Archive - May 18, 2011 - Blog entry

We are about to experience the consequences of decades of really bad decisions.

Forget the hype abut passive commodities indexes. In this space, you want to focus on active management...

A public service info announcement...

All told, we spent some $600 billion and only got about three months’ worth of improved economic data (not to mention that this “improved” data was massaged heavily). So it’s pretty obvious why the Fed hasn’t announced QE 3 yet… it needs things to get terrible in the financial markets again so everyone will be clamoring for it to intervene.

Activity in spread land was very muted today with only a handful of names really making any moves. Equity outperformed credit but single-name credit was disappointing as up-in-quality continued. Primary issuance dominated thoughts today as 2s10s30s seemed to run S&P futures nicely up as credit ignored it.

Telomeres, bit©#ez!

If this does not go to show how rigged the foreclosure game is, I do not know what will.

The presumed default catastrophe driven by an inability to increase debt is precisely why it shouldn't be increased.

So before the Fed can continue to bail out its buddies on Wall Street, it needs some serious justification for more QE. And what better than a market Crash? After all, the Euro crisis and market collapse in May 2010 was what laid the groundwork for the Fed’s QE lite and QE 2 programs. A similar drop in stocks today would give the Fed a clear “see what happens when there’s no Fed help?” angle to take when it begins discussing QE 3.

Or was it Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky in a drunken stupor with the maid?

Now that, my friends, is how you buy yourself some good Government!

The only thing we have to fear is him...

Come join me for lunch for the Mad Hedge Fund Trader’s Global Strategy Update, which I will be conducting in San Francisco, California on May 20, 2011. A three course lunch will be followed by a 30 minute PowerPoint presentation and a 45 minute question and answer period.

Last night, I spent an interesting time with the esteemed and world reknown macro economist, entrepreneur, NYU professor and strategist, Dr. Nouriel Roubini. Nouriel is a very, very bright guy. He has to be, he agrees with many of my viewpoints :-) On a more serious note, this article is the first installment of the valuation of real world, real assets and properties that are actually up for sale. I plan to walk my readers through the potential absurdity that is investing in a bubble that has not finished popping.

A former CDO manager and investor says the "case" against Goldman is nowhere near as strong as Taibbi claims. Nowhere close...