Archive - May 2009 - Story

As the title implies, the siege on Jim Simons fort has entered the endspiel: (g)RIEF has now underperformed the S&P 500 by 31.81% since the beginning of March.

Time to go gentle into that good, if cigarette smoke filled, night?

Bankruptcy court fee applications always make for a fun read: the hundreds of thousands of dollars in Seamless Web orders, the same analyst ordering dinner 3 times a night, the $200 car service bills (with pick up and drop off address detail), the hotel minibar and porn Payperview bills, the occasional $5,000 one way airplane trip: all your dirty underwear for the world to see.

Bankruptcy court fee applications always make for a fun read: the hundreds of thousands of dollars in Seamless Web orders, the same analyst ordering dinner 3 times a night, the $200 car service bills (with pick up and drop off address detail), the hotel minibar and porn Payperview bills, the occasional $5,000 one way airplane trip: all your dirty underwear for the world to see.

Bankruptcy court fee applications always make for a fun read: the hundreds of thousands of dollars in Seamless Web orders, the same analyst ordering dinner 3 times a night, the $200 car service bills (with pick up and drop off address detail), the hotel minibar and porn Payperview bills, the occasional $5,000 one way airplane trip: all your dirty underwear for the world to see.

Spreads were tighter in the US this week as all the indices improved. Indices typically underperformed single-names with skews mostly narrower (as curves steepened and high beta outperformed low beta) as IG underperformed but narrowed the skew, HVOL underperformed but narrowed the skew, ExHVOL intrinsics beat and narrowed the skew, XO underperformed but compressed the skew, and HY outperformed but narrowed the skew.

In the week ended May 22, NYSE program trading dropped to a statistically significant low of 2.9 billion shares, down from 3.3 billion the week before, and from a 3.8 billion prior 52 week average. As for specific actors, no surprise, Goldman leading the government's SLP team with a 7:1 ratio of principal to facilitation/agency.

In the week ended May 22, NYSE program trading dropped to a statistically significant low of 2.9 billion shares, down from 3.3 billion the week before, and from a 3.8 billion prior 52 week average. As for specific actors, no surprise, Goldman leading the government's SLP team with a 7:1 ratio of principal to facilitation/agency.

In the week ended May 22, NYSE program trading dropped to a statistically significant low of 2.9 billion shares, down from 3.3 billion the week before, and from a 3.8 billion prior 52 week average. As for specific actors, no surprise, Goldman leading the government's SLP team with a 7:1 ratio of principal to facilitation/agency.

Gettelfinger discussing the 2.5% warrants that the UAW has received in GM and snickering - "$75 Billion Dollars in equity for the company!? We did not put a lot of emphasis on the 2.5% warrants, let me put it that way." As he shakes his head on whether he expects GM to ever get that kind of equity valuation.

Bondholders waiting for their warrants to be worth anything may want to find a flux capacitor and go to the year 10,000.

Zero Hedge is all about subliminal mass manipulation. Which is why we cackle with delight at the ongoing subversive campaign by the most respected financial platform to debunk TALF for the massive taxpayer subsidized handout to the mega wealthy that it truly is.

Submitted by Phil of Phil's Stock World

Now and then there is a glitch in the matrix, and one can actually find something useful in that massive propaganda machine known as CNBC (all hail General Electric and the upcoming US nationalization of every deteriorating corporation). Presented below is an interview with Robert Rodriguez, CEO of First Pacific Advisors and Morningstar Fixed Income Fund Manager for 2008, which is quite impressive, not least in that CNBC allowed this segment to air at all, but because Rodriguez captures the essence of the collision course in which the economy is headed.

TrimTabs reporting that in the first half of May (May 1-15), short interest on the Russell 3,000 stocks dropped to 13.32 billion shares ($253 billion / 2.78% of market cap) from 13.62 billion shares ($260 billion / 2.88% of market cap) on April 30.

Carry traders have called it a day and are now all congregating at Flashdancers.

Carry traders have called it a day and are now all congregating at Flashdancers.