Archive - Jan 2010 - Story

"Once private demand has become self-sustained, the sequencing of exit from accommodative monetary and fiscal policy should be guided by a variety of considerations, including whether: high fiscal deficits and debt are raising concerns about sustainability and sovereign risk—which is the primary consideration in many countries; low interest rates might be contributing to asset price bubbles; the exchange rate is under pressure to appreciate or depreciate as well as its position relative to medium-term fundamentals; and how quickly monetary or fiscal policy can be adjusted to changes in domestic demand." - IMF

After the double dip in now home sales and NAHB confidence, the unadjusted double dip in housing prices is following suit. Today's November Case-Shiller data showed that after having recorded several sequential increases in prices, November's -0.2% decline is substantiating the October -0.1% decline. The decline on a YoY basis was -5.3%. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the Composite 20 also indicated a moderation, as the sequential rate of increase declined from 0.3% to 0.2% in November, and indicated the same YoY decline as the unadjusted data of -5.3%.

• IMF World Economic Outlook revises 2010 world GDP to +3.9% from prior estimate of +3.1%, world revenue growth revised ro 2.4% from 1.5% (Link to come)
• Fink or Blankfein: who is lying: "BlackRock indicated that Goldman Sachs might be willing to
  accept less money than it was entitled to under its AIG
  contracts because the bank hadn’t received all of the collateral
  it requested. Goldman Sachs’s van Praag said the firm was never open to
  anything less than full repayment and that it never indicated
  otherwise to BlackRock." (Bloomberg)
• AIG bail out investigations launched (BBC)
• It is time for Ben Bernanke to resign (Real Clear Markets)
• Goldman parachute awaits Geithner to ease fall (Bloomberg)
• Goldman Sachs, in cross hairs, mulls options (Reuters)

"The ratings on Japan could fall by one notch if economic data remain weak and measures to boost medium-term growth are not forthcoming, given the country's high government debt burden and its weak demographic profile. Standard & Poor's will be looking for signs of government policy toward fiscal consolidation in the update of its medium-term fiscal plan, due to be released in the first half of 2010. Additional policy initiatives may also be revealed after the upper house elections in July. If on the other hand we conclude that government policies, either on the fiscal side or structural reform side, will moderate the government's debt trajectory, the ratings could stabilize at the current levels." S&P

• Asian stocks fall as China tightening concerns deepen; Yen, Dollar advance.
• Bank of Japan holds interest rate steady to fight deflation as Yen rises.
• China stocks drop a third day as loan outlook weighs on banks, developers.
• Chinese banks may see addln increase in their reserve ratios take effect today: media.
• Existing-home sales plunged in December by 16.7% - raising fresh concerns.
• Fed officials consider adopting interest on reserves as new benchmark rate.
• Obama to propose a 3-yr freeze on $447B in discretionary federal spending.
• S. Korean economic growth eases to 0.2%, slowest pace in three quarters.

RANsquawk 26th January Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc.

Excess injected marginal dollar liquidity has propped up risk assets (and consequently bank balance sheets) and bank capital bases, both domestically and abroad. 92.5% of the liquidity injected from quantitative easing (version 1.0) has been deployed already, leaving under $125B of remaining injections. With a secular credit downturn as the macro backdrop to these reflationary measures, the USD demand resurgence via deleveraging and debt deflation, as well as the much-needed capital inflows into dollar-denominated debt after a declining dollar and risk aversion has led to 30-yr wide 2s20s, what is the downside risk in all assets besides USD and USD debt?

As observant readers will recall, a week ago we pointed out a letter in which the New York Fed's Steven Manzari instructed AIG to stand down on all discussions with counterparties on "tearing up/unwinding CDS trades on the CDO portfolio." At the time we focused on the word "stand down" as an indication of the Fed's lead role in the process. At this point there is no doubt that the FRBNY, together with its law firm, Davis Polk, were in the pilot's seat during the entire AIG negotiation, and while Tim Geithner may not have been the responsible man for this, someone must have been - and for the record, our money is a double or nothing on recently promoted FRBNY Senior Vice President Sarah Dahlgren, who as of January 21st is in charge of the Fed's Special Investments [AIG] Management Group. We sure hope Sarah gets the chance to recall her memories beginning in the fateful month of September 2008 when she became the person in charge of the FRBNY's AIG relationship. But back to the letter - little did we know that our focus was on the right sentence... but on the wrong word. What should have struck us front and center, was Habayeb's admission that contract "tear downs" had been evaluated. This means that someone, aside from AIG, must have expressed an interest in a tear down, which if true would have dramatic consequences for the entire AIG debacle. Today, the WSJ presented the missing piece of the puzzle.

Martha Coakley suffered a 26% swing in support, from a 15% lead over Scott Brown to an eventual 9% loss, killing chances of a comprehensive healthcare reform bill. 50.8% of Americans oppose the healthcare bill. Meanwhile, 84% of Americans oppose re-confirming Ben Bernanke as Fed Chairman. Cloture requires 22 more votes and with 28 Dems yet to voice a yes or no to Bernanke's reappointment, the prospect of undecideds permitting the GOP's filibuster hold (and consequently eliminating Bernanke's chances for a second term) is becoming increasingly interesting, as well as increasingly likely.

By now you have certainly heard the opinion of one Paul Volcker who claims that the only useful financial innovation over the past 20 years has been the ATM machine. Now please indulge this video, in which Jeremy Grantham and Rick Bookstaber debate popular opinion that financial innovation boosts economic growth, as defended by Myron Scholes and Putnam's Robert Reynolds, and support the case (judged by a popular vote before and after the debate) that financial innovation in recent decades has done nothing but make the financial sector become a "large, heavy, and growing bloodsucker on the economy's back." (and yes, such brilliant developments as HFT, Flash trading, and all other "market efficiency and liquidity enhancing" gimmicks most certainly fall under the innovation umbrella).

Everyone in Congress, and anywhere else for that matter, knows prop desk trading (banks trading their own capital like a hedge fund) is a conflict of interest. They may or may not think it important or that it caused this or that problem, but they know it’s a real conflict.  Congressmen, since when wasn’t conflict of interest and poor ethical standards reason enough to change the law? But since we bring it up, of course prop trading was indeed the rot at the heart of our financial problems (see last quarter’s Letter). Watching traders take home their $28 million bonus sent a powerful message to lowly salesmen and packagers of asset-backed securities, for example, to get out there and really take some risk. This rot spread to the very top, and pretty soon chairmen of boards were exhorting CEOs to leverage up and look more like some much more profitable rival that resembled a hedge fund rather than an investment bank. Thus encouraged – or intimidated – some CEOs just kept on dancing right off the cliff. Let’s
learn from our near disaster. Viva Volcker!

Senator Dick Durbin has said that he hopes the Senate will reconfirm Bernanke by the end of the week, and
that President Obama is actively calling senators to boost Bernanke.

One wonders if this weekend's massive campaign to push for Bernanke has been insufficient.

And other news we have gotten recently:

• These are other senators who have voiced their support for Bernanke recently:Bennett, Nelson, Byrd, Hagan.
• These are still undecided: Leahy, Udall, Cardin, Klobuchar, Thune

Is it time to summon Davis Polk And Wardwell to provide testimony before Congress? New disclosure from the Huffington Post seems to indicate so.

Extremely volatile action: assorted Atari system short circuiting with no benchmark to compare results against.

Blowout quarter, with $3.67 in EPS ($3.50 estimates), on $15.7 billion in revenue ($14.96bn consensus) . Apple sold 3.36 million Macintosh computers during the quarter, representing a 33 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 8.7 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 100 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 21 million iPods during the quarter, representing an eight percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. Apple had $7.6 billion of cash as of December 31, up $2.4 billion from a year ago, although coupled with a decline in marketable securities from $18.2 billion to $17.1 billion.