Archive - Jan 2011 - Story

The ongoing collapse in bond prices is making John Meriwether blush with envy at the wholesale wanton destruction of capital undertaken by Ben Bernanke. Keep in mind LTCM - the organization which proved definitively that Nobel prizes in economics are given only to the most consummate destroyers of value, logic, reason and humility - lost "just" $4.6 billion from its peak before it became the biggest systemic risk in the world back in 1998 and had to be rescued by a consortium of banks. The bottom line: with about $10 billion in SOMA losses today alone, Ben Bernanke has generated more than double the losses that nearly destroyed western finance 13 short years ago. And nobody cares.

RANsquawk Market Wrap Up - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 05/01/11

Two months ago Zero Hedge first touched upon the topic of relative "value deflation" whereby prices for products are kept constant, even as the actual product provided is far less. Back then we recalled the experience of one Walmart shopper who shared the following story: "I noted with interest that the Wal-Mart I shop at had cleared the shelves of "Great Value" brand coffee in 39 oz cans for about 2 weeks. Today the new can appeared, with the following differences: 1.) Can is now 33.9 oz, down from 39 oz. Also conspicuously missing is the conversion of 2lb, 7oz therefore no comparison in pounds is easily made. 2.) Price for this smaller can is up from $9.88 to $10.48, by my rustic math an approximate 20% increase! 3.) Contents of can are no longer 'Premium Columbian' Decaffeinated. Now labeled '100% Classic Decaf'." Indeed, for people attuned to change in prices much more than to changes in amounts, this is the best, if most despicable, way to mask what is rapidly becoming an accelerating inflation problem (and with food prices now officially at their highest levels ever merely compounding the problem). Today, with the traditional two month delay, the mainstream media finally draws attention to this increasingly more troubling development.

As only the deranged imagination of the Banzai7 Institute can conceive. Lemmings will be happy to know we are only at 6 out of 10 on the ponzinomics scale. BTFD.

Poor President Obama may be left without a single non-Wall Street based advisor in no time. After his trusty sidekick Robert Gibbs announced earlier he is bailing from the Titanic, Reuters has just reported that Paul Volcker, the only man in the past 30 years to have to deal with the problem of pernicious inflation, is about to take a hike too. While his role was simple: head of the White House advisory panel, he did at least attempt to do some things while there, namely take down prop trading. Of course, he failed, as all prop traders are now merely masked as flow traders, and even worse, are sitting smack in the middle of order flow, knowing full well who is buying what, and allowed to build or reduce securities inventories at will with full inside knowledge. But at least he tried. Unfortunately, Volcker's (hyper)inflation fighting skills will be needed again very soon, alas by then America will only have the deranged madman of a genocidal Rudy von Havenstein reincarnation to fall back on. Hopefully it can enjoy the gross lie that is the "wealth effect" before it becomes the "poverty effect."

Zero Hedge has always believed that one picture is worth ten bullet points, and ten thousand garbled, meandering, somnolent essays. On the other hand, take a picture, add a dose of sarcasm, and convert it into a aphoristic sketch, and the result is priceless, expressed in either fiat or gold. We presenting all you needed to know about finance explained in 69 priceless sketches that not even the Fed's infinite Mastercard debit account can buy.

With economic numbers in the US on the rise and surprising the market ever since the last Empire survey, the USD is on the rise. Many have placed bets on a weaker greenback and higher commodity prices. The rational is certainly understandable. I have been rather skeptical. While there is no doubt that the only way for the US to be competitive in the global economy would be a significantly weaker USD or protectionism, along with some reconsideration of certain social programs or union agreements, I have favored a stronger dollar because of the weakness of the USD and because I am highly doubtful that the current recovery is sustainable at all without massive stimulus. Truth be told it is the failure of QE 2.0 to bring lower rates in the US that made the USD turn. So I must admit while I had my eye on the right horse the catalyst was not the one I expected. - Nic Lenoir

After we read earlier that according to CRE experts TREPP, CMBS delinquencies have hit an all time record, we were confident that somehow Wall Street would do everything in its power to offload as much toxic crap from its books (and if inventory was missing, it would do its darnedest to create some) as possible, and start selling the most worthless piece of paper imaginable (see Howard Davidowitz). Sure enough, not much searching confirmed just that: per Bloomberg "Deutsche Bank AG, UBS AG and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are preparing the year’s first bond sales tied to commercial property loans, according to people familiar with the transactions. Deutsche Bank and UBS are teaming up to issue as much as $2.5 billion in commercial mortgage-backed securities linked to loans on office buildings, shopping malls and hotels in what would be the largest offering of its kind since the market froze in June 2008, according to a person familiar with the deal. JPMorgan plans to sell $1.5 billion in similar debt, a person familiar with that sale said." And investors, giddy with new costless capital and generous to waste 'other taxpayers' money' will line up in droves and gobble it up (many on margin), looking for a quick flip. Cue in the summer of 2007.

Political change flows from shared awareness. If one million people have acute situational awareness but remain isolated in their insight, then nothing happens on a political scale. When those same one million people become aware that a million others share their situational awareness and the understanding that the other million people are also aware of each other being on board, then a political movement is possible. The stock market is an interesting example of this phenomenon. Small investors (so-called retail investors) have been exiting the U.S. stock market for 34 straight weeks, pulling almost $100 billion out of the market. They are voting with their feet based on their situational awareness that the game is rigged, and that the rigging alone greatly increases the risks of another meltdown.

RanSquawk reports that the European Union has priced the marketed EUR 5bln 2015 bond, 2.5% interest, at 99.594 reoffer, swaps +12 BP, according to Leads. As a reminder, this is what Brian Yelvington had to say about this notable issue early today: "The €5B EFSF debt sale scheduled for today was reportedly 3x
oversubscribed with pricing expected to be mid swaps +15bp.  The
markets should keenly watch the actual pricing of the deal and its
secondary trading as well as the knock-on impacts on traditional Euro
sovereign issuance.  We still believe that a finite capped facility
that effectively crams down traditional issuance will cause further
pressure on spreads.  A new EU draft proposal suggests that bondholders
take losses on ailing banks rather than upstreaming the responsibility
to the sovereign level and bailouts being taxpayer funded."

In our now globally accepted bizarro world, where problems are priced in before they even appear, disclosing swans of assorted colors becomes a moot point. After all, all the bad news in the universe couldn't possibly matter as long as the irrational exuberance persists. That the higher stocks go, the farther they will crash eventually (and for those with their finger on the sell buttong, good luck selling into a bidless market) is a given, but maybe, just maybe the laws of gravity are different this time. On the other hand, maybe they are not. For those who are convinced that no matter the amount of data fudging, accounting fraud, and dollar debasement that the Fed endorses, nature will eventually take its course, may want to take a look at the below chart of 1 week, 1 and 3 month SHIBOR. In a nutshell: there is no marginal liquidity left in the world's fastest growing economy. Eventually this will dawn on the world. Until then, BTFD.

RANsquawk US Afternoon Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 05/01/11

After Muddy Waters came out with research two months ago that singlehandedly destroyed recent Chinese NYSE IPO, RINO, we predicted that there would soon develop a cottage industry of micro investment firms who do diligence on various Chinese frauds (and there are many of them), establish a short base, and subsequently release a research report in the name. Today we get the latest such possible casualty: meet China Green Agriculture, a Xian, China firm founded in 2000, which "engages in the research, development, manufacture, and distribution of humic acid based compound fertilizers in China... The company also engages in the development, production, and distribution of agricultural products, including fruits, vegetables, flowers, and colored seedlings." Sure enough the company IPOed on the NYSE in mid-2008, and if the just released research report by J Capital Research is correct, the firm is about to join such other disgraces as RINO in the NYSE IPO dunce corner. To wit: "In this report, we present compelling evidence that China Green Agriculture (NYSE:CGA) has significantly over-stated its true revenues and earnings. We estimate that CGA’s value is no more than $2.85 per share, as opposed to its current market price of $9."

David Rosenberg, who has very patiently taken the peanut gallery's swipes at him for the past month during the latest bear market rally bout (of which Japan had roughly 25 as the broader secular one took its market about 75% lower over two decades), finally lashes out at all those who still fail to see that there is nothing organic about the US economic recovery, and the only reason the numbers are "better" is due to the $4+ trillion in fiscal and monetary stimuli: "What we have on our hands has been an economic revival and market bounce back premised on unprecedented monetary and fiscal stimulus. How the Fed and the federal government in the future manage to redress their pregnant balance sheets without creating a major disturbance for the overall economy is a legitimate question and, sorry, does not deserve a double-digit market multiple, in our view." That is about all that needs to be said on the matter of the economic recovery. But we will immediately grant that there is an organic economic boom if the Fed removes QE right now, and the economic data points over the next quarter continue trending higher. Somehow we don't think this will (ever) happen...

The biggest spin master in the Obama administration, Press secretary Robert Gibbs, who obstinately had refused to answer Zero Hedge questions about the economic "recovery" in his daily tweetersessions , has joined pretty much everybody else in dumping the titanic that is the Obama administration. There is one thing we can be sure of, however, Tim Geithner, the only man who is officially on economic retainer (yet gets about 1% the use of Goldman's Jan Hatzius when it comes to monetary and fiscal policy) will be forever by Obama's side.