Archive - Oct 31, 2011 - Blog entry

Is the missing MF Global customer money a 'Lehman' moment. Risk is off, off, off.

New laws that put the screws to organized crime in Japan by slapping at its victims are already wreaking havoc in business.

The markets flew into this deal based on rumors and short-covering and are now waking up to the plain obvious facts that you cannot solve a debt problem with more debt. Also, it might be worth considering just where the EFSF bailout money will be coming from when various EU members can’t even stage successful bond auctions without the ECB stepping in.

What's the LIBOR roll-over for year end?

While household-sentiment measures are at levels typically observed during a recession, an increase in spending during the third quarter boosted growth to the highest level of the year, Commerce Department figures showed Oct. 27. The schism partly reflects consumer ire with the government’s failure to reduce 9.1 percent unemployment or stem rising deficits, said James Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Minneapolis-based Wells Capital Management.

President Sarkozy’s call to China’s Prime Minister Wen Jiapao for help in bailouts and recapitalizing European banks is fantasy. Beijing plays a completely mercantilist hand. With its exports threatened and repeated promises to its own increasingly restless to shift to a more consumer-oriented economy, China’s more than $3 trillion in monetary reserves [20% in vacillating Euros] is mortgaged by a deflating dollar and its own incipient inflation.

It's Midnight this late October night and

Central Banksta Zombies Lurking in the Dark...

All you need to read.

We ended last week with 88%+ of USDJPY traders long and wrong for many months now. Today Japan sold the yen for the second time in less than three months after it hit another all time high against the dollar last week.  As usual...retail traders are quickly moving position and we are seeing a strong drop in overall long positions to 70.83%. We expect this trend to continue but its important to note that past interventions haven't done a whole lot to stem the tide.

The Q3 GDP report tells us nothing about the health of the economy and it is misleading at best.