Archive - Jun 2012

Folks if you’re buying into the whole QE 3 is coming on June 6^th  argument you’re out of your minds. This is an election year. If the Fed announces QE 3 now, Obama is done. Do you really think this is going to happen when even the Fed’s biggest doves are noting that the consequences of QE outweigh the benefits?

Today's "do a shot" keywords of choice: "jobs", "congress", "economy", "fair", "speculators", "pass this bill", "cash for clunkers", "Stuxnet", "Solyndra" and "sugar drinks". Obviously, if we have any readers left alive after this sermon, it will be a victory for the bulls.

As Mitt Romney speaks on TV, we thought it may be prudent to present an update of the key donors to the Romney presidential campaign.

Perhaps the only thing more spectacular than being punk'd by a rogue shareholder who uses the proxy statement of one of the world's biggest financial firms as a public venue for some quite disturbing humor, is that nobody in the US has decided to do this to the hated US financials firms. Yet.

German taxpayers still have an opportunity to just say no

Depending on whether you look at broad liquid risk markets or narrow manipulated 'repressed' illiquid markets, your take on today's European action will be different. Equity markets were crushed. Corporate and Financial credit spreads blew wider. Volatility (Europe's VIX) exploded over 36%. So far so good? But Italian and Spanish bonds rallied. It seems EUR96 was the line in the sand that the ECB (or their proxy banks) decided was enough for Spanish 10Y bonds and that was where they were defended to (though we are suspicious why ECB would step in now after 4 months absence). There was eventually some notable divergence between underperforming Spain and outperforming Italy by the close (+40bps on the week vs +27bps). We suspect that much of the sovereign outperformance was a combination of Sovereign CDS-Bond basis traders (buying bonds and buying protection in Spain to lock in that wide spread) and a replay of the short financial credit, long domestic sovereign credit trade (as in banks will underperform the sovereign if things hit the fan/wall). That is the flow that was evident when looked at across markets. All in all, a terrible end to an awful week and hopefully we have helped explain why sovereigns outperformed (technicals) as CDS remain at wides and stocks at lows.

Yes we can't...0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Gold’s London PM fix today was USD 1606.00, EUR 1292.763, and GBP 1041.775 per ounce.

Gold lost 0.17% or $2.70 in New York yesterday and closed at $1,562.10/oz. Gold initially traded sideways in Asia then dipped and began to recover at the open in European trading prior to further slight weakness saw it touch $1,550/oz. 

In perhaps the under-statement of the year, BofA's Economics group note that "May's unemployment report was a disappointment" with evidence of a weather reversal and weakness concentrated in construction, leisure, and temporary help. Pointing out that "This is the recovery of fits and starts", BofA believes we are entering a slow patch in the second half of the year. They do not see this report as sufficient to prompt Fed action in June, but it makes August QE increasingly likely. The weakness in the US data is overlapping with an intensifying crisis in Europe, which means the risk-off trade continues.

Just in case someone did not get the earlier BLS-doctored message, the final two economic indicators of the day just printed and were... drumroll... misses. Because remember: not only the 1%ers but the 99ers have to be begging Bernanke to print. And so he will: ISM Manufacturing prints at 53.5, down from 54.8, and expectations of 53.8. Prices Paid plunge by 13.5, but the kicker: 5 out of the ISM's 10 sub indices are now in contraction territory.. And the cherry on top: Construction Spending unchanged from an upward revised 0.3 to 0.3, obviously, missing expectations of a jump to 0.4. Looking forward to the Tim Geithner Op-Ed: "Welcome to the recession."

The Dow Jones Industrial Index just joined its Transports cousin in the the red for the year.

Gold has jumped over $50 post-NFP, now back over $1600. Maybe, just maybe, as we have been saying since January 1, 2012 is a carbon copy of 2011, and the NEW QE is coming now that only central planning can sustain an epic economic collapse (for a few months at least)?

The best news of the day is that the world just can't wait to pay off Swiss government debt by "buying" Swiss government debt with its -30 bps yields.