Archive - Nov 2010 - Story

While markets across the world have been crashing, the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange has being seeing record gains as citizens turn to equities to protect their money from the country's hyperinflation. The benchmark Industrial Index soared 257 percent on Tuesday up from a previous one day record of 241 percent on Monday with some companies seeing share prices increase by up to 3,500 percent. But before Wall Street traders start packing their bags and heading south, they should bear in mind that these figures are just another representation of Zimbabwe's collapsing economy and are almost meaningless in real terms. Zimbabwe, once a regional breadbasket, is staggering amid the world's worst inflation, a looming humanitarian emergency and worsening shortages of food, gasoline and most basic goods. Inflation is at 231 million percent, but some experts put it more at about 20 trillion percent.

An auspicious start to today's melt up in... cue Tepper... EVERYTHING. Hatzius, first seeing trillions more in POMOs, now reduces his economic growth forecast: "With all the data now in hand, we are reducing slightly our call on total nonfarm payrolls in October to +25k from +50k. Our estimate of the private-sector change remains at +75k. Most of the 50k difference is due to an expected additional loss of state and local jobs."

Goldman: "In practice, QE2 is likely to continue well beyond June 2011—at least well into 2012—if our forecasts for unemployment and inflation are close to the mark. We believe that purchases could ultimately cumulate to around $2 trillion...Under our longer-term projections it is easy to come up with models that show no tightening until 2015 or later." In other news, the economy will not recover for the next five years, but under the Centrally Planned Feudal State of Bernanke, the economy is irrelevant. Incidentally, Zero Hedge now believes a $5 trillion QE3 program will be announced by July 2011, when gold is trading at $10,000, the entire Treasury curve is at zero, and stock prices are meaningless courtesy of a DXY sub 50, and every commodity opening limit up daily.

Just like in mutual fund outflows, the initial claims prior upward revision is spot on as expected: prior week's 434K was revised to 437K, continuing the statistically improbable streak by the Ministry of Truth. Otherwise, the current number, which will also be revised higher next week, came at 457K, 15K worse than expectations of 442K. And continuing claims, which came at 4,378K, was, presto, a decline from the now revised number of 4,382K, which initially came at 4,356K. Net, net: this is the 15th in a row upward revision for initial claims, 14th for continuing: propaganda uberalles.

• Fed takes bold, risky step to bolster weak economy (Reuters)
• Oil rises towards $86 on Fed, weak dollar (Reuters), we expect $90 oil within a week
• Asia Girds for Stronger Currencies, Bubble Threat From Fed Move (Bloomberg)
• Obama Says He'll Negotiate With Republicans on Bush Tax Cuts (Bloomberg)
• Sarkozy To Meet Hu As France Takes G20 Lead (FT)
• Pettis Op-ed: Targeting Currencies Will Not Stop Trade Imbalances (FT)
• Bank of America Edges Closer to Tipping Point: Jonathan Weil (Bloomberg)
• Analysis: Strategic tensions threaten Asia as China rises (Reuters)
• Goldman's Pay Pool Shrinks Fastest as Traders' Fortunes Dwindle (Bloomberg)

• BOJ confronts two-decade land slump with planned purchase of REITs, ETFs.
• U.S. sales of cars and light trucks rose 13.4% in October from a year ago.
• AES's Sept. net income declines from $185M to $114M.
• Aetna's net rose 53% on invt gains, lower costs. Ups 2010 EPS view to $3.60 (prev $3.05-3.15).
• Alcatel-Lucent Falls on lower-than-expected operating margin
• Amdocs sees Q1 EPS at $0.49-0.58 (cons $0.60); revs of $760-780M (cons $774.39M).
• Becton Dickinson reports in line; posts Q4 EPS of $1.24, Revs up 1% at $1.87B.

Reports today on the Monster index (already out - it fell, but hey, QE2), initial claims, productivity and costs, and spending at retail chains….Oh yeah, and a $5-6 billion POMO.

RANsquawk European Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 04/11/10

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