Fed Minutes Show Only Hours Until Dollars' Demise as the Economy Will Be The Real Turkey This Thanksgiving

The market is limping in to Thanksgiving like Kenny Easterday with a broken wrist thanks to the European Union being on shakier ground than Gabourey Sidibe on a tight rope, North Korea dropping bombs on South Korea after South Korea's TSA apparently tried to touch Kim Jong-ils junk,
and the Fed releasing the minutes from their last meeting which showed
less consensus than how to spell "Bernanke" at a Tea Party convention.

Loyal readers of the award winning When Genius Prevailed know that Odette Yustman
is hot, but they also know that Money McBags has been baffled,
bufuddled, and downright befuckingperplexed at the market's continued
strong rally given that data remains tepid at best and Europe continues
try to sweep their problems under a rug more tattered than Elton John's. 
So continue to make sure you are careful in your investments because
the fan is on and the global economy just downed a bag of Nacho Cheese Gorditas and a six-pack of Metamucil.

As for macro news today, the Fed released their minutes
from their last meeting and in them we learned that they downgraded
their assessment of the economy from "meh" to "oops" with GDP targets
for next year lowered from a range of 3.5% to 4.2% to a range of 3.0% to
3.6% while also raising the completely fictitious upper range of the
long run rate of unemployment from 5.3% to 6%.  So suck on that NAIRU. 
The minutes also showed that the Fed discussed that QE2 would sink the
value of the dollar (despite their repeated denials of such an effect)
and ways to improve their communication with the public such as not
lying, using smaller words, and employing cartoon characters.

One other interesting detail released was that the Fed had a special
video conference two weeks before they officially met (though the video
conference got off to a rocky start when Janet Yellen and Sandra
Pianalto were subjected to a flurry of cock shots as Bernanke, Hoenig,
and William Dudley thought they were merely on chatroulette).  The
conference was to discuss hot button issues such as setting explicit
targets for inflation and long-term interest rates (targets as explicit
as "Fucking higher" and "Cockposterously higher") and which Fed member
had the awesomer name between Christine "Honey I'm" Cumming and Brian P. Sack
(and when Money McBags becomes the next dictator, he is going to
require everyone with the last name Sack to have the middle initial P.).

In other macro news, GDP was revised up
to 2.5% from 2% thanks to stronger exports, better consumer and
government spending, and a fuckload more inventories as businesses stock
up on broken dreams and malt liquor to make their own Four Loco. 
Inventory increases accounted for about half of the 2.5% growth so as
inventory trickles down in the next Q as re-stocking goes the way of
full bush and those fucking annoying Wassup Budweiser guys (thanks to
the holiday season ending and federal unemployment benefits drying up),
GDP will struggle to stay positive in the upcoming Qs.

Elsewhere, existing home sales fell
2.2% sequentially or 26% y/y depending on whether you are bearish or
fucking bearish (actually the sharp year over year decline was driven by
last year's home buying tax incentive, but whatever).  Sales were
effected by some states postponing foreclosures due to something about
robosignatures and straight up fraud, as well as people not having any
money.  The annual rate of sales is now 4.43MM, which was below the
4.49MM guessed at by analysts, and means there is now 10.5 months of
inventory on the market not counting shadow inventory and Ice-T's wife's ass.

As mentioned earlier though, it was international news that
figuratively pissed in the market's Cheerios today as North Korea and
South Korea are nearing war and threatening to use biological weapons
such as unrefrigerated kimchi on each other.  In Europe, Ireland bent
over and took their $100B+ bailout from the EU who once again showed their love for Doin' Da Butt.  This massive bail out has effectively caused the Irish government to collapse
as PM Brian Cowen's Fianna Fail party has officially Fianna-failed.  While Cowen
won't step down immediately, he agreed to hold new elections after the
budget passes in order to "let some other schmuck deal with this mess."

Three funds will be created for Ireland in the bail out, one will
back up the country’s failing banks, one will allow Ireland to continue
government operations without turning to the bond markets for help, and
the final one will get Ireland one night with homegrown Claire Tully. 
This package should allow Ireland to operate without funds from the
markets for up to three years, unless they follow Greece's lead and
fabricate their books worse than Stephen Ambrose on a bender.  Making matters worse was that Ireland's central bank Governor Patrick Honohan said, "Irish banks are up for sale"
and Money McBags is willing to bid anything between "not a fucking
chance" and "eat a bag of dick" because he hasn't seen assets that toxic
since Paris Hilton got her last pap smear.

Luckily, Greece is getting their aid (as they must have received the placebo in the Truvada trials) of $12B in January from the IMF but German Chancellor Angela Merkel pointed out there is now serious bailout risk
sweeping the continent as moral hazard from stepping in for Greece and
Ireland has created a slope slipperier than OJ's alibi (he did have an
alibi, right?).

In the market, the FBI raided 3 hedge funds after they likely tracked messages posted to Dickflash emanating from those offices.  As for stocks, J Crew was up 16% after agreeing to a $3B buyout
from two private equity funds who have until the month to return the
deal for store credit if they are not happy.  HPQ was up 2% after a decent Q
in which the company beat analyst guesses on both top and bottom lines
and gave above the street guidance.  The quarter was highlighted by new
CEO Leo Apotheker playing Santa Claus to former CEO Mark Hurd's Scrooge
by reversing pay cuts, reinstating a 401k matching plan, and bringing Skinemax back
to break room TVs.  Also, NYT strangely shot up again today on unusual
volume as algorithms apparently don't know that the newspaper industry
is shrinking faster than gonorhhea cases in the US.

In other earnings news, Hormel put up a good Q
with profit up 17% thanks to the strong performance of Jennie-O Turkey
and the fact that with real unemployment running at ~17%ish, SPAM is now
considered a luxury good,  Finally Campbell's soup was down
after missing analyst guesses as their promotional spend didn't pay off
because apparently hiring Mel Gibson as a spokesperson was a case of
bad timing.

Money McBags has plenty more including real fundamental analysis from yesterday that will change the way you think about research, and civility.  You can find him daily at the award winning When Genius Prevailed, so be sure to tell a friend, tell an enemy, and most importantly tell Sofia Vergara.

Comments

[DEA]

Dear Mr. McBags - I challenge you to write your next article but to only inlcude links to "hotties" to help ease one through the not to positive financial news. No, I did not even bother to click on the link "...Dickflash" as I have no financial interest the topic. Seeing the pics of the women helps remind me why I spend so many hours slaving away making money.

[Bob Sponge]

Thanks. I knew dem Koreans were sitting on a stockpile of unrefrigerated kimchi!

[revenue_anticip...]

thank you, thank you kind sir....so MUCH happening, so MANY postings today...massive increase in 'traffic/intelligence' to be analyzed, digested..

i for one, DO appreciate you've put it all togeather...somewhat pre-digested..an end-of-day summary reminder...