Wall Street Pro vs. Made In China Ford Taurus

Total Federal Reserve balance sheet assets for the week of June 24 of $2,048

Time to adjust those durable goods numbers? Quantas cancels/defers 30 plane orders (Bloomberg)

And we at Zero Hedge thought we were hard on pro-cyclical, bull market, momo, value destroying private equity shops. In a case filed in the Supreme Court of New York, mezzanine lenders for recently bankrupt Extended Stay Motels, Line Trust Corporation and Deuce Proeprties, go to town against not just the two PE firms, but everyone's favorite Bank Of America, recently defunct Wachovia and U.S. National Bank Association (as successor for Bear Stearns), accusing them of one of the oddest collusive arrangements we have ever witnessed.

Continuing on the Fed email thread from yesterday, the House Oversight Committee formally released a packet of emails which replicates the batch I released yesterday (although has only 8 pages to my 13). One notable addition is the itemization of the ML "legacy portfolio" as presented below: obviously the biggest risk categories were Investment Portfolio, ABL and PE, with $21, $13 and $11 billion of exposure.

Russia's energy giant Gazprom has signed a $2.5bn (£1.53bn) deal with Nigeria's state operated NNPC, to invest in a new joint venture. The new firm, to be called Nigaz, is set to build refineries, pipelines and gas power stations in Nigeria.Sergei Novikov, a spokesman for Rosatom, Russia's state-run civil nuclear energy agency, said the Nigaz deal would lay the foundations for building nuclear power reactors in Nigeria.

And so reality, and realty, starts to catch up (with commercial real estate at least, if not with the market). Bloomberg reports that Sperry Van Ness and Guardian Real Estate Services LLC will conduct auctions on various commercial real estate properties in California, Idaho and other western states.

Spreads were mixed in the US with IG tighter, HVOL improving, ExHVOL weaker, XO stronger, and HY selling off (but notably changes in credit markets were significantly less positive than in equities). Indices typically underperformed single-names with skews widening in general as IG's skew decompressed as the index beat intrinsics, HVOL outperformed but widened the skew, ExHVOL intrinsics beat and narrowed the skew, XO underperformed but compressed the skew, and HY's skew widened as it underperformed.

Look at the chart below and memorize it well. The fate of countless other high beta, uber-garbage stocks that are lately flying like crazy, schizophrenic Hindenburgs will soon follow in the same pattern. In this particular case: Lear - the nth autosupplier which according to the WSJ is about to file for bankruptcy. The drop from $2.50 to $0.50 in two weeks should be considered all too carefully by all who listen to Cramer and the "buy stocks so GE can go up and pay us our salary for one more year at least" brigade.

You didn't think we could beat the original communists at their own game now, did you.

Monetizing proletarians of the world - unite.

People using "negative" proceeds from buying stuff to buy other stuff... Yes, one of those rare days where the money just comes out of nowhere and buys stocks, commodities, f/x and bonds all up at the same time. So here are the results of magical money growing on trees.