Archive - May 2010 - Story

...the former Fast Money lead man is actually pretty spot on. And for all you retail investors who think this market is anything but a two-tiered playground built now exclusively for Wall Street to fleece you every single day, our advice is to get the hell out. Everyone else already is... Except of course for the banks and the various 3-3,000 man quant operations, which are the only market participants left. We hope they cannibalize whatever is left of each other and blow themselves all up in the process. Whatever is left will have infinitely more credibility than the busted mockery of capital markets we have now.

We now know that the European Union, as part of its most recent ridiculous idea for a global eurozone bailout, is planning on soon issuing its own bonds and thus becoming a defacto Treasury. How the hell it plans on doing this is simply beyond comprehension, but it certainly involves a lot of "financial innovation"... ergo - enter Goldman Sachs, from whom it would need a ringing endorsement to proceed with its plan. Alas, the just released note from Erik Nielsen is anything but favorable: "All in all this is good news, but it is unlikely in itself to calm markets; its all too “slow-burner” stuff." (and yes title is a ref: Douglas Adams - the EU has the answer, if only they could find the question now).

And now for today's bombshell - lietarlly at the very end of Moody's 10-Q filed last night, we find this stunner:

On March 18, 2010, MIS received a “Wells Notice” from the Staff of the SEC stating that the Staff is considering recommending that the Commission institute administrative and cease-and-desist proceedings against MIS in connection with MIS’s initial June 2007 application on SEC Form NRSRO to register as a nationally recognized statistical rating organization under the Credit Rating Agency Reform Act of 2006.

Well at least it took Moody's under two months to report this massively material development, which while we are not positive on how to read the C&D action on the NRSRO registration, could mark the beginning of the end for the rating agency. If the firm is enjoined from providing additional rating research should the SEC action find fault and proceed with a lawsuit, it would mean game over for the business. Egan-Jones: it's IPO time.

We will be shocked, shocked we tell you, to find that Mr. Buffett has sold out his entire position in MCO when BRK's next 13-F is filed.

Even as the immediate factor for the 1000 point drop in the Dow is investigated for the next several months by the SEC, a process which will likely not come to any reasonable market structure regulatory recommendation before the SEC is forced to analyze the next subsequent (and even greater) crash, the one primary fundamental cause for the sell off in stocks this week was the ever deteriorating situation in Europe. As the euro tumbled on Thursday afternoon, which we noted 20 minutes before the stock market crash began in earnest, as implied correlation algos went berserk, and as viewers were witnessing the near-warfare in Athens live, things just got too real for speculators (investors is so 20^th century). Various computerized trading platforms merely kicked on (or rather, off) after the initial panic had already set in, and liquidity evaporated, leading to the implosion in the market. And the primary reason for the initial market pessimism early on Thursday was the fact that even as the whole world was listening to Jean-Claude Trichet to say soothing words after the ECB's rate decision, the central bank president once again did not realize the gravity of the situation. And to speculators, long habituated to Bernanke's endorsement of infinite moral hazard and speculative mania, the fact that someone refused to play "ball" and leave open the possibility that failure is still permitted in our day and age was the last straw. Now, 48 hours later, we learn that the rumors, which we reported about the ECB preparing a bailout fund, were indeed true. Our sense is that at this point the ECB's action is "too little, too late" as contagion fear has already crept deep within the fabric of various overt and shadow funding/liquidity mechanisms. Additionally, the world is now convinced that Europe can only deal with problems retroactively, and who knows how big and unfixable the next problem will be: the ECB, which has lost most of its credibility after "inviting" the IMF to do a heavy part of the bailout, is about to become the laughing stock of global central banks. Trichet is seen merely as a powerless bureaucrat, caught between Merkel's electoral struggles and Bernanke's demands for contagion interception and implicit Fed supremacy over Europe. The contagion from the "isolated" Greek fiasco is rapidly spreading. Here are some of the ways in which markets are about to be affected.

Nothing can curb the endless bullishness and enthusiasm of Joseph Cohen's successor, not even a 1000 point drop in the Dow in 5 minutes, and the realization that markets are nothing than the backdoor opium smoke-filled gambling den of a few mutually front-running algorithms. In the latest Weekly Kickstart, Goldman's David Kostin, tries to fill the Goldman trading axes, and begins with the following: "Fundamentals ignored as US equities gripped by contagion fears; we see 1250 by year-end." Of course, those who have done the opposite of what Kostin has preached (i.e., Goldman Sachs itself) are the only ones outperforming the market: "Our recommended sector weightings have generated -12 bp of alpha YTD. Our overweight recommendations (Energy, Materials, Info Tech) have generated -32 bp of alpha while our underweight positions (Health Care, Consumer Staples, Utilities, Telecom) have generated +20 bp of alpha." We will soon refresh the Goldman "CONviction Buy List" YTD P&L. That one should be fun. In the meantime, enjoy some pretty charts from 200 West.

A few days ago we reported, quite stunned, that the US Treasury had redeemed nearly $600 billion in Bills in the month of April. Alas, the side-effects of an massively short-maturity heavy bond curve will be here to haunts us for a long time: according to today's DTS, in the first 4 business days of May alone, the UST has redeemed $144 billion in Bills. Annualized this number is surely something that even Richard Feynman would not joke about. We have gotten to the point where the roll issue is not a monthly concern, but is becoming a weekly funding threat, and even daily. Of course, as we speculated in December, what better way to raise demand for Treasuries than to stage an equity selloff. Well, we got our selloff, and the 10 Year was trading in the lower 3% range today. However, the risk now is how the sovereign fire will spread through the periphery and into the core. Already, we are seeing that CDS traders are massively betting on a collapse of the UK as the next bastion of sovereign spending lunacy. And when the UK goes, Germany is next, shortly to be followed by Japan and the US. At that point the only buyer of US debt will be the US itself. Which will lead to the final outcome of massive consumer deflation as economic collapse finally strikes home, coupled with asset price hyperinflation, as a gallon of oil hits $10 (and helping the Dow hit 36,000). And as this is not an equilibrium state, the outcome will be, as it always is in these situations, war. Hopefully the US is good as it historically has been at finding its "deserving" opponent, WMDs aside. Otherwise, things may be a little rough for the great declining American civilization after the next 5 years.

Spreads were broadly wider today with breadth very negative as single-names caught up to the index underperformance from yesterday. Despite what appeared a better-than-expected jobs print, derisking was rife once again and European financials led the way. High beta single-names underperformed low-beta dramatically and curves generally flattened at the short-end and steepened at the long-end (though liquidity out from 5Y was less than average).

As an aside, it may be time for IG accounts to take a look at NRUC again. May be getting ready to blow again

Computerized trading platforms and various algos are entering the biggest frenzy over assorted technological gimmicks since the October 1987 crash. And the public demands their blood. Or as the case may be, Lithium Hydride. Alas, the agency that is supposed to protect investors from abuses of HFT and various other newfangled technologies is woefully stupid to be able to deal with this great issue. Nonetheless, Senators Ted Kaufman (D-DE) and Mark Warner (D-VA) on Friday proposed an addition to the Senate’s Wall Street reform bill that would direct the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to report to Congress on several key issues surrounding the May 6, 2010 market meltdown, which sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbling dramatically in minutes. High-frequency-trading algorithms have been the initial focus of questions concerning the collapse. We hope Kaufman is successful. On the other hand, the most likely product of the SEC's work product will be a 1 million page printout of all the jpegs in www.underagetransvestitesforregulators.com, better known in SEC circles as due diligence output. As usual, we hope we are wrong. As usual, we suspect we aren't.

The only trend that seems unlikely to abate at this point is Gold's bullish trend. We seem to be set to take out the highs and further accelerate from here. The only danger to the trend is a wave of defaults which would be massively deflationary in theory, but at this points it is unlikely politicians will let that happen. They will only make everyone wait painfully to come up to the obvious conclusion that they will bend and provide the liquidity needed and thereby cause damage to the system. - Nic Lenoir

One of the smarter people out there, yet one who constantly confuses his hopium kool-aid for other more alcoholically infused beverages, Credit Research's Tim Backshall, provides our temporally challenged viewer a 3 minutes crystal summary on the next steps for Greece (sorry, no Hollywood ending here), what record negative basis spreads mean (ref: Hollywood ending), on why idiots who say Greece is irrelevant with its mere 3% of European GDP are idiots (ref: Bear Stearns), what the contagion will look like, and how a Greek restructuring will be effectuated (will, not may).

The one main benefit to the financial reform effort so far is that it helps further do away with the false paradigms of "left" or "right" and "Democrat" or "Republican" - fewer and fewer people are falling for those lies anymore. Try to get an ideological conservative to explain why Republicans love spending and so eagerly give welfare to banks. Try to get your local liberal to explain why it was a good idea to make backroom deals with abhorrent corporations and drill, baby, drill. Heck, even try to get a Tea Partier to explain choosing bailout-lover Sarah Palin to keynote their convention, especially when that movement once had at least some pre-astroturf roots in protesting government giveaways. - Dylan Ratigan

Thanks to Leo for pointing out that the WSJ's Jon Hilsenrath has reported that the Fed is considering reopening swap lines with central banks, likely in conjunction with the rumored rescue package. This is the news that shot the market up in the last 10 minutes of trading as the Fed would never allow the market to close at the days lows, as it was preparing to do. "Apparently New York Fed President Dudley and Vice Chair Don Kohn are in Basel this weekend for an already scheduled meeting with European central bankers. A Sunday announcement seems like a growing possibility." Lehman weekends are back baby. And with that, we are paging Alan Grayson, who personally had a thing or two to tell the Fed lunatic about bailing out the world ever again without getting prior approval first.

RANsquawk Market Wrap Up - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 07/05/10

Crossing the wires. GGP down 10% today. When all is said and done Hovde will have been called an optimist in his valuation of the bankrupt mall operator.

When we disclosed that the Fed was getting crammed down last week on Red Roof Inn foreclosures, little did we know that Alan Grayson was going to take the material and make pure comedic poetry out of it. One more reason to applaud the brilliance of our corrupt and moronic Senators for preventing the much needed and long-overdue audit of the Fed.Enjoy.