Archive - Jan 11, 2011 - Story

• NFIB Small Business Optimism comes at 92.6, misses expectations of 94.5 (NFIB)
• Short the Rumor Pays 14% on Takeovers That Don't Happen (Bloomberg)
• Could the U.S. central bank go broke? (Reuters)
• Goldman Sachs Said to Plan Disclosing More Detail on Revenue (Bloomberg)
• Fed's Fisher: Expects Fed Bond Buying Effort To Be Completed (WSJ)
• Fed's Lockhart Sees `Headwinds' for Economy as Growth Accelerates in 2011 (Bloomberg)
• China's FX Reserves Rise By Record $199 Bln to $2.85 Trln Q4 (Market News)
• Chinese Citizens Spent $48 Billion Overseas In 2010 (China Daily)
• Portuguese Bond Sale May Make Bailout `Inevitable' (Bloomberg)
• ECB Intervenes As Debt Crisis Deepens (FT)

Small business sentiment (which misses badly), wholesale inventories, JOLTS, and weakly [sic] lack of confidence…Last POMO of current schedule ends at 11 am, and new schedule is released by several 20 year olds at 2 pm.

All the news that refuses to matter when bad, and causes manic surges in the EURUSD when not bad, continues to come out of Europe. All the other global news just refuses to matter period, unless it has to do with the Fed's linen printing habits.

For all cowards who did not put their life savings in the Banlgadesh stock market after yesterday's record plunge and subsequent halt, and obviously have no clue how modern markets work, we have one acronym for you: BTFD. To everyone else, who made 15% in one day and can now close the books for 2011, congratulations. A day after Brian Sack was rumored to be seen tweaking the Bangladesh stock exchange's 3 16 MHz 286 High Frequency Trading machines, which can execute a whopping 0.5 transactions per second, and lifting all 2 offers in Level 2 when put in Designated Market Maker mode, the Bangladesh stock exchange is surging, and 1,000% margin debt-laden speculator protesters who were rioting as recently as 24 hours ago, are basking in their newly rediscovered wealth effect.

All you wanted to know about why the world is bankrupt in many pretty charts.

Europe is now literally living day to day. After last night it was announced that Japan is joining China in purchasing a substantial portion of European debt, using its FX reserves to buy up to 20% of European issuance and thus becoming simply the latest selfish trade surplus country doing all it can to keep its key export partner afloat (to the detriment of USD bond purchasing, confirming the Fed's monetization of debt will never end), today that ultimate backstop, the ECB, has for the second day in a row been purchasing Portuguese bonds to make sure there is no collapse in the sovereign debt market. The good news: Greece managed to place €1.95 billion in 6 month Bills... at the ridiculous rate of 4.9% and 3.4 Bid to Cover, which nonetheless happened to be an deterioration in both rate from the previous November 9 Bill auction, printing at 4.82%, and had a much higher 5.15 bid to cover.

RANsquawk European Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 11/01/11

The week started off with a $7.8b POMO by the NY Fed, providing a breather for the USD’s recent rally. Risk remained muted, with the S&P closing down marginally, but with some intraday strength.