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.

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.

Largest drop since early 1980s

Bloomberg reports that the former bastion of massively mismarked distressed loans and crazy CDS trades, DB Zwirn is to be taken over by Fortress Management. And by taken over we mean liquidated.

• GDP down -6.1% on -4.7% consensus; CNBC: "This is better than it looks"

• Ken Lewis - dead man walking (Bloomberg)
• Citigroup scrambles to raise capital (FT)
• Swing flu is no a global pandemic (FT)
• Obama refuses to take blame for terror plane photo shoot, voters still drink kool-aid (WSJ and

All you wannabe masters of the universe who want to bypass the three- to five-year apprenticeship at Goldman Sachs and go straight to the motherlode of manipulative machinations, look no further than this job posting on the Ladders, in which none other than the bastion of free market communism, aka the New York Fed, is seeking a Financial Analyst/Corporate Bond Analyst.

All you wannabe masters of the universe who want to bypass the three- to five-year apprenticeship at Goldman Sachs and go straight to the motherlode of manipulative machinations, look no further than this job posting on the Ladders, in which none other than the bastion of free market communism, aka the New York Fed, is seeking a Financial Analyst/Corporate Bond Analyst.