Archive - Jan 28, 2010 - Story

Once again, the presumably mysterious direct bidders take down well above their historical average.

• Yields 3.127% vs. Exp. 3.153%
• Bid To Cover 2.85 vs. Avg. 2.73 (Prev. 2.72)
• Indirects 51.1% vs. Avg. 57.94% (Prev. 44.83%)
• Indirect bid to cover 1.31
• Allotted at high 36.66%
• Indirect take down 51%
• Direct take down 11.8%

The Bernanke debate in the senate has started. Readers can watch it live on CSPAN. The latest Bernanke tally is as follows.

A mere three hours before the Bernanke cloture vote, America just got permission to hit 100% Debt/GDP. Thank Senate Democrats who just approved an amendment increasing the US debt ceiling by $1.9 trillion. The 60/40 vote was across party lines and only successful because Republican Sen.-elect Scott Brown has yet to be seated.

Not good for Europe: all the posturing about how Greece will never, ever be bailed out was just destroyed courtesy of a few words out of place by the IMF. IMF Managing Director John Lipsky just noted that the International Monetary Fund is ready to help Greece "in any way necessary." The quote comes from a Bloomberg TV interview conducted earlier.Perhaps that is why Greek CDS just hit another all time wide at 410 (+35). And joining the foot in the mouth crew is ECB president Trichet who said that "Debt on both sides of the Atlantic are unsustainable." So should we now assume that even Central Bankers admit we are headed for a brick wall at 120 mph?

The Nobel laureate points out the obvious: with the stimulus coming to an end and states facing major shortfall, the president's actions are a "big move in the right direction but not enough." Stiglitz calls for more intervention, and the real question is how to spend the money: says critical rate of return on public investments to have lower long-term national debt is only 6%. Therefore must direct money on technology, infrastructure, education. Yet by plowing money into banks, the return was zero (if not negative). "When putting banks on welfare, there were no condition like -they out to lend." Another observation: banks which borrow at zero rates, "look around the world where to invest and put their money abroad- they create bubbles in emerging markets, earning the angst and anger of people in those countries as the same time as they earn the angst and anger of people in the US."

Lastly, to the question if the president is being too populist with his approach, Stiglitz responds with a resounding no.

Stale quotes are impacting the validity of the DJIA per the NYSE. In as much as quotes are correct in realtime, the DOW reflects those properly.

More change you can believe in. Hopefully the NYSE can get their house in order in advance.

StandardStandard & Poor's Ratings Services no longer classifies the United Kingdom (AAA/Negative/A-1+) among the most stable and low-risk banking systems globally due to our view of the country's weak economic environment, the reputational damage we believe has been experienced by the banking industry, and what we see as the high dependence on state-support programs of a significant proportion of the industry.

12:12 pm update: NYSE gives all clear

12:10 pm update: Openbook trades reported fine, not crossing

11:47 am update: Openbook server being rebooted

11:38 am update: Quote from NYSE Call "BAC, JNJ, F, British Airways - they are all fucked"

11:16 am update: DOW index number is incorrect per the NYSE due to wrong input quotes

11:07 am update: Reinstating A thru H has not cured random quote dissemination.

11:06 am update: Quotes in the alphabetic symbol range A through HZZ for NYSE & NYSE Amex cash markets are being removed from the National Best Bid and Offer in the Consolidated Quote System (CQS). Standby for updates.

Update: NYSE rebooting servers, going through process of pulling national quotes.

RANsquawk 28th January US Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc.

Damn it people, did you not hear to the Prime Minister "This is just empty speculation. The country is fine, I promise, fine, I promise, fine, I promise..." ad chapter 11.

10:32 am update: The NYSE & NYSE Amex cash markets are experiencing delays in delivering current quote information to the Consolidated Quote System (CQS). This may result in crossed quotes with other Exchanges in a limited set of symbols. Updates to follow

Yesterday's uptick in the housing inventory backlog (from 7.6 months supply to 8.1) has another corollary, which, as David Rosenberg points out, is the median amount of time it takes builders to sell a completed unit. The number is now 13.9 months: an all time record, and 50% higher than a year ago. Good thing all that shadow inventory is nothing to be worried about as Cramer says.

Initial claims for the week ended January 23 were second consensus miss in a row, coming in at 470,000 (SA), a decline of 8,000 from the prior week's downward revised 482,000 (to 478,000), however 20,000 higher than the consensus of 450,000. The comparison of SA and NSAinitial claims can be seen on the chart below. A dig through the data indicates that probably the entire spike in claims can be attributed to some strange moves in Initial Claims coming out of California, where initial claims surged to an all time high of 115,462. Is there more than meets to eye to the "rosy" picture in the Golden State.

At this point using the words "Greece" and "record" in the same sentence is starting to get uncool. Alas, today, it has to be said one more time. The country's CDS is now at 387 bps, another all time wide, while the spread to Bunds is just getting plain silly. Of course, the chorus of voices begging for calm is increasing, with Spain's prime minister the latest to claim that "nobody will be leaving the euro." It is unclear at this point if he is referring to Greece or Spain. This is coupled with Papandreou saying that he is "seeing speculation in world financial markets" regarding his country's risk, and the ever ubiquitous " rumors can create problems." Dick Fuld surely can sympathize.