least from the perspective of one human lifespan. It’s pointless dealing with geological time and astronomical probability here. And, more important, there’s absolutely nothing we can do about such things. So let’s limit ourselves to the possibilities presented by human action. They're plenty weird and scary, and unpredictable enough.

The adventures begin...

RANsquawk Market Wrap Up - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 07/06/11

Not only are the PDs treating Treasury paper like last week’s garbage, banks in general are also dumping the stuff.

Alas, the market still refuses to acknowledge that the S&P will need to drop below 1000 (and whatever the appropriate level for the RUT is) for Bernanke to greenlight QE 3 which will in turn send everything to the moon (better have those collocated algos ready and steady). Judging by the post-speech reaction, markets may finally be getting it, just as Bernanke is also getting that he is dealing with a heroin addict who will not settle with methadone (aka "extraordinary" and "extended").