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Frontrunning: August 13

Tyler Durden's picture




 
  • Initial jobless claims increased by 4,000 to 558,000 last week, higher than 545,000 estimate (Bloomberg)
  • Retail sales also fall more than expected, amazing what a major recession will do to rosy expectations (Bloomberg)
  • Yet more people shopping at Wal-Mart (Bloomberg)
  • China's growth an accounting miracle (ContrarianEdge)
  • No "Mission Accomplised" for the Fed (Barron's)
  • The new Fall fashion is inflation (Delta Global Advisors)
  • The Bernanke put - US Government rescue for Commercial Real Estate (Fox News)
  • Fashion house Escada files for bankruptcy (NYT)
  • The second round of REIT follow-ons starting, Avalon Bay on deck, courtesy of the good people at the Federal Reserve, State Street and, of course, Merrill Lynch (StreetInsider)
  • Russia launches Cash for Clunkers (BBC)
  • Revolution coming with next meltdown (ChrisMartenson)
  • Short sellers are disappearing (24/7 Wall Street)
  • China to force higher bond yields for corporate bonds (Bloomberg)
  • Are markets being manipulated? (Green Faucet)
  • Foreclosure filings in U.S. set third record high in five months (Bloomberg)
  • Remembering Reagan's bull market (WSJ)
  • Libor-OIS spread drops to a government backstopper 25 bps (Bloomberg)
  • VW Chief Winterkorn said to be considered to lead Porsche (Bloomberg)
 

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Thu, 08/13/2009 - 09:16 | 35103 Miles Kendig
Miles Kendig's picture

Wal-Mart same store down 1.2% vs expectation of up to 3% increase.

What an awesome green shoot!  They "underestimated the positive impact of last year’s U.S. tax- rebate checks on year-earlier sales".  Next quarter we will hear more about how the rain kept folks home from back to school shopping in August.

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 09:23 | 35113 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

But they beat expectations of 86c, it's a green shoot buy buy buy

as long as they beat expectations nothing else matters, a loss, a big loss, a HUGE loss, no matter as long as the MEGA loss was expected that buy buy buy

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 09:30 | 35122 Cheeky Bastard
Cheeky Bastard's picture

yep, definitely a green shoot; you know things are getting better when the cheapest joint in town becomes to expensive.

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 10:14 | 35179 Miles Kendig
Miles Kendig's picture

Bwhaahaahaa!

CB - Not just too expensive, but more selective shopping in the discount space!

The drop was attributable to consumers’ being “more selective” in buying discretionary items and to stronger deflation in grocery prices than expected, Eduardo Castro - Wright Walmart’s U.S. stores chief, said on the call.

Wal-Mart "beat the street" on better inventory management.  These folks set the standard on controling inventory.  No wonder all the chatter is how the street expects Wal-Mart to set the pace in the space over the next year while "membership revenue" declined by $100.9m!  Buy,  Buy.  Buy.

Classic green shootism.

 

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 10:19 | 35188 Cheeky Bastard
Cheeky Bastard's picture

being “more selective”=  being more broke 

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 12:19 | 35376 MinnesotaNice
MinnesotaNice's picture

Layne... that is so funny... I bet CNBC will be hyper-analyzing the number of rainy days that occurred in various parts of the country preventing the proper allottment of time for school shopping... I can see them now with a great interactive map...

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 09:21 | 35109 Dr Hackenbush
Dr Hackenbush's picture

the cash for stocks program seems to be on track. 

 

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 09:35 | 35130 D.O.D.
D.O.D.'s picture

+1!

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 12:22 | 35379 MinnesotaNice
MinnesotaNice's picture

Ditto... Captcha comment:  -99 + ____ = -97

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 17:19 | 35879 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

All the spam on here is really starting to piss me off. Time to up the captcha to stuff like:

What is the sume of the second derivative of 2x^-2 and -18?

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 09:23 | 35112 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

All the "Recession is Over!" bullshit I keep hearing on the TV is really starting to piss me off.

A day of reckoning is approaching, and eventually these propaganda mouth pieces will be held to account.

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 09:25 | 35116 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

as long as the fed keep giving the banksters free money to spend on the stock market it will keep going ever higher

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 09:26 | 35118 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Is this the first year ever that kids went "Back to School"? Hey, maybe this year people will do something like exchange presents at Christmas. Gotta get long for that little completely unexpected boost, too.

And since that Paulson fellow was right once, and he's now buying up banks like BAC, that little bit of hero worshiping ought to be worth fifty or so handles on the S&P.

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 10:17 | 35183 Miles Kendig
Miles Kendig's picture

Paulson purchased in Q2.  I am willing to wager he has been selling into the rally and his current position is no more than 50% of his purchase and it will most likely decline further over the next week now that he got his boost thanks to the MSM.

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 09:28 | 35119 Arm
Arm's picture

- Foreclosures at record

- Unemployment up

- General sales down

- Walmart selling below expectations

 

Let's rally because Paulson is buying gold?  http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aCYbciLd51CM

 

One of these day's Alice! Bang! Zoom! To the moon

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 11:57 | 35125 Chumly
Chumly's picture

 

I will repeat this ad nauseum:  ROME IS BURNING!  This daily circus is a gas!  We are in a depression and world economists are calling for Bernake to pronounce the end of the recession.

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 09:35 | 35129 Chumly
Chumly's picture

One day post FOMC things remain the same - dismal!

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 10:18 | 35186 Miles Kendig
Miles Kendig's picture

And just take a glance at how this week's central bank meeting in england was received.

Let's hear it for expectations!

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 09:35 | 35131 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

My god, is "as the recession eases" now the obligatory catchphrase for all manners of Western financial media?

I think I'm going to start using it in my daily life.

I get up every morning, as the recession eases.
As the recession eases, I make my way to work.
I'm thankful I even have a job, as the recession eases.
Someone is still working at the coffee shop, a sign that unemployment is perhaps stabilizing as the recession eases.
I'm still mostly in cash, as the recession eases.

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 09:39 | 35135 asdf
asdf's picture

hahaha :D

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 09:43 | 35140 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

LOL!

Armed mob marches on Wall Street as the recession eases.

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 13:36 | 35306 trevor
trevor's picture

Dipshit - a buyer in equity markets who buys the dips. "Jerome went dipshitting when retail sales and employment numbers simultaneously surprised to the downside."

Risk as it pertains to ... ? Backstop behind the SLPz? So, conceivably, a "past ball" (not seen coming, i.e. flashed in a dark pool) thrown in the dirt could get by the catcher and roll how far (without a backstop)? There is no risk when Bernanke is the umpire behind the plate.
His message was being spread and gaining even more support...therefore he needed to be censored.

Until we have guys like Black back as regulators nothing will change. We just

good articles; my newest bookmarked finance site ..http://www.. hat tip: finance news & finance opinions

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 09:36 | 35132 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Markets up again..My account down again...Groundhog day for the last 5 months and counting

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 09:40 | 35137 D.O.D.
D.O.D.'s picture

I dunno, I've written an script based on tom demark sequential indicators and SPX and DOW gave the reversal sell signal on Monday and nasdaq gave it yesterday... based on all this less bad news I'm seeing, I must have programed it wrong... maybe I left out a ;...back to the drawing board...

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 09:50 | 35146 Dixie Normous
Dixie Normous's picture

Did you take into account that the end of the day buy program has now been moved to Europe at 3 AM?

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 09:40 | 35138 Veteran
Veteran's picture

RE: Rev coming.

 

I find it interesting that the admin pukes dismiss the teaparty/death panel dipshits so blithely.  As far as I can tell their protest, while misguided, is lighting the torch for the rest of America, ironically enough.  I've said it before, we need to follow the long, proud tradition of the French and start manning the barricades and torching stuff.  Remember Watts??  Quickest way to get a response. . .

 

¡Viva la revolucíon!

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 09:51 | 35149 Sqworl
Sqworl's picture

November 4-6..New York Hilton..Regulators annual jerk off...A good place to start...

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 09:54 | 35154 Cheeky Bastard
Cheeky Bastard's picture

maybe the space monkeys will re-create the last scene from  the FK .. it would be nice to see 85Bro.St. go down in flames

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 10:13 | 35177 e1even1
e1even1's picture

dont forget what happened 40 years ago. the kent state massacre where the national guard locked, loaded and rock 'n rolled on unarmed protestors. they'll be ready.

they've already started calling us un-american. i think they're itching for it.

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 10:19 | 35187 Veteran
Veteran's picture

Let it not be said that we failed to learn our history. 

 

They drew First Blood

-Rambo

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 10:22 | 35191 Miles Kendig
Miles Kendig's picture

As a kid I remember watching the California National Guard lob tear gas and watching the rioters use their asbestos gloves to toss it back!

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 10:25 | 35195 Cheeky Bastard
Cheeky Bastard's picture

yep, but do you know that the Kent state massacre wasn't the first, or even the only time when they opened fire on us citizens. the first one was actually in South Carolina State university in Orangeburg in 1968. I know what you're saying, just wanted to add some history into discussion. But you'll never hear about that one because it was mostly a black college. And there was the one in Jackson State University in Mississippi just ten days after the one in Kent State.

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 10:47 | 35217 e1even1
e1even1's picture

you've probably already read howard zin's "A People's History of the United States". plenty of examples like the colorado striking miners' massacre.

i dont want to see it. but if it has to happen, we have them surrounded.

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 14:22 | 35577 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Cheeky, There's a longer history than that. The "Bonus Army" had a
tent city in D.C. during the 1920's. They were protesting to get the
$1.25 a day pay they were owed for their WW I service. (Imagine that...
and after they helped defeat the bloody Hun, old chap.) Several were
killed and many injured when the president ordered the tent city destroyed.
But I'm sure someone has an example to pre-date this. Enjoy your posts.
You bring a pinch a old world civility to the chaos. Anon X

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 09:57 | 35156 Chumly
Chumly's picture

The Hannity, et.al. driven tea partiers are ill-informed mostly, but give them credit for their tenacity.  Being a former Republican (with an infamous photo of me and RR shaking hands) turned Libertarian/Constitutionalist, I can say that I do not want to be associated with the Hannity's of the world, so I won't join them.  Besides, their focus is primarily health care.  They need to push the AGW and Cap and Trade farce right up to the top, let alone a call for the end of the pryamid/ponzi/fiat/GS-Fed Banana Republic otherwise known as the USA.  This will morph into something greater and when the "conservatives" (and "liberals") wake up, read up on a little history and fess up that they were hoodwinked, this could become very ugly in a matter of a year or two.

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 10:29 | 35201 Miles Kendig
Miles Kendig's picture

There is a chance that with the left & right so concerned with the purity of their precious essence the middle may well be able to coalesce into something special this time round.

If not then it will soon be time to be wary of ignorance, fanaticism & tyranny taking a giant leap forward.

An informed populace is the key and there are means and methods of communicating and informing that have never been available before.  This site being one of them.  Let's hear it for new media and the potential that things may well turn out differently this time round.

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 10:42 | 35212 Bob
Bob's picture

I'd like to think so, but when most republicans and libertarians can be whipped into a frenzy by the same old canned bullshit about the wonders of free market America--in spite of the evidence all around them--and most liberals can be bought off by the stylings of a smooth-talking landmark president throwing them promises and a few bones, it's hard to see anything new coalescing unless there's an appocolyptic economic collapse. 

I'm not happy to say that by any means. 

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 11:31 | 35295 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Pathetically, we don't need a economic collapse but a long gas line would do the trick.

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 13:36 | 35308 trevor
trevor's picture

Any news explaining the chatter about exchange related problems?

Risk as it pertains to ... ? Backstop behind the SLPz? So, conceivably, a "past ball" (not seen coming, i.e. flashed in a dark pool) thrown in the dirt could get by the catcher and roll how far (without a backstop)? There is no risk when Bernanke is the umpire behind the plate.
His message was being spread and gaining even more support.. hat tip: finance news & finance opinions

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 11:51 | 35344 Bob
Bob's picture

It would be something, given the implication of significantly higher gas prices that would prevent many from even getting their cars outta the driveway, but we've been there before (I remember it well, 1972-73) and I doubt it would be a sufficient "stimulus" today.  Especially with much of the middle and virtually all of the upper-middle class still hangin' on.   

I have to expect the powers that be would simply play the same old divisive "issue cards" that would get the children fighting among themselves.  Note the "health care debate", birthers, etc., today.  It doesn't take much . . .

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 10:22 | 35192 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

First Time long time! w00t. Just wanted to pass on this link from Bloomberg sort of pulling the rug out on what we all know: All these banks are more insolvent than shit in toilet.... Now to pass that math test.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=a04oVutXQybk

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 10:32 | 35203 Bob
Bob's picture

Yeah, the shame of the Town Hall protesters is that they are easily dismissed as a bunch of ignorant backwoods fools. 

They are extremely unphotogenic and inarticulate, you gotta admit.  Not to mention they're venting their ire against health care "reform," one program that--unlike TBTF bailouts--would at least benefit many millions of people.  It's too bad, albeit so damn predictable, that they can't get the right target in their sights. 

Gotta love their spirit, though. 

Hey, Chris Martenson sure has some serious rabble rousers over on his forum.  Interesting to see "revolutionary" sentiments sprouting all over the web.  Of course, talk is oh so cheap.  And keystrokes are even cheaper (once you've paid that all-important cable bill.) 

 

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 10:58 | 35231 Printfaster
Printfaster's picture

It would seem that the tea parties are evidence that Obama has become the most divisive president in memory.  He joins Hugo Chavez, among other elites in that distinction.

The job of community organizer is to organize your community against the other community.  Not to unify.

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 11:05 | 35246 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Ha, good one, I guess your memory mysteriously jumps from January 19,2001 to January 20, 2009. Nothing happened there. Why does everything in the US always have to come back to this crazy rigid left/right divide?

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 11:21 | 35273 Bob
Bob's picture

That is the big "question" about America. 

The answer is that the intellectually cheap "arguments" evoke deep and long-cultivated divisive passions that ensure we'll never unite in our collective best interests. 

For all our potential and high self-regard, we function like a buncha pre-schoolers conditioned to chaotic feuding about irrelevant nonsense whenever someone pushes the right emotional buttons. 

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 13:31 | 35503 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Agreed. The British Empire maintained control so long by the "divide and conquer" strategy. (Moslems vs. Hindus/ Shiites vs Sunis/ Catholic vs. Protestant etc.) While the peasants feuded, the London bankers amassed unimaginable fortunes. Our Plutocratic government/media is encouraging a fight between Left and Right for the healthcare crumbs, while Blankfein and the New York bankers are moving the national treasury into their bottomless pockets. And I'm not hopeful about a change because individualism is the core value for Americans, so the likelihood of the left and right uniting to "kick the ass of the ruling class" is quite remote. So the American Empire is being bled from within, and I've tried to find an historical model to envision a remedy, but can't. Anon X

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 11:34 | 35305 trevor
trevor's picture

I will repeaat this ad nauseum:  ROME IS BURNING!  This daily circus is a gas!  We are in a depression and world economists are calling for Bernake to pronounce the end of the recession.

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 11:55 | 35348 Chumly
Chumly's picture

I second that motion.

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 13:12 | 35470 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

And yet the market is up today. When will the TV pundits address the fact that this means either (1) free markets don't work, or (2) this isn't a free market.

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 13:35 | 35509 trevor
trevor's picture

Risk as it pertains to ... ? Backstop behind the SLPz? So, conceivably, a "past ball" (not seen coming, i.e. flashed in a dark pool) thrown in the dirt could get by the catcher and roll how far (without a backstop)? There is no risk when Bernanke is the umpire behind the plate.
His message was being spread and gaining even more support...therefore he needed to be censored.

Until we have guys like Black back as regulators nothing will change. We just

good articles; my newest bookmarked finance site ..http://www.. hat tip: finance news & finance opinions

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