Archive - Nov 2010 - Story

That China somehow magically pulled a 4.4% inflation number for October out of its hat is not surprising. After all this is precisely the number that the "local market" was expecting as there are no secrets in China, even if the Bloomberg surveyed Keynesian fundamentalists-cum-economists end up being "pleasantly surprised." Yet none of this is at all relevant: now even Credit Suisse's Sean Keane (see below) is openly ridiculing the magic 8-ball that the Chinese department of truth is. The only open question is whether this acceleration in the economy to a two year high will lead to a rate hike. And the answer, as Bank of America says, is no. Which means a whole of nothing is about to happen as a result of this latest non-news which just confirms that China's economy is telegraphed to be overheating at precisely the rate that its politburo has determined is just right.

Oil prices were higher yesterday, and refined products had especially brisk sessions. In the process, crude oil prices settled well above $87.15, confirming the technical breakout that prices had been flirting with for days and pointing towards a test of $89.50 and then somewhere in the $94-$95 zone. Gasoline prices powered past their important resistance at 219.92-220.11, settling a solid three- and-a-half cents over that resistance. Heating oil prices deepened their breakout and widened the distance between the last price and their initial breakout area. The combined result is that we have solid technical breakouts across the spectrum.

Greenspan chimes in on the biggest debate of the post-Bernanke era, and says "America
is also pursuing a policy of currency weakening." Duh. At this point we would love to ask the dear demented revisionist: just what on earth was your policy, Mr. ex-chairman, and why is "it" really known as the Greenspan Put? At the end of the day, does all the Fed do, aside from bubbles of course, is just create insane, cannibalistic, and completely revisionist, apparatchiks?

Though we may sound like a broken record, just one more week, and we promise that the hot potato chasers will return to the broken market. After all who else will the Primary Dealers and HFTs offload their billions in AMZN, EBAY and AAPL shares to? And now back to your regularly scheduled propaganda.

The conference call is still ongoing, but the company has dropped a bombshell by cutting revenue guidance by 10%: it now anticipates a 3-5% revenue growth from Q2 last year, which was $9.8 billion, or therefore a range of $10.1-$10.3 billion. As the estimate on the street is for $11.1 billion for the next quarter, the firm just whacked up to $1 billion of the top line. Weakness attributed to US Cable segment, public spending, and Europe. In other words, everything. CSCO also sees Q2 EPS 32c-35c vs. consensus 42c. In other words, the second tech bubble may just have popped although don't count out the Fed-backed momos just yet. The stock is down 13% as of this posting, and the futures are plunging. We will bring you the call transcript asap.

On one hand we have the WSJ writing day after day that prices of food and energy products are not "really" rising. On the other hand we have empirical evidence that virtually every staple is already higher in price, or is being served in proportionally smaller portions. One possible arbitration on the issues comes from the NIA, which even if biased, does provide an estimate of where prices of various key perishables will end up in a post-QE2 world. These are as follows: "$11.43 for one ear of corn, $23.05 for a 24 oz loaf of wheat bread, $62.21 for a 32 oz package of Domino Granulated Sugar, $24.31 for a 32 fl oz container of soy milk, $77.71 for a 11.30 oz container of Folgers Classic Roast Coffee, $45.71 for a 64 fl oz container of Minute Maid Orange Juice, and $15.50 for a Hershey's Milk Chocolate 1.55 oz candy bar." Granted these are likely somewhat whimsical, but even if they are partially correct, it would mean the bulk of US society, as we pointed out previously, is in for a long, cold, hungry winter.

Well at least the only trade left in town is working! In a classic old school alley-oop clinic that could make us forget Magic to Kareem, the Fed to dealers to Fed (remember the Fed runs the auctions) switcharoo was in full force today. Add to that the fact we have a mid-week bond holiday before the start of QE 2.0 on Friday, and really the set-up was perfect. A nice tail at the auction stopped out the day traders and the weak longs into the hands of the dealers who turned around and bought, even more so in the 5y to 10Y sector, so they can deliver to the Fed on Friday. We happily tried to help our clients collect on the round trip as this kind of day is clearly a sign of what's to come in the Fixed Income space. - Nic Lenoir

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

The recently announced Quantitative Easing 2 policy of the Federal Reserve has had and will have a profound effect on the dollar—and a profound effect on the American people: Especially the bottom 80%. In a word, QE2 will make four fifths of the American people poorer. Bernanke’s stated purpose in QE2 is to spark consumer spending, and thereby reignite the economy. But QE2 will have the paradoxical effect of making basic necessities—food, housing, clothing, transportation—more expensive for everyone. This will mean that basic necessities will take a bigger bite out of household incomes, reducing consumption, rather than stimulating it. So like a frog dropped in a pot of cold water that's had the heat turned up, the American people—especially the bottom 60% to 80% of the population—will slowly be boiled to death in the stew of QE2. —Gonzalo Lira

In attending a Paul Krugman lecture yesterday, we came away with two main takeaways: 1) the Perceived Wisdoms of academic dogma run rampant throughout U.S. monetary policy; and 2) Keynesians really don’t get it. - Hedgeye Risk Management

The California Legislative Analyst's Office has just released the latest fiscal outlook. It's not pretty. The state discloses a $25.4 billion budget "problem" which consists of a $6 billion deficit for the remainder of 2010-2011, and a $19 billion budget deficit forecasted for 2011-2012, thanks to a $8 billion plunge in revenues for the general fund, as temporary tax increases adopted in 2009 expire. Furthermore, as the state admits: "One major reason to stop passing the state’s problems to future Californians is that the state’s long-term fiscal liabilities—for infrastructure, retirement, and budgetary borrowing—are already huge. The costs of paying down these liabilities already are reflected, to some extent, in the state’s recurring deficits, but these costs will only grow in the future. By deferring hard decisions on how to finance routine annual budgets of state programs to future years, the state risks increasing further the already immense fiscal challenges facing tomorrow’s Californians." Luckily this is all rhetorical, and Cali will just take the Bernanke pill, and kick the can down the road. And as state budgets ultimately have to balance, at least on paper, one wonders if Cravath's ploy with its pro bono Harrisburg gimmick is merely to get Sacramento on a silver platter when the Chapter 9s move to the Golden State. One can be certain that one won't be pro bono.

Contrary to popular expectations, robosigners are not just assorted WalMart rejects, also known as Bank of America employees of the month. Meet the Damilic Corporation, which makes the first true to life Robosigner. It is amazing Bank of America has still not taken the company public yet. With signing rates of 500 sheets/hour, this company is sure to trade at a Netflix comparable P/E of 100 in no time.

The Fed's marching orders to the Primary Dealers are now public: $105 billion in 18 nearly daily operations over the next month. Let the Fed frontrunning begin. Also, still wondering why the 30 Year turned around today: the Fed will buy back today's 30 Year issue (and others) next Friday, and of course someone just got wind of this ahead of the POMO announcement. Lastly, as the Fed no longer wants to be seen as gaming the "Tendered to Submitted" ratio, Brian Sack is actually releasing how much of any given bucket he will buy back, so to telegraph absolutely everything about his Dow 36,000 intentions. And just in case one POMO a day is not sufficient, on November 29, the Fed will hold two. The second one is footnoted as follows: "This operation is tentatively scheduled to begin around 1:15 PM and close at 2:00 PM." Whatever you do, don't be short on November 29. Which of course means, be short, as nobody will be short.

Goldman's "conviction buy" list claims its latest crashing (not literally) and burning (literally) casualty. "We are removing Boeing from the Conviction List. It remains Buy rated...It now appears the new product cycle of the 787 program has renewed risk of being incrementally problematic before delivering the earnings and sentiment catalyst that we still believe will eventually be realized. Since we added it to the Conviction Buy List on 5/10/10, BA is down 2.5% vs. the S&P 500 up 4.6%."

Harrisburg, PA, whose bankruptcy is now about a year overdue, has just hired bankruptcy counsel: New York law firm Cravath, Swaine and Moore. The financial advisor has not been decided yet although the pitches there must be fast and furious, and probably involved every single bankruptcy advisory firm which recently has had exactly zero work courtesy of Ben Bernanke providing convertible DIPs at negative rates. Cravath took a tricky strategy to beat out other law firms: it would advise the city pro bono on its imminent Chapter 9. But don't think of it as money lost: think of it as league table credit, which will send the firm to the top of the ranks, and allow it to charge $1,000 an hour when the muni dominoes start tumbling left and right: after all Harrisburg is just the proverbial cherry pop. After it - the deluge. And the bankruptcy advisory vultures are already licking their chops over what will make the Lehman fee bonanza (now in the billions) seem like Greenspan's stingy monetary policy compared to Bernanke's global paradropping of Bennies.