Archive - Oct 21, 2010 - Story

Jobless claims "fell" to 452k with the story as usual being in the revision. Last week's 462K number which was originally expected to be 445K is now revised to 475K! But of course it is so much more palatable to get the BLS lie piecemeal instead of in one place. We are now on 25 out of 26 sequential upward revisions, and up to just under 250k Year to Date on initial claims. With this week's number beating expectations of 455k, only means the revised miss will be announced next week, when this week's number is revised to north of the expectation. The same identical story in continuing claims: the print was 4,441K, a deterioration from last week's 4,399K which again was revised to 4,450K (revision 36 out of 37). Lastly, those falling of regular rolls once again jumped, and for the week ended October 2, those on Extended Benefits and EUCs rose by 280K. Since the news confirms the US economy continues to lose workers, this will do nothing for the market's expectations of trillions in free liquidity to be announced in two weeks by the Fed. Then again, none of this matters - as Jim Iurio said earlier: "We are all currency traders."

• Banks Clueless on Foreclosure Mess Severity: Jonathan Weil (Bloomberg)
• New York Fed Faces `Inherent Conflict' in Mortgage Buybacks (Bloomberg) - as we speculated first, the FRBNY gets dragged into this as not pursuing action would be dereliction of fiduciary duties to taxpayers by Maiden Lane
• Geithner suggests major currencies "in alignment": report (Reuters)
• Geithner's Goal: Rebalanced World Economy (WSJ)
• Chinese growth slows to 9.6% (FT)
• On the "cash on the sidelines" BS and on Google's 2.4% effective tax rate (Bloomberg)
• Osborne vows not to backtrack on cuts (FT) as UK unveils dramatic austerity measures  (FT)
• Greek, Portugal Bonds Lead Peripherals Lower After Spanish Sale (Bloomberg)
• We See Totally Surreal Markets (Bob Chapman, h/t John)

• Baltic Dry Index falls for fourth day as rents for all vessel types slide.
• Beige Book: Despite high unemployment and persistent weakness in housing market, consumer spending edges up.
• China’s economy grew 9.6% in Q3 - the smallest gain in a year.
• Euro-zone Oct. composite PMI falls to 53.4 - fresh one-year low.
• US 30-year yields near 1-week low as longer maturities attract.
• Deutsche Bank sells $856.6M in bonds tied to commercial properties.

RANsquawk European Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 21/10/10

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