Archive - Apr 17, 2015

Good thing Goldman didn't take me upon that leveraged macro trade yesterday. The GS short leg was up ~50% as I type this post. More concerning than my catching their increase in risk/leverage is the method in which I did the trade. Broker-dealers are no longer needed, and Goldman is a broker-dealer.

Presented with no comment...

We have never, ever, seen the US equity market so disconnected from underlying macro fundamentals.

Today, to our dismay, we find that the ECB has not only considered a "parallel currency" alterantive but for Greece this may be a reality before long. According to Reuters, the ECB "has analyzed a scenario in which Greece runs out of money and starts paying civil servants with IOUs, creating a virtual second currency within the euro bloc, people with knowledge of the exercise told Reuters." "The fact is we are not seeing any progress... So we have to look at these scenarios."

A day in the life of a real live Keynesian Trading Advisor...

When the ECB is finally forced, by distortions of its own making, to dive into the corporate bond market, and when, after that, Mario Draghi goes full-Kuroda and throws the ECB’s balance sheet behind European equities, the central bank may want to check in the following places for relative value because according to Bloomberg, these are the countries where the “bargains” are to be found in equities and fixed income...

When Barry met Yanis... "honest broker" Barack Obama left Greek FinMin Yanis Varoufakis disappointed yesterday when, as Bild reports, US will not give financial aid to Greece (but will send advisers to Athens to compile a list of possible savings measures).

But bad news is good news, right?

Time Warner is down 5-8% on the news that the DoJ is "leaning against" the Comcast deal:

*DOJ LAWYERS SAID CLOSE TO RECOMMENDING SUIT TO BLOCK CABLE DEAL
*U.S. SAID GATHERING EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT BLOCKING TWC PURCHASE

This has dragged the broad market lower as Comcast hit back stating "there is no basis for a lawsuit to block the TWC merger."

Behind the curtain...

Should Gary Gensler truly be Clinton's chief financial officer, and should Hillary become America's next president, then ladies and gentlemen, in the fine tradition started by Hank Paulson who nearly brought the entire wastern world to ruin, the next US Treasury Secretary will be the following fine former Goldman Sachs employee and "champion for everyday Americans."

Let’s talk about idiots. Somewhere out there, some absurdly well-paid banker just placed his investors’ capital in yet another financial instrument which is guaranteed to lose money: Australian government debt. For the first time in Australia, every single one of the 47 bidders offered a price so high that it implies a negative interest rate. Sadly, there are plenty of similarities between today’s negative interest rates and the early 2000s housing bubble. Only a fool believes that this time is different.