Merrill

• Fears Mount That Portugal Will Need a Second Bailout (WSJ)
• EU to Have No Deadline for End of Greek Talks (Bloomberg)
• Japan economy predicted to shrink in 2011 (AFP)
• Japan’s Fiscal Pressure Intensifies as Tax-Boost Plan Insufficent: Economy (Bloomberg)
• Berlin ready to see stronger ‘firewall’ (FT)
• Obama Speech to Embrace U.S. Manufacturing Rebirth, Energy for Job Growth (Bloomberg)
• EU Hits Iran With Oil Ban, Bank Asset Freeze in Bid to Halt Nuclear Plan (Bloomberg)
• China's Oil Imports from Iran Jump (WSJ)
• Croatians vote Yes to join EU (FT)
• Japan’s $130 Billion Fund Unused in Biggest M&A Year in More Than Decade (Bloomberg)
• Buffett Blames Congress for Romney’s 15% Rate (Bloomberg)

Instead of opting for a publicly transparent BWIC in the disposition of its Maiden Lane II assets, the Fed has once again gone opaque - long a critique of the Fed's practices which have required repeated FOIAs in the past to get some clarity on its secret bailouts and transactions - and proceeded with a private sale, without any clarity on the deal terms, in which it sold $7 billion in face amount of Maiden Lane II assets direct to Credit Suisse. The alternative of course would be the same snarling of the MBS and broadly fixed income market that we saw in June of last year. In other words, the Fed looked at the options: transparency and risk of grinding credit demand to a halt, or doing what it does best, which is to transact in the shadows, and avoid capital markets risk. It opted for the latter. As to why the Fed decided to go ahead with a deal shrouded in secrecy? "The New York Fed decided to move forward with the transaction only after determining that the winning bid represented good value for the public." "I am pleased with the strength of the bids and the level of market interest in these assets," said William C. Dudley, President of the New York Fed. Because if there is one thing Bill Dudley and the Fed knows is gauging what is in the best interest of the public... and the callorie content of the iPad of course.

One independent investor from Geneva has foregone the US court system and filed his own criminal complaint against the bank and the collateral manager they hand picked...

While part of Merrill Lynch, David Rosenberg was always an outlier, in that he never sugarcoated reality, and could always be relied upon to expose the dirt in the macro and micro picture, no matter how granular or nuanced, and how much it conflicted with other propaganda research to come from the bailed out broker. Then three years ago he moved to Canadian investment firm Gluskin Sheff, transitioning from the sell side to the buy side, yet for all intents and purposes his daily letters, so very appreciated by many, never ceased, in essence making him a buysider with an asterisk - one who daily shares his latest vision with the broader public, in addition to his personal investment team. In one of his last letters of the year, Rosie presents a detailed breakdown of all the key differences between the sell and buyside, at least from his perspective, and also how, now that he manages other people's money, he is investing in the future. To wit: "In my former role as chief economist at Merrill Lynch, I flew all over the world and saw all the legendary portfolio managers from Paul Tudor Jones to Jeremy Grantham to John Paulson to Bill Gross — at least three or four times a year. Now the only PM's I speak to are our PM's. Not that they "have to" agree with all of my calls, but I am here as their economic concierge 24/7. The same holds true for our clients. In my previous life on the "sell side", it was very rare for me to sit down one-on-one with private clients. Today, that takes up a good part of my day — helping our client base make investment decisions that will build their wealth in a prudent manner over time." As for what he likes (and dislikes) we will leave it up to the reader to find out, but will note that Rosie appears to take issue with being labelled a permabear. And why not: he has been far more right than not since the December 2007 start of the Second Great Depression.

#444444; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">The #444444; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">possibility of a Euro breakup#444444; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"> is looming larger than ever#444444; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">.  #444444; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"> Forecast by ING sees an immediate fall in individual currencies in 2012, and #444444; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">GDP output falls ranging from 7% in Germany to 13% in Greece.

As we head into the artificial investing horizon of year-end, sell-side research is compelled to offer its best-guess at what will be key for the year ahead. We certainly head into 2012 with considerable potential downside risks - US recession?, breakup of the Euro?, hard-landing in China? - and BofA Merrill Lynch's RIC Report bears these in mind as it suggests investors position for these ten key macro themes (some positive, some negative) from slower global growth to a weakening US consumer and QE in US and Europe. Starting from a neutral equities, long gold, long US corporate bonds, they favor growth, quality, and yield in one of the more complete summaries of expectations we have read.

While consensus forecasts for next year continuing to be muddle-through mediocrity with a crashtastic defensive bias, BofA Merrill Lynch provides a very succinct outline of the bullish, bearish, and interestingly secular cases for risk assets going forward. The cross-asset class implications are noteworthy and provide an excellent jumping off point for asset allocation decisions. We are not sure the seeming knife-catching perspective of "buying humiliation and selling hubris" will work out, but one thing is for sure, with this volatility, relative-value remains the critical alpha as beta chops everyone up. Once again the bull case relies heavily on government printing presses and the bear case on the reality of debt saturation breaking through.

We have time and again pointed to the warning signals being sent from credit markets, FX volatility skews, and equity option volatility technicals (skews and implied correlation) but while the mainstream media is behooven to watching every tick in the 'fear index', the 'simple' VIX has consistently underpriced risk in the face of danger. Furthermore, this implicit optimism, leaves equity options among the cheapest macro hedges across asset classes currently (especially relative to FX, Rates, and Credit). FX options offer the next cheapest hedge with credit already notably stressed. BAML's research group finds Nikkei (Japan), Nifty (India), and ASX200 (AUS) puts attractive as global macro (crash beta) hedges with Copper, IG, and HY credit the least attractive at current levels. So the next time you hear the VIX is up or down or sideways, treat it with the contemporaneous weighting it deserves (or potentially discount its eternal optimism entirely) and remember that while VIX is frequently cited, the availability bias needs to be suppressed when investing.

Gold and the dollar are Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s top currency trades for 2012. The second-biggest U.S. bank by assets after JPMorgan Chase & Co. said that investors should buy gold versus the euro as the ECB engages in quantitative easing to contain debt turmoil. David Woo, global head of rates and currencies in New York at the Bank of America Corp. unit, told clients in research note that “the ECB will be buying more government debt and doing QE, so buy gold against the euro.” “The second major theme is U.S. fiscal tightening is about to come and the U.S. economy will slow, and this will be very good for the U.S. dollar.” “The general theme for the year ahead is pretty negative for the risk environment,” Woo said.

Psychopaths flew financial weapons of mass destruction (derivatives) into the twin towers of our economy, the housing market and the stock market.  Ten trillion dollars of wealth imploded in a cloud of dust. Ninety-nine percent of the economic experts – financial planners, economists, economic professors, brokers, and investors – missed the largest bubble in history as well as the systemic risk that the bubble posed. The National Board of Economic Research (NBER) (who is responsible for declaring a recession) was 9 months late calling the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Now, Gold is getting interesting...

Not many know that you can trade physical gold & precious metals OTC through your brokerage account, and take physical delivery on demand. This is the first of several interviews that explores this model.

All you need to read.

Our good friend Doug B., a financial advisor based in Boulder, CO, has done well for his clients by keeping them heavily weighted in bonds. In the essay below, he explains why he intends to stick with this strategy even though many of his peers expect a rebounding stock market to outperform fixed-incomes in the years ahead.  For Baby Boomers in particular, the deflationary trend that buttresses Doug’s strategy holds stark implications.

We believe that the issue of primary dealer status – the role of the primary dealers, the significance of foreign firms and their importance in the primary dealer process, versus domestic US firms – needs to be examined. It needs to be aired publically.