Archive - Oct 13, 2011 - Story

Everyone has heard of the Big Mac Index, the Misery Index, even the Shoe Thrower Index. But the Book Cooking Index? This latest addition to the compendium of oddly named yet extremely fascinating "indices" is based around the statistical irregularity known as Benford's law, according to which within sets of numbers that span orders of magnitude, the distribution of first digits is strikingly regular: numbers beginning in 1 occur about 30% of the time, those beginning in 2 about 18% of the time, falling to roughly 5% of the time for the number 9. Specifically, as noted by the keenly observant Jialan Wang of Washington University in St. Louis, "there are more numbers in the universe that begin with the digit 1 than 2, or 3, or 4, or 5, or 6, or 7, or 8, or 9.  And more numbers that begin with 2 than 3, or 4, and so on.  This relationship holds for the lengths of rivers, the populations of cities, molecular weights of chemicals, and any number of other categories." The most curious application of this law resides in the field of corporate fraud, "because deviations from the law can indicate that a company's books have been manipulated." Here is where things get interesting for fraudulent corporate America: the inquisitive Wang "downloaded quarterly accounting data for all firms in Compustat, the most widely-used dataset in corporate finance that contains data on over 20,000 firms from SEC filings" and "used a standard set of 43 variables that comprise the basic components of corporate balance sheets and income statements." Her results were, in a word, startling.

UPDATE: EURUSD loses 1.3750

On Oct. 13, 2011, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services lowered the long-term rating on the Kingdom of Spain from 'AA' to 'AA-', while affirming the short-term ratings at 'A-1+'. The outlook is negative. The transfer and convertibility assessment remains 'AAA', as it does for all members of the eurozone. The negative outlook reflects our view of the risks to Spain's economic growth linked to private sector deleveraging, external financing pressures, and their impact on budgetary consolidation. We could lower the ratings again if, consistent with our downside scenario, the economy contracts in 2012, Spain's fiscal position significantly deviates from the government's budgetary targets, or additional labor market and other growth-enhancing reforms are delayed. Conversely, we could revise the outlook to stable if, consistent with our upside scenario, the government meets its budgetary targets in 2011 and 2012, risks to external financing conditions subside, and Spain's economic growth prospects prove to be more buoyant than we currently assume.

Over the weekend, we observed the perplexing sell off of $56 billion in US Treasurys courtesy of weekly disclosure in the Fed's custodial account (source: H.4.1) and speculated if this may be due to an asset rotation, under duress or otherwise, out of bonds and into stocks, to prevent the collapse of the global ponzi (because when the BRICs tell the IMF to boost its bailout capacity you know it is global). We also proposed a far simpler theory: "the dreaded D-day in which foreign official and private investors finally start offloading their $2.7 trillion in Treasurys with impunity (although not with the element of surprise - China has made it abundantly clear it will sell its Treasury holdings, the only question is when), has finally arrived." In hindsight the Occam's Razor should have been applied. Little did we know 5 short days ago just how violent the reaction by China would be (both post and pre-facto) to the Senate decision to propose a law for all out trade warfare with China. Now we know - in the week ended October 12, a further $17.7 billion was "removed" from the Fed's custodial Treasury account, meaning that someone, somewhere is very displeased with US paper, and, far more importantly, what it represents, and wants to make their displeasure heard loud and clear. Whether it is China - we do not know: we may have a better view in two months when the September/October TIC data hits, but even then it will be full of errors, as Direct Bidder purchases by the UK usually end up being assigned to China at the yearly TIC audit. And the sellers know this all too well. What they also know is that over the next few days (or weeks - ZH tends to be a little "aggressive" in its estimates for popular uptake), as soon as the broader population understands what has transpired, concerns about the reserve status of the greenback will start to resurface, precisely as many have been warning. And what has happened is that in six consecutive weeks, foreigners have sold $74 billion, or more government bonds in a sequential period of time than ever before.

Just like goldbugs know the serial number of every single gold bar held (allegedly) in the GLD by heart, so the Federal Reserve carries a soft place in its corrupt,  evil heart for fiat and the assorted trivia surrounding it. For example did you know that the Bureau of Engraving and Printing has two facilities, one in Washington, D.C. and the other in Fort Worth, Texas.  Together they use approximately 9.7 tons of ink per day. So while paper money may or may not a disappearing species, here are, courtesy of the Federal Reserve, some "fun" facts about the US Dollar that readers may not be aware of as they make funeral arrangements for the endlessly dilutable combination of 75% cotton/25% linen.

Since one can not get a downgrade of a bank during market hours for fears of springing who knows what circuit breakers, Fitch had to wait until just after the market close to release its latest market surprise which consisted of a "watch negative" announcement on the following banks Barclays, BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman, Morgan Stanley; others it just slashed some by multiple notches, among which: Landesbank Berlin IDR downgraded to A+ from AA-; Lloyds Banking Group IDR downgraded to A from AA-; RBS IDR downgraded to A from AA-; and most importantly UBS IDR downgraded to A from A+. The reason for the action: "the ongoing Eurozone crisis continues to feed intense market speculation regarding the potential or bank recapitalisation schemes. Therefore for the near term the agency is maintaining a 'single A' range support rating floors for banks in its highest rated Eurozone countries." The Euro is not liking this announcement one bit.

Don't write Google off just yet. The company, which had left many wondering if it can continue to compete with the same level of intensity, just crushed consensus, with Q3 EPS of $9.72 beating expectations of $8.76, while revenues coming at 9.72$ billion on expectations of $7.23 billion. Cash of $42.6 billion, not quite Apple but still lots of potential acquisition targets.. Immediate result: stock up $40 after hours. From Page: ""We had a great quarter. Revenue was up 33% year on year and our quarterly revenue was just short of $10 billion. Google+ is now open to everyone and we just passed the 40 million user mark. People are flocking into Google+ at an incredible rate and we are just getting started!" Some other details from the press release...

David Rosenberg has issued yet another piece of blistering common sense (which most mainstream and sellside economists seem to lack in wholesale amounts these days), in which he explains why the action at the margin is all that matters for asset prices and all that follows. As he says "this is about change, not levels" - a jab directly at the Federal Reserve, whose core underlying premise is that "stock" is all that matters, whereas "flow" (or change) is irrelevant. This is arguably one of the biggest errors that Fed chairman after Fed chairman perpetuates, and further explains why the Fed will always have to be engaged in some (ever greater) form of monetary intervention in order to simply keep asset prices constant as the "stock" theory is disproven time and time again. Alas, since we are dealing with brilliant PhD Economists they will never admit their foolish theory is flawed until it is too late. In the meantime, for everyone else who does not live in Bernanke's ivory towers, here is Rosenberg's explanation why what happens at the margin is all that matters.

While it is unclear if the news reported by Shia-News, and amplified by Bahrain News, is in retaliation for the recent deterioration in Iran-US relations following an allegation that Iran sought to assassinate diplomats and blow up embassies in the US using Mexican hitmen, or if this is what led to it, it appears that Iran is playing hard ball. As Bahrain News reports, referencing a new posting in Shia-News, "The Iranian leaders, furious over the Saudi intervention in Bahrain and what they call crimes against the Shiites of that country, have openly created centers to recruit volunteers for suicide bombings against Saudi Arabia’s interests worldwide. Several grand ayatollahs in Iran have issued a fatwa for Muslims to come to the aid of their Shiite brothers in Bahrain, who they claim are suffering horrific crimes from their government in collaboration with the Saudi armed forces. They further emphasized that the people of Bahrain have every right to demand freedom and their fair share from the state. Shia-News, a site associated with Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi (a hard-line Shiite Twelver and an influential figure in the suppression of Iranians during their uprising to protest the fraudulent presidential election of 2009), is registering volunteers to participate in suicide bombings against Saudi interests around the world. Hundreds have already registered. Reports from inside Iran indicate that an alert has gone out to the Revolutionary Guards Quds forces throughout the world to prepare for attacks on Saudi establishments."

Something tells us this formerly well-hidden treasury trove of imminent layoff information will soon be the most visited webtsite for every bankers in the Manhattan area. Presenting the Department of Labor's Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification program, aka the "advance notice of mass layoffs on Wall Street" website. A great example of why 554 people should not look forward to the holidays presented below (our condolences Bank of Americans and Goldman Saches).

Following the Slovak approval vote earlier, the EFSF is now fully functional, or so say Europe's two unelected leader Herman Van Rompuy and Jose Barroso (full statement here). Which is great, considering it only took Europe 3 months to ratify something that was supposed to be operational 2 months ago, and take over for the ECB's SMP declining bond purchases sometime in mid-September. And now, as Zero Hedge explained back in July, comes the hart part where the Eurozone realizes that the EFSF, which recently has found it has more uses than a Swiss Army Knife and can be used as a central bank, as a guarantor, as an insurance policy, as a CDO squared, cubed, etc, etc, or at least so the rumors go, has to be expanded from $440 billion to €3.5 billion. Recall: "slowly the sell side is coming to the realization that not only will the EFSF have to be expanded (that much was known), but that Germany, and specifically the outright economy, will be on the hook by an unprecedented amount of money. And expanded it will have to be: not by two, not by three, but by a cool four times, to a unbelievable €3.5 trillion which according to Daiwa's Head of Economic Research, Grant Lewis, is an act which will be necessary to convince financial markets of euro area resolve to save Italy and Spain." That was two months ago. Finally, the governments, which back then religiously denied such reporting as scaremongering, are getting on the bandwagon. It was none other than Le Figaro, mouthpiece of the country that has the most to lose from the inability to ringfence a Greek fallout, that said yesterday: "The euro area reflects one of several options to increase by up to five times, or more than 2500 billion euros, the firepower of its relief fund for countries in financial difficulty (EFSF), said on Wednesday AFP European sources." In other words, the target number is now known, and nobody is ashamed to put it out there: between €2.5 and €3.5 trillion. The only question is what form it will take: yesterday it was a bank, today it is an insurance "fund", tomorrow who knows - gotta keep those rumors a surprise after all: they don't call the EFSF the modern version of the Swiss Army Bailout knife for nothing.

The "benefit" of Operation Twist for the long end shone through today as the Treasury priced $13 billion in a 30 Year reopening, which came at a record low yield of 3.12%: this was 4 basis points inside the When Issued of 3.16% so at first sight the auction was a stunning success, confirmed by the second highest Bid To Cover in the auction history of 2.94. Perhaps... The only problem is when one looks at the internals, where just like yesterday, the most prominent observation was the total collapse in the Indirect Bid, which accounted for just $3.7 billion of the take down or 28.7% of the total, less than the Direct portion which despite having plunged in all other recent bond auctions soared to a virtual record 29.5% of the total auction (less than just the 29.6% from March 2010). And now the question again arises: are the Directs merely London-based offshore entities doing China's bidding away from the Indirect bidder spotlight, or, is this some other operation that kicks in every time when a plunge in Indirects is expected, such as over the past two days with China seemingly doing all it can do show it is telegraphing a plunge in interest for US paper. We will know more today when at 4:30 pm the Fed discloses its most recent custodial Treasury holdings for the past week. In the meantime, the Primary Dealers and the Directs have the long-end firmly under control.

Parts of Thailand have experienced terrible flooding lately, and much of the country’s production shut down as a result. Thailand makes everything from tire factories to hard disk drive manufacturers to rice… and given the slowdown in the economy, it couldn’t have come at a worse time. Not to worry, though, the government has a plan to fix it. Let me explain: Thailand’s central bank is sitting on roughly $212 billion in net foreign reserves right now. That’s up 37% from last year and nearly 80% from 2009. Curiously, it all starts with Ben Bernanke.

Chicago hedge fund Citadel may not have the best of luck when it comes to running traditional financial businesses (it's recent disastrous foray into advisory and capital markets - nuf said), but when it comes to picking up nickels and dimes ahead of slower traders (yes there is a name for it, but for lack of immediate legal retaliation by an uber-sensitive Ken Griffin we will leave it to our readers' imagination) by virtue of faster computers and a massive collocated infrastructure, Citadel is second to none (well, except maybe now infamous Latour Trading). Which explains why it is so sensitive to any former employees "borrowing" its special sauce, aka the computer code that is the only thing that gives the hedge fund its fro... er, superior trading execution. It was only last year that the fund went all Friend-O on Misha Malyshev, whose Teza technologies was implicated as the future employee of one now legendary Sergey Aleynikov. Well, it is time for a redux. As Dow Jones reports, "a former technology employee of hedge fund manager Ken Griffin's Citadel LLC was arrested for allegedly stealing sensitive computer trade secrets from the company for his own personal use, the Department of Justice said. According to the complaint affidavit, 24-year-old Yihao Pu, also known as "Ben Pu," was found by Citadel's information technology department to have "downloaded several unauthorized programs," which allegedly allowed him to bypass Citadel's security protocols and transfer files or data from his Citadel computer to an external storage device."