Archive - Feb 2010 - Story

The Treasury has released the most recent UST Auction Allotment by Investment Class data for recent Treasury auctions. In January and February of a total $207 billion in Coupons auctioned, foreign and international investors acquired $58 billion (28% of total), dealers and brokers took down $104 billion (51%), depository institutions purchased just $3.2 billion, investment funds acquired $35 billion (16.8%) and individuals took down a mere $1 billion. In Bills, there was a total of $286 billion in Bills issued in January, of which foreigners purchased $47 billion (16.4%), dealers and brokers bought $145 billion (50.7%), investment funds bought another $43 billion (15.2%), and individuals were responsible for just $10 billion in Bills. Notable is the nearly double relative interest that foreigners have for Coupons than to Bills, as a result of persistently low interest rates.

And you were worried about Iran. China's People Liberation Army has come out and openly said that the nuclear option, i.e., selling US Treasuries, is now on the table and should be exercised as "punishment" for U.S.' arms sales to Taiwan. China undoubtedly realizes that this is a prime example of sado-masochism as the resultant plunge in Treasuries that would follow would hurt the US certainly, but also have a "mild to quite mild" impact on China's $700 (and likely much greater) UST holdings. Game theory 101 just got interesting.

Zero Hedge Information Technologists, Nuclear Isotope Transportation, Lockpicking & Costume Shop Amalgamated, Local 5134-1 has announced a go-slow strike effective immediately. Zero Hedge IT workers will don "Che" t-shirts and randomly unplug Cat-5 cables from the main Zero Hedge servers during high server load in protest of Germany's refusal to provide the data center with additional server hardware and cover the $23 billion in unfunded pension liabilities accrued during Larry Summers' tenure as Chief Investment Officer for ZHITNITLCSAERS. Readers can expect to experience sporadic outages to service generally lasting no more than 30-45 seconds.

Or maybe this Greek-Hun bond battle and the unquenchable lust Zero Hedge readers have for more... more... MORE... has simply spiked traffic to such insane levels that we keep hitting our throttling limits.

Welcome to 1984, where outright propaganda and lies bombard you from current and prior administration officials each and every day. Here is the latest insanity straight from the horse's mouth (no pun intended).

This latest on Greece, this time from Dow Jones. Why is Obama speaking about windmills as the future of global moral hazard, Larry Summers edition, is being decided in Berlin? From DJ: "Finance Ministry spokesman Michael Offer said EU members wanted to develop further recapitalization measures that calm the markets."

Crazy pill time. More disinformation as we get it. Is Germany merely probing to see the market reaction to leaks? If the Bund collapses can they just call the whole thing off?

• Yields 1.377% vs. Exp. 1.36%
• Bid To Cover 2.83 vs. Avg. 3.01 (Prev. 2.98)
• Indirects 51.2% vs. Avg. 54.12% (Prev. 38.09%)
• Indirect Bid To Cover lower at 1.16
• Allotted at high 26.75%
• Direct take down 10.07%
• Indirect take down 51.18%

Total, utter, complete confusion. The latest from Reuters, quoting a German Government official, is that the Greece bailout rumors are UNFOUNDED.

Now that there is no more risk, anywhere, here are the preliminary thoughts on how kicking the can down the road has just taken on a whole new meaning, courtesy of the FT Deutschland. We are certain that citizens of Germany and France will be ecstatic to see their tax money used to first save Greece, then Spain, the Portugal, then Italy, then Lithuania, then Bulgaria, etc.

We have been vocal opponents of the long Bund trade for well over a month. Today, on news of the Greek bailout, the Bund yield is surging as the 10 year Bund plunges to session lows. Sorry Pimco, you lose this one.

And here are some more headlines to rub salt in the wounds of all those idiots who bought Almunia's blatant lies about no Greece "Plan B."

11:56 02/09 PRESS: TALK OF BOTH BI-LATERAL,INTERNATIONAL HELP FOR GREECE

11:55 02/09 PRESS: GERMAN GOVT PREPARING SUPPORT PACKAGE FOR GREECE

Citi just broke the $3.15 secondary follow-on price after, as we disclosed first, S&P stated there was no longer a guarantee that TBTFs would have perpetual government support. And at precisely the moment when everything seemed like we were about to head into the red, here comes a rumor from Reuters that governments have decided "in the broad sense of the word" to help Greece, according to a senior German ruling coalition source. How this translates in Euro strength is unknown. How this jives with Greece's earlier statement that a call for aid would be the worst signal is also unknown. Yet look at the jump in EUR-JPY pair - the surge in the market as a result is a side-effect. Moral hazard is now global.

11:35 02/09 RTRS:GERMAN GOVT SOURCES:EMU IN PRINCIPLE READY TO HELP GREECE

11:36 02/09 RTRS:GERMAN SOURCES:CBANKS,GOVTS NOW STUDYING SUPPORT SCHEMES

11:37 02/09 RTRS:GERMAN SOURCES:AS YET NO DECISION ON CONCRETE AID MEASURS

RANsquawk 9th February US Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc.

10:44 02/09 EU ALMUNIA: SUPPORT SHOULD BE IN RETURN FOR GREEK EFFORTS
10:43 02/09 EU ALMUNIA: WANTS EU LEADERS TO SAY THEY WILL SUPPORT GREECE
10:41 02/09 EU ALMUNIA: CURRENT SITUATION MOST DIFFICULT SINCE EMU START
10:41 02/09 EU ALMUNIA: EU SPECIAL SUMMIT THURSDAY V IMPORTANT
10:40 02/09 EU ALMUNIA: NEED TO REESTABLISH CONFIDENCE IN EMU, EURO
10:34 02/09 EU ALMUNIA: NEED TO INCREASE COORDINATION IN EURO ZONE
10:36 02/09 EU ALMUNIA: EMU CAN AND SHOULD SOLVE GREECE BY OURSELVES

While Iran is second in posturing only to North Korea, adding a geopolitical threat to an already simmering liquidity fire is certainly never a good thing to a market engrossed by yet another short squeeze. The Telegraph reports that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said that the country was set to deliver a "punch" that will stun world powers during this week's 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution.

Standard and Poor's whacks Citi and Bank of America, revising its outlook on both firms from Stable to Negative, cites "increased uncertainty about the U.S. government's willingness to provide additional extraordinary support to highly systemically important financial institutions in a way that will benefit debt holders."