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Waltzin' Matilda up the S&P Ladder
Hat tip to the Aussie’s for providing much needed fodder to the US Dollar shorts so equity shorts could in turn be squeezed overnight. True to form for 2009, anyone trading with a close eye on the fundamentals is getting a major hurt put on, while buying any dip to minor support, such as the 50 day MA, remains as viable a strategy as the most sophisticated SPARC assembly language-optimized HFT algorithm. Good thing the efficient market/random walk hypothesis has been thoroughly debunked, as we would hate to have to explain the analogous hurricane season that has every butterfly in Equatorial Guinea producing a Cat-5 that hits New Orleans dead center.
The order has come down from above, once again today (as it did yesterday), that sellers ain't welcome.
The list of dates goes on, but pixels are precious here and you get the idea.
Now, where's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag? G’day mates.
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Update 2:13 pm EDT: Don't tell me we have a two sided market!
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It is spelt Waltzin'.
Knew something didn't look right.
Dear Senator XXX:
Thank you again for your service and your courage. I have to admit that your efforts and that of your few Senate and House colleagues are almost Sisyphian efforts against crime and fraud. But having the Federal Reserve prop up the stock market daily with Permanent Open Market Operations (or “POMOs”) passed through the New York Fed to JP Morgan Chase SPY buyers is no way to run a “free market” as the dollar collapses, the speculative bubble grow, and the country goes bankrupt.
Cases in point:
? Respected economist Barry Ritholtz demands: “Bloomberg: Release Fed Borrowers’ Names”
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/10/bloomberg-release-borrowers%e2%80%9...
By Barry Ritholtz, October 5th, 2009, 8:15PM
I expect the Fed to lose their Appeal: “The Federal Reserve should be forced to identify companies that received loans from the central bank because it can’t demonstrate that borrowers would be harmed by the disclosure, according to lawyers who won a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Total lending by the Fed, which last year began extending credit directly to companies that aren’t banks for the first time since it was created in 1913, was $2.12 trillion on Sept. 30. Details about the borrowers and their collateral are “central to understanding and assessing the government’s response to the most cataclysmic financial crisis in America since the Great Depression,” attorneys for Bloomberg said in the suit. The Freedom of Information Act obliges federal agencies to make government documents available to the press and public. The Bloomberg suit didn’t seek money damages.”
? FDIC Providing Zero Percent Financing to Vulture “Investors”
Barry Sternlicht of Starwood Capital bragged on CNBC this AM that “as a private equity firm, we are bidders at 25 cents on the dollar for selected Corus Bank assets owned by the FDIC. Corus had 1000 properties financed at the peak of the bubble (and was on life support until the FDIC got stuck with it this summer.) The FDIC will finance our private equity buyout (of assets we select) at a 0% borrowing rate”!!
? Whistleblower Harry Markopolos says the SEC should “Reform or Die”
http://www.financial-planning.com/news/markopolos-sec-reform-2664137-1.html
Markopolos added that it was easy enough to prove that Madoff’s reported trades were fakes by checking with outside parties such as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and counterparties such as JPMorgan Chase. He said he and his team learned a great deal by attending hedge fund conferences, figuring out the identities of the Madoff feeder funds and asking them if they could get in on the action. Markopolos said the bulk of Madoff’s money went to pay the early investors 12% a year. Those investors made out fine but were now “laying low in the weeds hoping to avoid the six-year claw-back.” Madoff spent 3% to 4% to pay feeder funds, funds of funds and private client banks in order to get more clients, Markopolos said. And, he argued that those feeder funds deceived clients by claiming to do due diligence and in some cases claiming to have had a multi-manager investment strategy when they were, in fact, 100% invested in Madoff. The now imprisoned Madoff “paid [the feeder funds] enough to make to not ask questions,” Markopolos said. Many of those funds assumed Madoff was front-running money in order to make his returns which meant he was involved in criminal activity, Markopolos said. “They figured he may be a crook, but he was our crook.” “The SEC has a long way to go,” said Markopolos. He had harsh words for banking watchdogs as well. “If the SEC was asleep, the banking regulators were comatose.”
? Possible Criminal Fraud Conducted by former Treasury Secretary Paulson in the Bailouts http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/business/economy/05bank.html?_r=1
The inspector general who oversees the government’s bailout of the banking system is criticizing the Treasury Department for some misleading public statements last fall and raising the possibility that it had unfairly disbursed money to the biggest banks. A Treasury official made incorrect statements about the health of the nation’s biggest banks even as the government was doling out billions of dollars in aid, according to a report on the Troubled Asset Relief Program to be released on Monday by the special inspector general, Neil M. Barofsky. The report also provides new insight into the way the Treasury allocated billions of dollars to nine of Wall Street’s largest players. Another company in the process of a merger was not treated the same. Wells Fargo was acquiring Wachovia, and it received both companies’ money at the start, according to the inspector general. Mr. Barofsky’s office also says that regulators were wrong to tell the public last year that the earliest bailout recipients were all healthy. Former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., for instance, said on Oct. 14 that the banks were “healthy,” and that they accepted the money for “the good of the U.S. economy.” The banks, he said, would be better able to increase their lending to consumers and businesses.
In the end, there MUST be more oversight, review and Congressional review of these unauthorized and likely illegal decisions by conflicted parties to hand out taxpayer money with zero accountability.
Zero Hedge comments on the Bloomberg FOIA suit: “The fine folks at Bloomberg refuse to give to the Fed's demands for undisputsed intergalatic domination:”
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/bloomberg-responds-fed-foia-appeal-blas...
The Board contends that it is serving the public’s interest by keeping all of this information secret from it, claiming that disclosure might harm the borrowers and, therefore, the entire U.S. economy. But the Board has offered no evidence – relying instead on hyperbolic speculation – from which this Court could conclude that such harm was likely to result from disclosure.
And:
The Board’s interests in secrecy are, in fact, aligned with the banks’ interests and are contrary to the public interest. The Board wishes to continue to lend trillions of dollars of public money without oversight or accountability, and the banks wish to continue to reap the benefits of their access to public money without their depositors or shareholders – or the public at large – knowing anything about it.
And lastly:
By contrast, the public has a manifest interest in understanding and evaluating the government’s response to the recent economic crisis, in safeguarding its money, and in knowing whether its government is doling out its money to private entities imprudently. To make matters worse, the public is being denied this basic information even as the Board continues to act on its behalf in providing public assistance to private financial institutions. In order to allow the public to participate in the ongoing debate on the appropriate role of the federal government in alleviating the economic crisis, it should be provided with details of last year’s loans.
Full motion by Bloomberg to deny Fed's appeal below: (on the site).
Respectfully submitted,
XX XX CFA
The Aussie dollar has been my favorite and continues to be one of my most profitable trades trade since March.
you don't think the guys who hole up at 85 Broad St. have anything to do with this do ya? BTW why all those tank traps surrounding their bunker? I mean it's just a bunch of bankers trying to scratch out a living.
the moment I heard aussie dollar raised the rate you had to know the carry traders were gonna crush the dollar, and thats the one correlation driving this whole thing since march