Ben Bernanke

From the Banco Central de Reserve Del Peru:

13:30 : El Banco Central compró US$ 181 millones a un tipo de cambio promedio S/. 2,7870 por dólar.

Old school private equity guy-turned-hedge fund manager, Michael Tennenbaum, was on Bloomberg TV, discussing his perspectives for the distressed debt market (yes, such a thing did once exist, before HY bonds of 20x levered companies starting trading at par+). And all those who believe that courtesy of the Fed's intervention in every market there will never be another bankruptcy, let alone a bond yielding more than 10% take heart: according to Tennenbaum a full $50 billion in distressed debt may go Chapter in the next two years, although this is probably more good news for all the mini restructuring boutiques who overhired last year only to see the administration make bankruptcy illegal. The math: "Over the next five years $1.2 trillion in non investment grade debt comes due, of which $200 billion are due in the next two years, and of that a quarter or $50 billion are issued by companies rated rated B or lower. The experience that we and others have had is that this leads to default." Of course, Tennenbaum is a traditional debt-for-equity investor is more than incentivized to see this occur: he is currently sitting there doing nothing, as not only does nobody need DIPs or other rescue financings (why, when you can issue new B3/B- debt at 8%), but no company is willing to part with equity when every pitchbook it sees tells it can progressively refi current debt into paper that may eventually pay a 0.001% coupon. On the other hand, this, as well as every other contrarian outlook is predicated on the assumption that the Fed will be able to control the demolition of the US economy, which it won't. Which is why we are confident that not only will Mike be correct (eventually), but the full amount of HY paper that will default will boggle the mind when the dominoes really collapse. Until then, study learn (and earn) the Bernanke Moral Hazard Put: learn it and love it.

The biggest financial story which continues to get absolutely no mention on CNBC just got its latest multi-step escalation: Senator Al Franken has just blasted a letter to Tim Geithner, Shaun Donovan, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Eric Holder, John Walsh, Controller of the Currency, Sheila Bair, and, drumroll, Ben Bernanke, telling the recipients that "each of your agencies has an important role to play in addressing this egregious situation and holding all appropriate actors fully accountable. As such, I respectfully request that you collaborate to conduct a thorough investigation into the alleged misconduct. As part of this investigation, it is crucial that Ally and its employees are held fully accountable for any criminal misconduct." Since if this pervasive mortgage fraud is more than just alleged, the stink will reach to the very top of places like JP Morgan, Ally, and possibly every single bank that has been in the mortgage origination business, something tells us that Ben Bernanke, whose job is precisely to protect the banks' interests will not rush into any investigation for the duration of FASB's existence. It gets better: "Additionally, all homeowners who may have experienced illegitimate foreclosure sales, those who have been forced to defend against illegitimate foreclosure actions, and those who have been harmed must be identified. These individuals must receive proper restitution and compensation, as provided for under the law." And the punchline: "It is critical to confirm that no loans provided through the FHA or in conjunction with the HAMP program were associated with Ally's misconduct." Yes, oddly enough the government is about to lose even more credibility once it is discovered that it worked in collaboration with the biggest mortgage fraud scheme in history.

Key releases on jobless claims and industrial activity give way to Chairman Bernanke and other financial regulators at mid-morning…

Bernanke and his friends in the Treasury seem to be pulling a fast one on the world, inflating US assets and deflating US liabilities through a falling dollar, while giving the US companies a chance to fund themselves cheaply. The only ones who are harmed are not voters or, if they are, they don’t have many votes. However, those who own the most US assets and will be financing the US in the future can not be pleased by this. It might be that the Eurozone is short-sighted allowing the euro to rise (see A Race to Two Bottoms, September 23), but the US is not thinking about the long term either. This is a very short term game. If the economy does go into a recession next year, as we expect, equities will decline anyway, and the government’s escape will only be temporary. TARP II will need to be rolled out alongside QE II and many will be left with a sour taste in their mouths. - John Taylor

Mark Pittman's last valiant effort to bring some transparency to the most destructive organization in the history of mankind has succeeded. According to testimony to be delivered to the House tomorrow, "under a framework established by
the act, the Federal Reserve will, by December 1, provide detailed
information regarding individual transactions conducted across a range
of credit and liquidity programs over the period from December 1, 2007,
to July 20, 2010. This information will include the names of
counterparties, the date and dollar value of individual transactions,
the terms of repayment, and other relevant information. On an ongoing
basis, subject to lags specified by the Congress to protect the efficacy
of the programs, the Federal Reserve also will routinely provide
information regarding the identities of counterparties, amounts financed
or purchased and collateral pledged for transactions under the discount
window, open market operations, and emergency lending facilities." Luckily this action by Bernanke will prevent the rioting that would have followed an appeal to the Supreme court, which would have certainly sided with the secretive group of Keynesian priests. If nothing else, the plethora of data will keep the blogosphere preoccupied for days upon days, rummaging through millions of pages of explicit corruption.

A week ago we wondered how it was that Pimco's Bill Gross, who is now rumored to be Larry Summers replacement as the QE infinity whisperer on the right side of President Obama, had an advance look into how the Fed will adjust its GDP forecast ahead of the general public. Today, we got the first half of the response: in a speech to the European Economics and Financial Centre in London, Minneapolis Fed president Narayana Kocherlakota has just lowered his GDP forecast from 3% to 2.5%. And most importantly, the Fed President's speech in decidedly QE-negative: our favorite quote on QE from a Fed president so far: "The Fed cannot literally eliminate the exposure of the economy to the risk of fluctuations in the real interest rate. It can only shift that risk among people in the economy. So, where did that risk go when the Fed bought the long-term bond? The answer is to taxpayers." Thank you Fed.

Has Obama ordered Fed governor Ben Bernanke to flood the system with $2 trillion of liquidity? A cynical ploy to give the economy a much needed shot in the arm that will enable the Democrats to retain control of both houses of Congress. Two more years of Obamanomics to follow. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

There is no debating that the FOMC announcements and liquidity injections are if not the key factor that drives stocks then certainly one of the main ones. Yet for those who wish to frontrun the Fed without participating in the stock market, which these days would be pretty much everyone, as the risk of a market crash increases exponentially with every single day that equities ramp ever higher not on fundamentals but merely liquidity, Morgan Stanley has found another cheap FOMC-coincident trade that at least on the surface allows for a quick and painless pick up in a few bps, and can be conducted without touching stocks at all.

Unbeknownst to most investors, last week Ben Bernanke pumped an additional $11.05 BILLION into the system ON TOP of the $11.15 pumped via the POMOs. In plain terms, the Fed juiced the system by $20+ billion in a single week, bringing its liquidity pumps RIGHT BACK QE 1 LEVELS.

Talking inspiration from the title of Fox Butterfield's book on China, we ponder the glut of dollars

Recently, there has been much euphoria to define all those who believe that gold will outperform as goldbugs. We in turn are fairly confident that pretty soon all those who have faith that the central banks will somehow get it right this time, instead of causing all out war again, will be labeled as "paper bugs." What however, surprises us is that all the so called "gold bugs" continue to be invested in the best performing asset class over the past day, 5 days, 1 month, 6 months, 5 years, and 10 years: on a relative basis gold has outperformed stocks in all these time categories, yet it continues to be more hated than even Ben Bernanke, whose stealthy destruction of middle class purchasing power is in fact cheered by the "paper bugs" - we will not bore you with the chart that shows how the dollar has lost almost 100% of its purchasing power since the creation of the Fed. Anyway, here is David Rosenberg, who several months ago joined the gold bandwagon, and presents one of the better defenses to all those who blame gold bugs for not catching the "bungee jump" in the most manipulated stock market in history. "We continue to field criticism that we “missed the call” on the equity market. Well, no doubt we did not see the 1930-style bungee jump last year, but: (i) it’s over, and (ii) there were many other asset classes we liked that did very well: what has done better than gold, which is up more than 30% in the last 12 months." We obviously agree both now, and about 50% back, at the time of the creation of this blog, when we said that the only natural response to Fed insanity is the otherwise useless shiny metal.

Ben will now buy a 100B a month. The sky is the limit. Insanity.

Recently the debate over when QE2 will occur has taken a back seat over the question of what the implications of the Fed's latest intervention in monetary policy will be, as it is now certain that Bernanke will attempt a fresh round of monetary stimulus to prevent the recent deceleration in the economy from transforming into outright deflation. Whether or not the Fed will decide to engage in QE2 on its November 3 meeting, or as others have suggested December 14, and maybe even as far out as January 25, the actual event is now a certainty. And while many have discussed this topic in big picture terms, most notably David Tepper, who on Friday stated that no matter what, stocks will benefit from QE2, few if any have actually considered what the impact of QE2 will be on the Fed's balance sheet, and how the change in composition in Fed assets will impact all marketable asset classes. We have conducted a rough analysis on how QE2 will reshape the Fed's balance sheet. We were stunned to realize that over the next 6 months the Fed may be the net buyer of nearly $3 trillion in Treasurys, an action which will likely set off a chain of events which could result in rates dropping all the way to zero, stocks surging, and gold (and other precious metals) going from current price levels to well in the 5 digit range.

A tale that leads to Bernanke's "QE-2 Celebration Bash".