Archive - Nov 3, 2010 - Story

As is all too well known by now, starting over the next few days, the Fed will commence purchasing $75 billion in Treasury securities monthly until the end of June, and will buy an additional $35 billion in Treasurys to make up for declining holdings of MBS (due to repurchases). We still believe that as a result of the imminent drop in rates (especially those around the curve belly), as we have claimed for over a month, the feedback loop that will be created will result in a far greater repurchase frequency of MBS securities over the next 8 months, and we would not be surprised if at some point in Q2 2011, the Fed is buying $150 billion in Treasurys monthly. Since nobody will believe this until it is actually confirmed by the H.4.1., we will leave this topic alone for the time being. And after all its will "only" mean a rotation of Fed holdings, a switch in duration, and an impact on the shape of curve. What is certain is that on June 30, the Fed's balance sheet will have $2.68 trillion (or more) in holdings, of which $1.77 trillion will be in Treasurys, compared to the $840 billion today. What is also certain is that the Fed will not be able to stop there. Which is why we have extended the projection period through January 2012. At that point the Fed will hold $2.6 trillion in US Treasuries, or roughly 25% of total US marketable debt at that point.  And for those who collect now completely irrelevant statistics, the Fed will surpass China's $868 billion in UST holdings before the end of November. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, shit just got real.

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So much for the Fed's two mythical mandates of promoting "maximum employment" and maintaining "price stability." First, we had Bernanke's predecessor Greenspan confirming in late July on Meet the Press what everyone knows: namely that the primary goal of the Fed is merely to encourage higher stock prices: "if the stock market continues higher it will do more to stimulate the economy than any other measure we have discussed here." And now, courtesy of an Op-Ed by the current chairman, we get confirmation, again, just three months later, from the current chairman, that the Fed cares mostly about stimulating high stock prices, solely to create the completely artificial illusion of "wealth" for the few, the proud, the shareholders, and the banking oligarchy.

Contrary to convention wisdom, while Irish bond yields were surging to all time highs, the local population was not merrily drinking itself into oblivion, but was taking matters into its own hands. So far every bankrupt European government has at least managed to get its population on the streets, to protest something, and in the case of Greece, caused Waddell and Reed to sell a few SPOOS leading to the biggest crash in capital markets history. Only the most bankrupt nation of all, the United States, continues to see its 300+ million cowering at home, watching sitcom reruns.

Does most of America still really have no clue what Quantitative Easing is... Nor that Bernanke committed perjury over the whole "Federal Reserve will not monetize the debt" thing... Nor that Tim Geithner also lied on CNBC when he told Treasury puppet Steve Liesman that the Fed is not monetizing debt? So what is the point of all of this?

Due to the fact that silver’s industrial applications result in destroying the stuff, there is currently a total of only 1,234,590,000 “investable” ounces of silver in aboveground supplies. At $21 per ounce, the total value of aboveground silver comes to only about $26 billion. By contrast, because pretty much every ounce of gold ever mined still exists, there are a total of 4,585,620,000 “investable” ounces of gold in aboveground stocks. At $1,330 per ounce, that comes to $6 trillion worth. Thus, the silver/gold ratio is currently about 63:1, yet the total value of all the investable gold on the planet is about 235 times that of silver. For the record, the ratio of silver to gold in the earth’s crust is 17:1. That’s in the ballpark of the 15:1 average silver/gold price ratio that has held sway over the centuries. Kicking off his presentation at our recent Gold & Resource Summit, Bob Quartermain, the powerhouse behind Silver Standard (SSO), stated that if the audience took nothing else away from his talk, it should be that the demand for silver well exceeds new mine supply, and has for some time.

Earlier in the year I had the pleasure of having lunch with hedge fund manager John Paulson. When asked what he anticipated to be the main driver of investment returns over the next few years, he responded without hesitation: “Currencies”. I thought long and hard about that answer and haven’t been able to get the discussion out of my head since. John Paulson’s logic is simple. The world is in the unprecedented situation of all four major trading currencies (EUR, GBP, JPY and USD) facing their unique set of challenges. But not all four can fall at the same time. Currencies are unique in the sense that they are relative as opposed to absolute trading objects. You don’t just buy dollars. You buy dollars against some other currency which is why they can’t all fall at the same time. - Niels Jensen, Absolute Return Partners

If JPM and HSBC hoped that the lawsuits filed a week ago by Brian Beatty and Peter Laskari, which we discussed previously, were going to be the end of their public exposure with regard to possible silver market manipulation, they are about to be disappointed. Today, in a separate lawsuit filed by Carl Loeb in the Southern District of New York, a new light on precious manipulation by the duo was shone, this time involving allegations of breach of the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. And with the CFTC itself admitting of ongoing manipulation in the silver market, it appears this issue is not going to go away quietly any time soon. Per Steve Berman, co-counsel of plaintiff law firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro: "The practice of naked short selling has long been a serious issue on Wall Street. What we know about the scope and intent of JP Morgan and HSBC's actions
in this short-selling scheme dwarfs any other similar attempt to
manipulate a commodities market." As this case is also seeking class action status for the class, readers who wish to join this particular case may apply to do so at the following link. Plaintiffs are seeking that the court enjoin JP Morgan and HSBC from continuing their alleged
conspiracy and manipulation of the silver futures and options contracts
market.

RANsquawk Market Wrap Up - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 03/11/10

Given the high market expectations, the US Federal Reserve had no choice but to announce a second tranche of quantitative easing, nicknamed QE2. But the measure is an inevitably blunt instrument for the difficult task of restoring growth and generating jobs. The benefits accruing to America come with burdens for other countries, and both could soon be swamped by the unintended consequences of this unavoidably imperfect policy approach... The unfortunate conclusion is that QE2 will be of limited success in sustaining high growth and job creation in the US, and will complicate life for many other countries. With domestic outcomes again falling short of policy expectations, it is just a matter of time until the Fed will be expected to do even more. And this means Wednesday’s QE2 announcement is unlikely to be the end of unusual Fed policy activism.

After last week's minimal outflow of "just" 218 million, Bob Pisani could already taste victory and preemptively claimed that there already were inflows into stock mutual funds. Luckily, today's ICI data puts an end to yet another piece of blatant CNBC propaganda. For the week ended October 27, ICI registered a $2.9 billion outflow from domestic equity mutual funds, making 26 straight weeks, or half a year, of neverending outflows. This brings the total to $84 billion. But fear not: now that the Fed will be buying $110 billion worth of stock via the Primary Dealers, courtesy of over 100 POMO operations over the next 8 months, it is more than clear who will be buying any and all stock in the stock market. In the meantime, the HFTs, the PDs, and Brian Sack will be riddled with so many hot potatoes they need to dump to idiot retailers (and good luck dumping that GM POS to retail investors), Wall Street will soon become the world's biggest potato farm.

Citi's Steven Englander has updated his view on what QE2 will mean for the dollar. In a nutshell: "Net, net we see this as allowing for further USD drop, but drift rather than precipitous." Basically this is precisely the stuff that will make the upcoming Ron Paul-Ben Bernanke hearings must watch TV. With the EURUSD now approaching the mid 1.41's, so far Bernanke is succeeding. The only question is whether the Fed's control over the ECB via currency swaps and asset guarantees will be sufficient leverage to allow it to destroy the dollar with impunity and send the EURUSD to a level of 1.6, as a helpless Europe sits and does absolutely nothing. Elsewhere, the USDCHF is back to a 0.96 handle. There is no question: if Europe allows the dollar to plunge here without any response it is signing off it entire export segment. And lastly, for the time being, the USDJPY has somehow not dropped below 80. It will shortly. One thing is certain: foreign banks will retaliate. Maybe not the gutless, toothless, and very much broke ECB, but everyone else, yes.

GM has filed its IPO prospectus. At 276 pages, 240 F-pages, and 53-A pages, it is just slightly shorter than the entire text of healthcare reform. And since the fate of ponzi crony capitalism rest on the successful pricing of this dogshit, every single underwriter in the world (20 banks) is a participant, with Morgan Stanley lead left. In a nutshell, Government motors hopes to sell 365 million shares, with an expected price of $26-29/share. Now if only GM could focus on making good cars as much as they care about paying lawyers millions for writing the biggest paperweight in history, all would be well. And with no clear disclosed Uses of Funds, we are confident the government will take the proceeds to the Primary Dealers and compensate them for massive underwriter losses.

The Fed is pegging the curve to stabilise the 10yr sector, with purchases to have an average duration of 5 to 6 years....we already saw 10yr option volatility hammered pre-announcement and let me remind you that our friends at PIMCO are short +200K of TY strangles around and including the 124 Puts and the 129 Calls!!!!

Yesterday Goldman recommended two trades on how to trade the post-FOMC trade: the first, was to sell vol. With the VIX plunging this trade is now solidly in the money. The second leg, the medium-term one, buying S&P November 1,125 puts, i.e., preparing for a subsequent market sell off, has yet to materialize. And with the euro now at nosebleed levels for Europe, expect to see some fireworks from Europe over the next few days designed exclusively to kill the EUR, send the dollar higher, and complete the Goldman trade. We are concerned what this may mean for the viability of Ireland and/or other peripheral countries.