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Well they tried, but it didn't amount to much. Too many guys took off for the long weekend, so there were not enough speculators around to paint the tape to new highs for the long weekend.

Interestingly enough some customers asked me yesterday my opinion on EURCHF, and my opinion was: it's a fallin knife, and every time it reverses the market posts a bullish engulfing day. My thinking was also that despite some short interest in Euroswiss, there is very little priced in for Swiss rates, and a suprise would most likely come on the hawkish side, which would add to downside pressure. Therefore a reversal was most likely going to be driven by intervention. Little did I expect we would see that today! - Nic Lenoir

You've heard of 130/30. How about 278/56? That's the most recent net exposure of Clarium. That Peter Thiel's fund is not doing that hot with that kind of leverage is not big news. What however is, is the fact that his hedge fund was 3.7x levered as recently as last week, and currently has 3.3x exposure as % of NAV. And just in case you were wondering how much risk is attributable to a long debt position that is nearly 3x your NAV, Clarium assigns a cumulative 6.4% 3-Sigma risk as a % of NAV. So what if the fund was 10x leveraged? Would that mean a linear expansion and just under 20% in risk? How about 100x leverage? 1000x? How many other hedge funds currently have well over 3x leverage and think their risk of NAV loss is negligible? Clarium has one thing going for it: its L/S equity ratio is 3:52. Too bad now even Bill Gross is saying to sell bonds and go all in into stocks. At least we know who will be covering shorts. And one wonders: just how many other hedge funds have asked their prime brokers to give them 4x leverage? Sure, 4x, 5x even 10x, leverage happens every day, but primarily for market neutral funds. When this shifts to LS, it is a recipe for disaster. In the end this will all explode so spectacularly, just like in those long forgotten days of 2008...

An interesting thing happened when we were combing through the Fed's Maiden Lane 1 portfolio. After going through holding after holding of crap, that would make junk indignant if one were to call the Fed's adopted holdings of muni CDS, Subprime mezz bonds, and Agency CMO such, we ended up looking at the rate hedges section. As is disclosed by the Fed, the FRBNY holds 5000 TYM0 puts, 3825 TYH0 puts, short 4000 FVH0, short 7828 TYH0, short 2240 USH0, and is short a bunch of eurodollar positions. Also, the interest rate exposure is in thousands so the Fed has about 3 trillion in notional swap exposure. Now Maiden Lane is supposed to be an adopted, run off (or, as Geithner likes to boast, run on) portfolio, presumably without active management. Which is why we were surprised by the presence of the TYH0 and TYM0 positions: these did not exist at the time the Fed created Maiden Lane I! In fact TYM0 did not exist until March of 2009!

And that's just the beginning: why is the Fed concerned about interest rate risk on a tiny $25 billion MBS portfolio, when its DV01 on its $2.4 trillion in SOMA holdings is $1 billion, and is very much actively unmanaged.

Changing Our EUR/$ Forecasts

The Euro will likely remain stuck between two largely offsetting forces. Cyclical acceleration in the Eurozone and deceleration in the US, external balances and the outlook for earlier monetary policy normalisation by the ECB all suggest upside risks for the Euro. But on the other hand, the uncertainty about Greece and, more importantly, about the institutional set-up of the Eurozone will command a high fiscal risk premium for the foreseeable future. We have revised down our 3mth and 6mth forecasts to the same level as our old 12mth forecast, 1.35 flat. Other forecasts are affected through the Euro crosses. - Goldman Sachs

What makes blogs useful? How can we make them more useful? Part 2 of 2.

Supply of course. We just haven't come to fully appreciate that, yet.

A few weeks ago we discussed the record strength of the CHF versus the EUR and noted that a currency intervention by the Swiss Bank was only a matter of time. Sure enough, see below - all the grace of a drunk, frontrunning HFT trader in a non-child order algo world.

RANsquawk 1st April US Afternoon Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc.

As if the steep curve (aka free money) curve trade was not enough, today the global FX carry trade is on in full force. The yen is plunging against everything, the dollar is plunging against the euro, and commodity currencies are skyrocketing. It is the summer of 2007 all over again. The Yen is today's whipping boy, weaker against every currency in the world.

The broader public, where the first baby boomers begin retiring this year, continues rotating out of equities and into the safety of bonds. The ICI just disclosed that fund flows for domestic equity mutual funds turned negative for the week of March 24 to the tune of almost $1 billion, after a substantial spike the week before. Thisoccurred even as the market has barely had a single down day in the past two months. Year To Date the outflows have now hit a massive $3.5 billion, surprising when considering the performance of the actual stock market, which continues being bid up into the stratosphere by Primary Dealers, or as Rosenberg affectionately calls them, Pig Farmers, using free Fed money, as they merely trade with nobody but each other in a disappearing volume game of musical chairs in which each and everyone is just focused on the exit strategy and getting the market to a sufficiently high level where a 30% "bidless" drop doesn't destroy too many.

Following tomorrow's NFP announcement, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will entertain a Q&A session with the general public. The BLS will use Cover It Live (which prescreens questions, so don't expect any too "pertinent" questions to be allowed). We hope TrimTabs' Charles Biderman will use this opportunity to discuss some of his rather divergent payroll observations. Furthermore, we ourselves may inquire as to what the reason why the average unemployed's monthly paycheck has now increased to the all time record of just under $1,500 based on a total insured population of just under 11 million, and why if the actual check is where it should be (~$1,000) is there a shadow 40% of the insured work pool (roughly 4 million people) that is not being accounted for?

Link to the BLS Q&A can be found here.

The Treasury just announced the auction schedule for next week: a total of $165 Billion in gross issuance of which $74 Billion in coupons, and $8 billion in a 10 Year TIPS reopening.

Yesterday we noted that Fannie just announced a record number of delinquencies at 5.52%. Today, not to be outdone, Freddie follows up and discloses that total delinquent loans also hit another fresh high of 4.08%, an increase from January's 4.03% and double the 2.13% from last February. Also yesterday we noted that CMBS delinquencies are likely in the 6-7% range, as both the residential and commercial real estate market continue experiencing unprecedented weakness.

Also, as reader Tin Cup points out, "The credit enhanced book of business (loans insured by the private mortgage insurers) also hit a record high or 8.59%, up from 8.52% in January (and also double last year’s 4.54%).  Again, despite trillions being throw at the housing market, delinquencies continue to rocket upwards."

Bill Fleckenstein has kept a hawk’s eye on what the government does to our economy. Most recently, Bill wrote an excellent article describing the new health care law as “the great health care bailout.”

I caught up with Bill to discuss three hot topics:

1) How the new health care law will affect our economy;

2) Whether the Fed has painted itself into a corner of low interest rates; and,

3) Whether the foreign debt crisis are an omen for what’s coming to the US.