Archive - Feb 2012

February 29th

Tyler Durden's picture

Only 54% Of Young Adults In America Have A Job





A month ago, Zero Hedge readers were stunned to learn that unemployment among Europe's young adults has exploded as a result of the European financial crisis, and peaking anywhere between 46% in the case of Greece all they way to 51% for Spain. Which makes us wonder what the reaction will be to the discovery that when it comes to young adults (18-24) in the US, the employment rate is just barely above half, or 54%, which just happens to be the lowest in 64 years, and 7% worse than when Obama took office promising a whole lot of change 3 years ago.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Sean Corrigan Crucifies MMT





While hardly needing a full-on onslaught by an Austrian thinker, when even some fairly simplistic reductio ad abusrdum thought experiments should suffice (boosting global GDP by a few million percent simply by building a death star comes to mind), Diapason's Sean Corrigan has decided to take MMT, also known as "Modern Monetary Theory", to the woodshed in his latest missive in a grammatical, syntaxic (replete with the usual 200+ word multi-clause sentences) and stylistic juggernaut, that only Corrigan is capable of. So sit back in that easy chair, grab your favorite bottle of rehypothecated Ouzo, and let the monetary hate wash through you.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Ron Paul Defeats Obama In Head To Head Polling





Here's a chart you won't see anywhere in the mainstream media - not the right, and certainly not the left. According to Rasmussen's 2012 Presidential Election Matchups, which pit Obama against any of the four GOP presidential candidates, while the balance of challengers certainly appear to have no chance of defeating the incumbent (something we touched upon yesterday), today, for the first time, Ron Paul has managed to unseat the standing president, by a thin margin of 43 to 41, for the first time in this series.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Guest Post: And The Douchebag Of The Year Award Goes To……





Unless February 29th is the new April Fool’s Day, I’m pretty sure  Alan Dlugash locked up DOTY with this remark:

People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress.   Could you imagine what it’s like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out?   How do you do that?”

Dluglash is describing the horror of scraping by on $350,000 a year.   Really.  How could you lucky bastards ever understand?

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Complete Paulson 2011 Letter





There are those who voraciously, and blindly, read any and all hedge fund reports, allowing the already useless information to enter one brain hemisphere and exit the other, just so they can brag that they read such and such's monthly or year end letter. Frankly, we pity them, especially when in their attempt to ape success they confuse luck (which is responsible for 99% of hedge fund outliers) for skill, and in doing so constrain their minds even more. At least hopefully they don't spend money on self-improvement books. As for trading recommendations, by the time an idea is in writing, the time to implement it is long gone. Anyway, for precisely this subet of people we provide the Paulson 2011 year end letter. Which is 102 pages. It is amazing how when one is printing money, one can get away with two paragraphs of year end ruminations and the LPs will be delighted. When, however one has brought AUM from $32 billion to under $20 billion net of redemptions, much more reading material is required to justify the 2 and 20, especially if the proceeds are used to invest in AAPL (and speaking of Apple, we wonder how long before the company starts charging a fee of 2 and 20 from all of its shareholders). We won't spend much time dissecting the letter of a fund which blindly invested nearly half a billion in a company that two kids with an office exposed as fraud, suffice to copy and paste the following gem: "We believe this outperformance demonstrates our superior security analysis and selection due to our research edge." Yup, mmmhmmm. All this and much more in the enclosed paperweight.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

China Dumps $100+ Billion In USTs In December Per Revised TIC Data; UK Is Now Russia's Shadow Buyer





Every year in February, the Treasury department releases its adjustment to foreign purchases of Treasury bond holdings as of the previous June (with revised and overriding estimates for all the intervening months in the interim, as well as previous monthly forecasts). It did that earlier today. And while many may have been expecting the revision to show that contrary to Zero Hedge claims China has in fact been building up its Treasury stake (following the now traditional transfer of UK purchases to China), the reality is that not only has China indeed been dumping US exposure (first reported by us previously when we observed the plunge in holdings in the Fed's custodial account), selling over $100 billion in Treasurys in December alone (bringing its total to $1152 billion, and down 12% from its June total of $1307 billion) but that probably far more curiously, the UK is no longer a shadow buyer of Chinese bond accumulation and instead has become a secret accumulator of Russian holdings.

 

williambanzai7's picture

THe LTRO PRiNCiPLe...





"Complete the problem, solve the puzzle, turn the key."--Pinhead

 

Reggie Middleton's picture

Does Anyone See This Emergency As An Emergency, Or Is A Half Trillion Euro Pay Day Loan Bullish?





The Blokes across the pond are starting to sound as bad as some of the sell side charlatans stateside. Either that or the weed over there is just that much better!

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Dow Jones 13,000 Crossed 52 Times in Past 3 Days, Wreaks Havoc With Retirement Plans Of Trader Community





Since the amount of coverage the Dow 13,000 has received on CNBC indicates that it is clearly the indicator for half of the actively trading population in America to hang its hat and retire, we can only commiserate with the retirement planners of America who have had to do only to undo retirement plans for all of 7 people give or take (as we said, half the entire active trading population of America, although we should clarify of the carbon-based variety) a whopping 52 times. Yup: that is the amount of times the 13,000 barrier has been crossed, and uncrossed in the past 3 days alone. We fail to recall any other Dow milestone that has been proven such a technical problem for the market to succumb. And that it closed below it after the second LTRO, and after today's Bernanke testimony is certainly not a good sign. On the other hand, all those people who are going bald from putting on and taking off the 13K hat, can finally take a break.

 

Phoenix Capital Research's picture

Why Is the Financial World So Messed Up?





 

Why is the financial world so messed up? Because it’s run by Central Bankers. And those folks view money very differently than the businesspeople who create businesses, jobs, and wealth.

 

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Dow Closes Below 13K For The First Time Since February 27, 2012; Flash Crashes





Risk off. On one of the highest volume days in months (for equity cash and futures), ES (the S&P e-mini futures contract) fell over 20pts from high to low following Bernanke's lack of expansionary comment. Right at the close we accelerated very fast losing around 6pts almost instantly as the market had a very jittery feel. The major financials were off 2.5-3% from the 10amET Bernanke speech release (and XLF was down 1.4% from that peak) but it was the precious metals that shocked. Gold had it largest percentage drop (over 5%) since early December 2008 (around $100) and Silver plunged over 7% at its worst, managing to come back a little to close down around 6%. Oil did not follow the Central-Plan (to talk down the print-fest) as WTI pushed back up to $107 and Brent over $123 as the USD rallied aggressively - now up over 0.5% on the week. Treasuries early dislike for the removal of the punchbowl was quickly dismissed as equities sold off this afternoon and we drifted back 1-2bps from high yields of the day (though still higher yields close to close). As we noted two days ago on Twitter, the market seems only capable of reacting to addition or removal of central bank liquidity and what was perhaps odd today was the delayed reaction - one of incredulity maybe at the gall of these printers to stop/pause.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Gold Tumbles More Than $100 As $1700 Stops Triggered





In what is increasingly peculiar market action, gold dropped over $100 intraday, following triggering of $1700 sell limits, at which point sell signals hit every bid all the way to $1685 then a knee jerk bounce appeared, in some rather chaotic late day trading in paper gold. Whether this is due solely to algo driven liquidations following the earlier described shift in sentiment, or has some assistance from central banks is irrelevant as anyone and everyone who is happy to convert paper fiat into hard currencies is taking advantage of this latest short-term rout, to prepare for the next battery of printing which will come with 100% certainty. Remember: as we have been saying since the summer of 2011, Bernanke needs a tumble in stocks to get a green light for more easing, and he obviously won't get that with the S&P where it is, nor with WTI still sticking to $107.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Apple Decouples From Stock Market Gravity





For the first time since the end of January (and for only the 4th day this year) AAPL is trading higher with the S&P trading down... the S&P has surged after each previous event, will it this time or has it lost its QE mojo?

 
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