Archive - Aug 2010 - Story

Reading the NYT these days sure is enlightening: first, one gets news about some odd phenomenon, previously unheard of, that for 15 straight weeks retail investors have been pulling money out of retail funds (hmm, where has one seen this before), and now, with much fanfare, the NYT brings the Nanex Crop Circles to the center stage. At least unlike the former story's 15 week delay, it took the NYT a mere 3 weeks to rehash what Zero Hedge readers had known since July. Nonetheless, it is satisfying that the criminal stock churning activity reported on first by us, has finally gone mainstream. Of course, the NYT conclusion is typical: "The idea that shadowy computer masterminds were trying to disrupt the nation’s stock trading struck many people as ridiculous. Wall Street experts generally characterize it as a conspiracy theory with little basis in fact." Interesting: yet a mere 4 minutes ago we pointed out that Finra is starting to ferret out illicit HFT trading practices... Maybe the NYT can put two and two together (in real-time this time).

It couldn't happen to a nicer group of pirates. After a year-long campaign by Zero Hedge warning about the ongoing threat to market structure by the HFT plague, culminating in a the May 6 crash, whose incipient conditions exist to this day, the FT reports that the even more worthless regulator, FINRA, is beginning a clampdown on broker dealers who allowed high-frequency traders to have access to the markets without undertaking proper checks. As this means all of them, there is about to be a huge change in market structure as arguably more than half of the market "participants" are suddenly excluded from constant daily churning activity. What the outcome of this will be is anyone's guess, but definitely expect strange things if this is truly a first step towards reverting to some form of normalcy.

Everyone knows that the total US debt is over $120 trillion when accounting for such underfunded liabilities as Medicare and Social Security. Well, it appears that the bankrupt US welfare state is not alone. According to the UK's Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), the country's national debt is £4.8 trillion once state and public sector pension liabilities are included, or £78,000 for every person in the UK. This number translates to about 330% of UK's GDP. Which of course is nothing compared to the total US adjusted debt-to-GDP number which when accounting for all off balance sheet items is roughly 10x the US GDP of $13.6 trillion, a number which is Rosenberg and Bridgewater are correct, may decline quite soon.

The quarterly Goldman Hedge Fund Trend Monitor, aka the HF groupthink update, is released, chock full of HF holding trivia, such as that should Apple ever miss its priced to absolute perfection business model, a whopping 181 hedge funds are going to suffer, and 75 HFs, who have Apple as a top 10 holding, are going to get crushed. Also, we uncover the latest top 10 hedge funds ranked by equity assets (DE Shaw, RenTec and Paulson are the new top 3, although with 2,048 and 2,669 holdings for the first two, they are now receiving 2 and 20 for their quant models which as the NYT highlighted recently no longer work). On the other end of the quant spectrum, are the traditional hedge funds, and as of Q2, the typical fund had an average of 63% of its long-equity assets invested in its 10 largest positions, compared to 30% for a typical large-cap mutual fund, 17% for a small-cap mutual fund, 19% for the S&P and just 2% for the Russell 2000. The top 5 most concentrated hedge fund holdings are AutoNation (46% of market cap held by HFs), Sears (45%), AutoZone (32%), Pactiv (28%) and Novell (27%). Also hilarious perpetual LBO candidate Radioshack has hedge funds make up 24% of its market cap. In other words, any bad news here will kill the stock price faster than a HFT can frontrun the exponential pulling of bids. On the other side, or the names most hated by hedge funds, is Brown Forman, where only 0.2% of HFs make up its market cap, followed by Roper Industries, Stericycle, Hormel, and Praxair. From a surprise upside potential perspective, Goldman estimates that the most HF-shorted names is Crown Media, which has a 99 day short interest ratiom followed by Lifeway Foods, Isramco, K-Fed Bancorp, First South Bancorp, and Costar Group. Shorts Squeezes in these names could be violent. Looking at ETFs, the biggest gross long ETF held by HFs is GLD with $8 billion in long ownership, while the most shorted is SPY with $27.6 billion in shorts, indicating that funds are now "hedging" using this proxy for the entire market. Lastly, in confirmation that hedge funds are for the most part worthless "groupthink" contraptions which merely ride a leveraged beta wave, and suck out management fees, Goldman highlights that the "Most Concentrated" basket of stocks has underperformed the "Least Concentrated" stocks materially since February 2007, confirming that HFs have actually destroyed value in both the past 3 years and YTD, by underperforming the market.

Now that Morgan Stanley has officially thrown in the towel in fighting the Fed (and, paradoxically, deflation), and has abdicated the steepener bandwagon (which can only mean it is time to start selling bonds), the firm's rates analysts are once again focusing on what they do best: provide advice on how to front run the Fed. As we pointed out, Igor Cashyn was virtually spotless in his first two attempts to predict just which Treasuries the Fed was going to purchase. We present his latest cheat sheet for the upcoming POMO operations for Tuesday and Thursday of this week, and for the September 1^st operation. In a nutshell for those who want to pick some virtually 99.99% risk-free money, here are the suggested trades: Buy 1.375% 02/15/2013 / Sell on-the-run 3y - this positions investors for the August 24 Fed operation; Buy 8.0% 11/15/2021 / Sell on-the-run 10y - this positions investors for the August 26 Fed operation; Buy 1.375% 01/15/2013 / Sell on-the-run 3y - this positions investors for the September 1 Fed operation.

Who thought one could write 2000 words to describe the beneficial and very transitory impact of a currency plunge in a fiat world where everyone's goal is now to devalue their own monetary equivalent. Yet that is precisely what Goldman's European analyst Erik Nielsen has done in his weekly recap of European events past and future. Below are the just released views of Chiswick's perpetually cheery resident.

As another leg down to the economy is starting to be telegraphed by even the official data set, particularly in unemployment, and housing, and with industrial production slowing down, Goldman is once again beating the QE 2 "non-lite" drums. As such, all eyes turn to this week's Jackson Hole Kansas City Fed Economic Symposium (the same Kansas City where the sole dissenter to the Fed's ZIRP "bubbles4eva" policy, Tom Hoenig, rules over rational thought with an iron fist, even as other Fed intellectual midgets scribble pre-paid papers describing how stable the economy of soon to be bankrupt countries is). As we pointed out in the days following Hatzius' reduction in GDP estimates, the Goldman strategist was hoping for a $1 trillion QE announcement. The Fed decided against it, and the market sold off. Which is why at this very public Fed venue (and last) before the September 21 FOMC meeting, many will be focused on Bernanke's speech to see if he will telegraph the purchases of even more securities, which as Hatzius highlighted before, could include more "exotic" credit, including private label MBS, munis and even corporates. As Sven Jari Stehn says, "it will be worth watching whether Fed Chairman Bernanke will comment in
his opening remarks on the recent data disappointments and/or the
ongoing debate on the appropriate stance of monetary policy." And nobody is more concerned than Angela Merkel - now that the EUR has finally started to dip once again to the delight of an insolvent Europe, Germany will do all it can to keep the USD on its upward trend, as the ECB would prove much harder to manipulate into another round of QE. Or maybe not - all it would take is for Greece to be declared bankrupt again. Which is why the next big geopolitical instability cycle may start off anew depending on the first few sentences uttered by Bernanke in the August 26-28 meeting. And finally something quite odd about this year's meeting - as Bloomberg's Scott Lanman points out, the head of the FRBNY's trading desk, better known as the PPT, Brian Sack, is not invited to this meeting for the first time. We will keep a close eye on this very peculiar regime change.

As has been long pointed out on Zero Hedge, the AUD carry pair (either with the JPY, USD or EUR) has been the primary driver of market funding over the past 3 months (we have also pointed out for about 15 weeks that fund outflows are the loud alarum bells for an upcoming stock crash, a topic finally picked up by the NYT). In which case, courtesy of the Australian hung parliament, the market may be in for some tumultuous moves when the forex market opens at 3 PM EST, and looks certain to cut the weekend of the Liberty 33 trading desk early as they plan preparations for what could be a broader based sell off driven by carry evaporation. Reuters explains why the AUD is expected to drop a cent or more when trading resumes: "Australia's two major parties wooed independent lawmakers on Sunday after an inconclusive election left the nation facing its first hung parliament since 1940 and set financial markets up for a sharp sell-off. The Australian dollar and shares are likely to slide when trading resumes on Monday, analysts said, with the vote count threatening to drag on for days and both the ruling Labour party and opposition seemingly unable to win a majority." In other words, with the market correlating nearly 100% with the AUD, all those who went long this market despite the second Hindenburg Omen confirmation in a week, may be in for a rude awakening.

Some time ago we penned a post, titled"Mishkin On Iceland: "Nothing Is F*#&ed Here Dude" which discussed the former Fed director's March 2006 analysis "Financial (IN)Stability In Iceland." Those interested in our original observations of Mishkin's horrendous analysis (of what proved to be the first bankrupt European country of the new century, but certainly not last) can find them at the original link. Yet continuing with the Duderino references, today, new shit has come to light, which once again confirms that not only is the Fed populated by the most intellectually incapable and corrupt people, but that anything coming out of Columbia University (and the Ivy League in general) is not worth the paper it is printed on. Watch the attached clip to see a former Fed director go from comfortable, to fidgety, to stuttering, to thoroughly discredited, to in dire need of diaper change, in under 2 minutes. Last but not least, here is the soundbite of the year: "You have faith in the central bank." No further comment necessary.

As we pointed out on Wednesday, personal bankruptcies recently jumped to a five year high (a 20% increase over the prior year). While the recent increase in filings has been alarming, the truth is that it could merely be a mean reversion, which as the chart below shows, is precisely where filings used to be prior to the 2005 bankruptcy reform passed. As the economist, which created this chart points out, " The data suggest that an older trend is reasserting itself. This is could be more bad news for America—or it could just mean that creative destruction is alive and well." Either way, the chart is sure to see quite a bit of airplay this election season, as the populist rhetoric heats up. Don't be surprised however if the section before 2005 is cut off.

As has been widely anticipated, Iran is currently in the last stages of preparation before pushing the On button for its brand, spanking new (and 20 years in the making) nuclear power plant. As Reuters reports: "Television showed live pictures of Iran's nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi and his Russian counterpart watching a fuel rod assembly being prepared for insertion into the reactor near the Gulf city of Bushehr." Yet despite Russia's guarantee that it would collect spent rods that could be used to make weapons-grade plutonium, Israel is not taking this development lightly at all, and as Jerusalem Post reported earlier, warned that "It is totally unacceptable that a country that blatantly violates decisions of the United Nations Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency, and ignores its commitment to the Non-Proliferation Treaty charter, will enjoy the fruits of using nuclear energy," according to Foreign Ministry spokesman Yossi Levy said. Which in turn has prompted Ahmadinejad to warn that a strike on Iran would be answered with "harsh and painful" response. All in all, just another Saturday in the middle east.

Two weeks ago we posted the most recent interview by King World News of long-time market veteran Art Cashin, in which the UBS market strategist prophetically pointed out that the "Fed is walking a tightrope in a Hurricane." As the data has confirmed since then, the winds are picking up, and the market is starting to finally realize the gargantuan task the Fed is faced with, in its attempts to flood the market with a second tidal wave of free money. Today, Cashin is once again on KWN, discussing this week's disappointing data, primary the negative Philly Fed reading and the first half a million print in initial jobless claims in a year. Cashin summarizes the failed spin of the recoveryless recovery as: "the two main points of pain are employment and real estate, and both of them are showing no signs of getting any better." Another topic touched upon are technicals, which in addition to the much discussed Hindenburg Omen, investors also have to worry about the 50 DMA, and the market would have a second back to back close below the indicator if stocks do not pick up in the coming week. Cashin is also very skeptical on earnings, whose quality continues to deteriorate as it comes mostly due to SG&A cuts, resulting in wage deflation: "the pressure on wages continues and that is not inspiring a lot of hope." As for further Fed QE episodes, Cashin does not believe additional monetization would have any incremental impact: "what's happened is - Bernanke dropped the money, but when it came on the ground people raked it up, put in the garage and went back to sleep, so things are not happening." Lastly, Cashin says that "the bond market is discounting some very troublesome times ahead - people want the return of their money, rather than a return on their money. There is ongoing concern about the state of the financial system itself." Cashin's conclusion: "there appears to be a bull market in pessimism - the bond market has a slightly better record in calling things than the stock market." Looking forward, "you may get a small bounce if nothing geopolitcally happens over the weekend, there are concerns over Iran, so if nothing happens there you may get a small bounce, but I would be cautious until the market can prove to me its got it balance again."

The economic news has turned decidedly negative globally and a sense of ‘quiet before the storm’ permeates the financial headlines. Arcane subjects such as a Hindenburg Omen now make mainline news. The retail investor continues to flee the equity markets and in concert with the institutional players relentlessly pile into the perceived safety of yield instruments, though they are outrageously expensive by any proven measure. Like trying to buy a pump during a storm flood, people are apparently willing to pay any price. As a sailor, it feels like the ominous period where the crew is fastening down the hatches and preparing for the squall that is clearly on the horizon. Few crew mates are talking as everyone is checking preparations for any eventuality. Are you prepared? Apparent synthetic wealth has artificially and temporarily been created through the production of paper. Whether Federal Reserve IOU notes (the dollar) or guaranteed certificates of confiscation (treasury notes & bonds), it needs to never be forgotten that these are paper. It is not wealth. It is someone else’s obligation to deliver that wealth to the holder of the paper based on what that paper is felt to be worth when the obligation is required to be surrendered. It must never be forgotten that fiat paper is only a counter party obligation to deliver. Will they? Unfortunately, since fiat paper is no longer a store of value, it is recklessly being created to solve political problems. What you will inevitably receive will be only be a fraction of the value of what you originally surrendered." - Gordon T. Long

It appears that Kyle Bass doesn’t know how to be long stocks. Whether this is a personal problem or not, it brings up the central problem of a permabear. Being a permabear is painful like being long volatility during the summer of 2009. There is a time to be a bear, just there is time to be long volatility. The “perma” part is what sucks. It is cool to be a huge fan of long dated treasuries. The facts give indication that the United States—the global economy—is stuck in an irreversible cycle of deleveraging for some years to come. But that doesn’t mean there is no value in some equity exposure. At the very least, utilities generate reasonably reliable inflation?adjusted yield.

Shortly after adjusting his 2010 S&P target lower to 1,200, David Kostin continues to favor his Rosenberg-SIRP equivalent strategy of "low operating leverage, high dividend growth, strong balance sheet, large market cap, and 'low valuation'." In other words, with the entire market now turning defensive (but not David Bianco: David always has some funny wackiness up his sleeve that's for sure), it is a little difficult to see how stocks will push higher by 12% in the remaining 4 months of the year, especially with negative GDP prints anticipated for the remainder of 2010, which would be in line with the Zero Hedge-anticipated sub 1% Q2 final revision GDP. In other words the economy has stalled, and there is no stimulus coming: the $10-20 billion dribs and drabs pittances of fiscal stimulus here and there will do nothing to push the economy higher. Also, Kostin summarizes the findings of his latest Hedge Fund Tracker (we will post it shortly), which indicates which stocks are the latest HF hotels: in a nutshell these are EMC, ESRX, DVA, TYC, BIDU, PFE, INTC, and VIA. For people who have reservatoins against gold, and see it as a source of liquidity in a downturn, the same logic to the nth degree applies to these names. Should there be a selloff, these stocks will get decimates as HFs rush to get out. Also, Kostin summarizes the top ten S&P stocks by daily tading turnover, i.e., where the computers are running wild. These are Pactiv, US Steel, Abercrombie & Fitch, AK Steel, Apollo, Frontier, CF Industries, NVIDIA and DeVry: this is where the bulk of the binary action was in the past week.