Following up on yesterday's job search request for a credit analyst to head the PPT's corporate bond purchase program (only job requirement is familiarity with the phrase "lift the offer" - if you know what "hit the bid" means, you are disqualified), here is another one, courtesy of The Ladders, in which the Working Group is realizing it really is underqualified to run $10 trillion worth of securities bought 30%-1000% higher than fair value.

When you end up angering CalPERS, this should not come as much of a surprise. At least he retains the CEO title: Walter Massey will replace Lewis as Chairman. Now maybe Bernanke can be stripped of the title Uberload of the Formerly Free Financial Markets and Emperor of the Amazingly Ubiquitous SPY Bid.

Some relevant charts to back up the greenness (or lack thereoff) of any shoots that may have appeared today (compliments of Alex).

Some relevant charts to back up the greenness (or lack thereoff) of any shoots that may have appeared today (compliments of Alex).

The Daily Telegraph has compiled some rather sobering data on what the economic cost of the flu pandemic could ultimately be. This is a little less rosy than Steve Liesman's prediction that everything will blow over in a day or two. As a reminder the WHO is raising the epidemic to level 5, its second highest threat level: presumably they have not gotten the memo.

From the Daily Telegraph:

Spreads were mostly tighter in the US today amid very low liquidity with IG tighter, HVOL flat (index arb activity), ExHVOL better, XO stronger, and HY rallying. Indices generally outperformed intrinsics with skews widening in general as IG's skew decompressed as the index beat intrinsics, HVOL underperformed but narrowed the skew, ExHVOL outperformed pushing the skew wider, XO's skew increased as the index outperformed, and HY outperformed but narrowed the skew.

Government Capital LLC's automotive subsidiaries are multiplying.

April 29 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama plans to announce tomorrow that Chrysler LLC will be placed into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, leading to an alliance with Italian automaker Fiat SpA, people involved in the matter said.

Administration officials are still resolving outstanding issues, and the plan is not finished yet, said one of the people, who declined to be named. Any bankruptcy filing could come as soon as tomorrow, people familiar with the matter said.

Yet another volumetric ripfest for the SPY into the lack of news and 20 minutes after. Curious which bank was "facilitating" the bulk of the trades.

Yet another volumetric ripfest for the SPY into the lack of news and 20 minutes after. Curious which bank was "facilitating" the bulk of the trades.

Or not. Bill Gross: "Disappointing statement"... Really Bill? One can see the botox losing the fight with the disappointment.

10 Year now at 3.11%

2s10s massively steeper

Press Release

Release Date: April 29, 2009

RGE Monitor caught an interesting snippet out of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which claims to have seen a report out of BaFin, the German regulator made famous for allowing Volkswagen to become the world's most valuable company in the world with no repercussions.

A must read piece in The National Review Online from Richard Epstein, director of the law and economics program at the University of Chicago. Despite its legalese tint, the article focuses on the two most troubling developments for private market players as a result of flawed policy after flawed policy: i) the notion that the government may be permitted to disrupt financial transactions between parties in ways that frustrate the unambiguous expectations of the parties and ii) the idea that the government need not honor its own promises in dealing with private individuals.

An interesting analysis from the team over at Innovative Quant Solutions looking at the persistence of key quant factors such as Momentum, Value, Balance Sheet, Improving Financials, and Sentiment.

Cutting to the chase, here are IQS' observations and conclusions:

Observations:

Last week was characterized by unprecedented rerisking in financial names, to the tune of $145 billion in notional change, representing over 28 thousand contracts. This was caused by an imbalance in New Trades ($173 billion) versus Full Terminations ($297 billion). Was the credit market a little trigger happy to say all green shoots in financials are in place? Or merely the equity driven short squeeze has forced even the usually cooler fixed income heads to push the "cover" button.