Unemployment

Twas the night before Squidmas, when all through Goldman Squid house...

Goldman's Erik Nielsen looks at the immediate European future, is flummoxed by all the end of world calls (bank runs, Ireland rejecting budget, austerity riots everywhere), and sees a future so bright he just has to wear the kind of shades that only a multi-million dollar bonus can buy (especially after Goldman upgrades all banks and its own bonuses by about 10%). After all his colleague Hatzius, despite all the facts and data, just upgraded US GDP. It now appears that just like Moody's 5 years ago, Goldman's excel spreadsheets crash when one input a negative growth assumption. Arguably these are the same spreadsheets that Tim Geithner used to prepare his taxes.

The recent passage of the middle class tax cut extension by Congress was roundly refuted by the Senate today as republicans and even some democrats voted against the proposal. This was expected, and means the bluff will come down to the wire, with some form of compromise required in the next week, involving an unemployment insurance-for-tax cut extension quid pro quo. It better come quick though: as Zero Hedge has been saying for the past 4 months, the biggest overhang on the market currently is the threat that the capital gains extension does not pass forcing a sell off as those in profitable position rush to lock in profits at lower rates (which is priced in to assume it will happen). This was finally made all too clear in a recent Strategas report that gained prominent recognition a few days ago. However, instead of this issue requiring resolution by the end of the month, the D-Day is actually December 15, at which point numerous option expiration/rolling decisions are made, impacting asset decisions on the underlying securities.  As to the tax cut extension, it is now more than obvious that Obama will be forced to soon renege on some of his key campaign promises, thereby making his presidential bid in 2012 even more of a non-starter, but more importantly, requiring the Treasury to fund even more government revenue shortfalls through bond printing, thereby making a new QE round (this time focusing on the 30 Year) all but guaranteed.

Technically it a joke to call what we are seeing day in and day out, at least in equities, a market, but for old time's sake, here is a recap of what happened today in stocks, rates, corporates, FX, and a focus on the two key events from late in the day: the bombs from Bernanke and Merkel.

Now that his relentless skepticism, following today's abysmal data release (orchestrated or not), has been fully validated, much to the chagrin of top ticking flippers such as Goldman and other sundry blog sites, Rosenberg comes out with a must read essay on the state of the economy now versus later, entitled very appropriately "Hope-Based Rally Now, Shock Therapy Later." This is certainly one Rosie's better pieces out there and a must read for those who refuse to be led by the propaganda machine into believing lies and manipulation: "This has become such a hope-based market that the Dow jumped over 100 points earlier this week on a Reuters news story in Brussels, which reported that the U.S.A. would back an even greater financial commitment to Europe! Quick — get Sarah Palin on the line." Incidentally, if there is any confusion where Zero Hedge stands, we suggest rereading our post from last night which made it all too clear that we still refuse to drink the hopium (and self-aggrandizement) that seems to have gotten straight to the head of such a broad (literally and metaphorically) cross-section of the financial punditry.

From the exquisite stream of consciousness of Nomura's recent addition: Bob Janjuah, who luckily discovered he was far too smart to be held back by the D-grade bailed out banker-clowns at RBS (we can only hope Bob will next discover the carriage return button): "If you are wondering why the title "Bulls in a China shop", I hope that after reading the [below], it makes sense: financial markets are very fragile right now, and any bullish risk-on phase seems to be based on very hopeful assumptions (“don't fight the Fed”; “beware animal spirits in the US”; “don't position against the US consumer”; “Germany owes us”; and lastly, “China will always grow at 10%”). We prefer to rely less on hope and more on hard reality and sensible and credible policies – even if they may mean more pain in the short term."

ISM Servies prings at 55.0 compared to expectations of 54.8, now that all difusion indices trade like S&P earnings esmates. Key indices come in as follows as farce of a market goes green.

It was only two days ago that Goldman upgraded its own bonus pool by saying the economy is now going nowhere but up, up, up. That lasted for 72 hours. Below is Hatzius' (first of many) mea culpa for finaly selling out: "A clearly disappointing report all around, with payrolls up much less than expected and the unemployment rate up. Although hours worked rose only 0.1% in November, this rough proxy for real GDP less productivity changes is tracking at roughly a 2½% annual rate. Flat wages coupled with the small increase in payrolls suggests very little wage and salary growth in November." We give the Goldman "strategist" 3 months before he starts beating the QE 3-666 drums again.

When we last ran this number, the economy needed to create 232,400 jobs per month to get to the same unemployment rate as last seen in December 2007, just before the depression started, courtesy of today's massive disappointment we can now increase the creation requirement to 235,120. As a reminder this is the number of jobs per month that need to be created between December 2010 and November 2016, or the end of Obama's now improbable second term, for jobs to recover their losses when taking into account the natural growth of the labor force of 90,000 people per month. Also, when ignoring the demographic shift, or just accounting for the absolute number in jobs without accounting for the labor force growth which is so wrong only the BLS looks at that number, the breakeven has been pushed back from June 2013 to July 2013. Economic collapse you can finally believe in. And now, with the BLS' good graces, the government can promptly pass the jobless benefits extension, which is what this whole doctored data charade is all about.

Private payrolls +50K on expectations of +160K! Manufacturing payrolls plunge 13K on expectations of +5K. Previous revised down to -7K. As Zero Hedge expected the ADP was totally and completely off. And so the myth of the recovery can suck it.

Payroll day…and also nonmanfucturing ISM and factory orders. Today's 6th of the week POMO will buy $6-8 billion of bonds due 2013-2014. Lastly, and unrelated, Julian Assange is likely to be arrested any minute.

The current recession is the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, inviting comparisons with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR had the advantage of taking office three years into the Depression when the unemployment rate was near 25 percent. The verdict was in: the system needed change. President Obama took office as the crisis was deepening. Those who had designed the system could still argue it could be revived and as establishment insiders they had the upper hand. But that argument is done and today the prospect is of long stagnation.

Some time in January, we presented an extended analysis by Mark Hart's Corriente Fund in which the successful hedge manager presented a comprehensive case for the Chinese bubble. Today, about a year later, and after China is finally on the verge of realy pulling in the liquidity avalanche, tired of importing Bernanke's rampant inflation, Art Cashin looks at the very same Mark Hart in his market commentary: "Several readers asked if I had more details on Mark Hart’s bearish call on China. I pulled up a couple of articles, most notably the U.K. Telegraph. Mr. Hart manages Corriente Advisors. He set up a bearish sub-prime fund in 2006 and a bearish European debt fund in 2007. The anomalies he sees in China are somewhat familiar: Excess floor space exceeds 3.3 billion square meters and there are still 200m being built this year; The price to rent ratio is 39.4 times versus 22.8 times in America before the housing crises; Banks are hiding their exposure in Local Investment Vehicles; On a Sovereign level, China’s debt to GDP comes out at 107%, five times published numbers; China has consumed just 65% of the cement it has produced in the last six years; There are 200m tons of excess steel capacity, more than the EU and Japan’s total production this year. According to the articles, Mr. Hart has been growing bearish on China for months. Several other successful hedge fund managers are also said to be making negative bets on China. It certainly bears watching." We would like to help Art, and provide with a redux of what we posted back in January that summarizes Corriente's outlook.

In a speech which on the surface is meant to convey the skepticism of the Charles Plosser over QE2, the Philadelphia Fed president admits that much more QE may ultimately be needed. "If the economy grows more quickly than I currently anticipate, the purchase program will need to be reconsidered and perhaps curtailed before the full $600 billion in purchases is completed. On the other hand, if serious risks of deflation or deflationary expectations emerge, then we would need to consider whether expanded asset purchases should be used to address these risks." And much more deflation will eventually emerge especially for large scale purchases which rely on credit procurement (coupled with increasing inflation in commodities which are first degree liquidity derivatives): after all, the collapse in the shadow banking system, and the M3, are all the matter, and the Fed has no control over these (now that European greater fool securitized investors are extinct). It is precisely the Fed's QE3 response that should start being factored in. As everything else is noise, we will immediately present the latest meltdown in the shadow economy when the quarterly update is posted at noon on December 9.

Following yesterday's completely non-arbitrary release by Jan Hatzius of his about face economic upgrade at precisely 4 minutes ahead of the Fed data dump, Goldman has released the first 5 trades of its top 2011 trades. Hopefully these trades will perform far better than the basket of 2010 trades which left Goldman clients flat at best (especially the FX component which was a total disaster and which Thomas Stolper apologized for yesterday). On the basis of its suddenly rosy outlook for the economy (as always, Goldman by definition is buying whetever a client is selling and vice verse) here are the first five trades that Goldman believes will be the best money makets for the next year.

1. Short $/CNY via 2yr NDFs, currently at about 6.4060, target of 5.9, expected potential return 6%

2. Long US large-cap Commercial Banks (BKX), at 44.76, target of 57, expected potential return +25%

3. Long US High Yield (Selling protection on the CDX HY index), at a current spread of 528, target of 450, expected potential return of 8%-9%

4. Long Nikkei 225 (NKY), at 9,988, target 12,000, expected potential return +20%

5. Long a Basket of Crude, Copper, Cotton/Soybeans and Platinum (‘CCCP’), indexed at 100, expected potential return 28%