Which Way Wednesday – So Long Summers!
by Phil - September 22nd, 2010 8:06 am
Larry Summers is out!
Hopefully this portends a shake-up of the Administration’s economic policy but that will very much depend on who is appointed to replace him. It is, once again, the economy stupid and Larry’s stint as Director of the National Economics Council has given us far too much of the same at a time where we really needed — change. As Barry Rhitholtz points out:
He was one of the chief architects of the crisis. In addition to believing all of the usual foolishness about efficient markets, he bought into the radical deregulation arguments pushed by the free market absolutists.
Summers was Treasury Secretary when Glass Steagall was repealed. Instead of speaking out against the irresponsible Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999), he actively supported it. Instead of explaining to the public how Glass Steagall prevented Wall Street crises from spilling over into Main Street for 65 years, he rolled over for Citibank. The repeal of Glass Steagall was not a cause of the crisis, but it allowed the net damage to be far, far worse than it would have otherwise been. And it was emblematic of the corporate takeover of the legislative process. For a fee (campaign donation) you could write your own regulations. How could that ever go wrong?
Even more ruinously, Summers oversaw the passage of Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000 that exempted financial derivatives from all regulatory oversight. The CFMA made the AIG collapse not only possible, but likely. It helped to set up both Lehman and Bear Stearns. CFMA allowed AIG FP to write over $3 trillion in derivatives, reserving precisely zero dollars in case an underwritten derivative needed to be paid.
Conservatives should not be celebrating the departure of Larry Summers, he was a guy who "played ball" with Big Business and it is very likely that his replacement will have a less friendly stance towards our Corporate Citizens, who made 60% of the income in this country in 2009 but paid just 6% of the taxes ($138Bn).
Larry has to get out of town before the Administration goes after his meal-ticket and begins asking Big Business to pay their fair share, an issue that is very likely to shape the next election cycle. The chart on the left is a measure of taxes paid in relation to GDP and you’ll notice that corporations…
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Freddie/Fannie Friday – Fat Forclosure Folios Forcasts Further Falls
by Phil - September 17th, 2010 7:56 am
![[FANREO]](http://sg.wsj.net/public/resources/images/MI-BF965_FANREO_NS_20100916200301.gif)
Our zombie GSE’s have now become the Nation’s biggest home sellers.
This could not come at a worse time as winter is always a poor time to sell homes, rates seem to have bottomed and there is no new stimulus (or new jobs, or immigration, or population growth) to spur demand. Yet, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae now own more than 191,000 homes (as of June 30th), which is double where they were last year and they are still taking back homes faster than they can sell them as we move into the peak (we hope!) of the foreclosure cycle.
Once they take homes back, Fannie and Freddie must not only cover the utility bills and property taxes, but they are also relying on thousands of real-estate agents and contractors to rehabilitate homes, mow lawns and clean pools. Fannie took a $13 billion charge during the second quarter just on carrying costs for its properties.
If demand remains weak, Fannie and Freddie could face pressure to take more aggressive steps to hold homes off the market. Fannie, for example, is testing an effort in Chicago where it will rent vacant foreclosures rather than list them for sale. Such a "lease-and-hold" approach could make sense in certain markets where "you believe the supply will take a long time to absorb, but there’s going to be an increase in employment going forward," says Douglas Duncan, chief economist at Fannie Mae.
In yesterday’s post, we discussed the death of the housing market and that brought about a discussion in Member Chat about my February article where I pointed out that the math of home ownership no longer works for many Americans (I also showed 3 different ways you can shave $100,000 in payments off a $200,000 home loan so I do suggest reading it if you haven’t already). Mark McHugh of The Daily Bail has a nice update today where he does the math and contends that "a look behind the numbers shows home ownership to be a poor investment." Barry Rhitholtz found a chart from Reality Bubble Monitor that matches with my contention yesterday (that the US has likely bottomed) but points out that our "boom" economies in Australia and Canada (and China is about the same) have bubbles that are still likely to pop:
As I said yesterday, home prices are all about affordability of mortgages and, should we get into a rising rate environment, we could…
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Currency Intervention Madness; Japan Intervenes to Weaken the Yen; Selected Quotes
by ilene - September 15th, 2010 4:45 pm
Currency Intervention Madness; Japan Intervenes to Weaken the Yen; Selected Quotes
Courtesy of Mish
After months of attempting to talk the Yen down, Japan Intervenes First Time Since ’04 to Rein in Yen.
Japan intervened in the foreign-exchange market for the first time since 2004 after a surge in the yen to the strongest against the dollar in 15 years threatened to stunt the nation’s economic recovery.
Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda confirmed the intervention, speaking to reporters today in Tokyo. He said Japan contacted other nations about the step, without specifying that today’s measure was taken unilaterally. Chief Cabinet SecretaryYoshito Sengoku said the ministry considers 82 per dollar to be the line of defense, after it reached a high of 82.88 earlier today.
Japan hadn’t intervened to sell yen in the foreign-exchange market since 2004, when the yen was around 109 per dollar. The Bank of Japan, acting on behest of the Ministry of Finance, sold 14.8 trillion yen in the first three months of 2004, after record sales of 20.4 trillion yen in 2003. Noda didn’t say how much was used in today’s action, while that figure will be released at a later date.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner declined to comment about the prospects for currency intervention in an interview last week, instead saying that Japanese officials should do what they can to help their economy grow.
Recent Japanese data have pointed to the expansion losing momentum. The government yesterday revised its July industrial output figures to show that output fell rather than increased from a month earlier. Japan’s economy expanded at a 1.5 percent annual rate in the second quarter, less than half the pace of the previous period, and consumer confidence slid to a four-month low in August.
Is Currency Manipulation OK or Not?
Both China and Japan are intervening in the Forex markets for the same reason, to strengthen exports and stimulate the economy.
Pardon me for asking the obvious question but it needs to be asked: Why does Geithner give the green light for Japan to intervene in the currency markets but China is threatened with a currency manipulator label for doing the same thing?
Boosting the Dollar
Please consider a few select quotes from the New York Times article Japan Moves to Boost the Dollar
JOHN VAIL, CHIEF GLOBAL STRATEGIST, NIKKO ASSET MANAGEMENT
"Clearly the U.S. is
…
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Yentervention Wednesday – Kan Baffles Bulls
by Phil - September 15th, 2010 8:22 am
As we discussed yesterday, it was meet the new boss, same as the old boss in Japan as Naoto Kan’s re-election sent the Yen to new highs as he was considered the least likely candidate to back intervention. Well surprise, surprise this morning as Japan officially intervened in the FOREX markets and sent the Yen down a full 2.5% as they used their Yen to purchase an undisclosed basket of currencies.
Since the Dollar is up today against both the Pound ($1.55) and the Euro ($1.29), we can assume the dollar is one of those currencies and demand for Dollars means upward pressure on rates so that should be the end of the TLT bounce for the moment. Stock boys want bonds to die so the money can come this way and bond boys want you to fear the stock market so you will let them hold your money (and charge you fees) at ridiculously low rates of interest. That’s they Yin and Yang of the markets.
“Investors were starting to doubt the government’s commitment to its pledge that it would take bold action,” said Yoshimasa Maruyama, a senior economist at Itochu Corp. in Tokyo. Kan and Noda in recent weeks repeatedly said that Japan was ready to take “bold” measures to stem the currency. The Japanese government official said European and U.S. officials were informed of the move in an effort to avoid a negative reaction. It took a while to convince Europe because authorities there didn’t like the idea, the person said.
We’ll see if the stronger Dollar today puts pressure on commodities but we’re in pretty good shape as this rally, for a change, has not been led by commodities as the market is now flat to the August despite an 8% drop in oil prices (see USO on chart):
I often complain about rallies that are led by Financials and Commodities as those are things that suck money OUT of the economy and are not long-term drivers of growth. The entire 2006-7 rally was this kind of rally and I bitched about it all the way up. We also had housing back then, another type of commodity, but that’s so dead now it’s hardly worth mentioning, is it? Actually housing is where we used a lot of commodities like lumber and copper etc. 33 months after the onset of the Great Recession, new home sales are still down 70% and non-residential construction is down 36% – that market is dead, dead, dead.
We get housing starts next week but who really cares? …
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Testy Tuesday – Kan Keeps His Job, Yen Makes New Highs
by Phil - September 14th, 2010 8:12 am
Japan has the same Prime Minister!
That is big news after having 5 different ones the past 4 years. With the last PM lasting just 9 months, word was Kan was going to challenge the record for shortest term after being forced into this election just 3 months after being elected the first time. When we talked about this yesterday, the race was considered "too close to call" but the incumbent Mr. Kan ended up winning 60% of the vote – kind of makes you wonder how far off our own pollsters are with their early election calls…
Now the stage is set for the Oct 4th meeting of the BOJ, where action must be taken to get the Yen under control. Ozawa was clearly better for the Dollar, as he favored strong intervention to bring the Yen down including a program of both QE and stimulus and they Yen blasted to 15-year highs on the result of this election, now at just 83 Yen to the Dollar, down from 120 in 2007 (30%) with a 15% move up since May. This is TERRIBLE for Japanese exporters, who get paid relatively less for everything they sell but it’s good news for commodity pushers, who get paid in devalued Dollars.
To what extent is Japan’s deflation simply a function of their currency appreciating an average of 10% a year? If their deflation rate is 2% then doesn’t that mean it’s really an 8% INflation rate masked by a too-strong currency? Perhaps that’s why the people of Japan, who get paid in Yen and shop with Yen, strongly preferred Kan, who was only really opposed, in the end, by Parliament, where he won 206 to 200 – the Japanese version of the US Senate. This means that, like Obama, it will be very difficult for Kan to get anything done despite his popular support and, also like our own Senate: "Having witnessed the shaky ground he stands on, opposition parties are licking their chops to begin their attacks on Mr. Kan," said Koichi Nakano of Sophia University.
Doesn’t it make you feel good to know that, despite our cultural differences, politicians around the World are all the same – just a bunch of power-hungry, vindictive bastards who put their own interests ahead of the people who they are supposed to represent? Like Obama, Kan still faces difficulties navigating what the Japanese call a "twisted parliament," where the DPJ has a minority in…
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Monday Morning – Basel Boosts Bourses
by Phil - September 13th, 2010 8:03 am
Nice pop in the futures this morning!
The big news, which we already discussed in the "Weekend Reading" post, is the historic remake of the World’s banking regulations, which was finalized in Basel, Switzerland by the G20 Finance Ministers over the weekend. You can click over there for the details, as well as discussions on gold, college costs and the jobs market – so I won’t get into all that here. Suffice to say, the rules are good and, like FinReg, they will take a long time to go into effect and the markets are relieved that the uncertainty is over (well, that particular uncertainty, at least).
Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank and Chairman of the Group of Governors and Heads of Supervision, said that "the agreements reached today are a fundamental strengthening of global capital standards." He added that "their contribution to long term financial stability and growth will be substantial. The transition arrangements will enable banks to meet the new standards while supporting the economic recovery." Nout Wellink, Chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and President of the Netherlands Bank, added that "the combination of a much stronger definition of capital, higher minimum requirements and the introduction of new capital buffers will ensure that banks are better able to withstand periods of economic and financial stress, therefore supporting economic growth."
All seems right with the World this morning as Oil touches our $77.50 goal in pre market trading and Gold stays below the $1,250 mark (no panics). Copper is in the upper end of our expected $3.40-$3.50 range and is likely to break over -even our poor Natural Gas is catching bids at the $3.80 mark, now $3.85 and TLT continues to fall (TBT continues to climb – see Dave’s chart) . This is all despite a strong dollar That held the 50 dma all last week – another week over the line and we begin to bend it up to match the rising 200 dma and then the fun can begin. Fortunately, we have had less of a run in the commodity sectors this time so, hopefully, the rising dollar won’t be the market-killer it usually is but we will be watching out for that.
Another chart we’ll be watching is the VIX, the volatility index, which is known as a "fear" indicator for the markets, hasn’t been below 20 since April and,…
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Tuesday – Uncle Rupert Throws A Tantrum
by Phil - September 7th, 2010 7:28 am
Happy Tuesday to you!
Nice market take-down by the Journal this morning, who led off with an article questioning the EU stress tests saying: "From this point of view, it is not surprising that the doubts raised about the validity of the stress tests are weighing on the Euro and also on other risk-correlated currencies." Then, to make sure no one misses the article, they run another headline for the US markets that says "Concerns Over EU Banks Hit Euro" in which they quote themselves:
New concerns about the ability of European banks to weather the financial crisis came after the WSJ story highlighted once again the weaknesses of the stress tests. The report helped to widen the bond spreads on peripheral debtors and knocked European stock markets lower as another wave of euro zone jitters hit the market.
If this seems like BS manipulation to you, you will be doubly insulted to know that the US isn’t even the target of the manipulation. Mr. Murdoch, an Aussie and long-time foe of the Euro, is simply expressing his displeasure in a Labor Party victory in the Australian elections this weekend (real Democracy’s hold elections on weekends to encourage voting) and is knocking down their dollar by simultaneously boosting both the dollar and the Yen (also in the article is news that the BOJ will not intervene in the Yen, which is total BS) to push down his native currency and make a post-election statement. Just a media giant throwing a temper tantrum this morning.
![[EUSTRESS]](http://sg.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-AX101A_EUSTR_NS_20100906180015.gif)
Think about the "nature" of this story. There is nothing NEW in this NEWs, is there? It’s the kind of article that could be written any time someone wants to push the markets. Even the data they are using is from back on 3/31 – they didn’t even bother to update their facts for Q2! Notice that the article is pure worst-case speculation by the WSJ, followed by comments like:
- An FSA spokeswoman declined to comment.
- CEBS didn’t disclose that the banks were calculating the figures in that way.
Wow, pretty damning evidence that they couldn’t get a comment contrary to their BS on a holiday weekend, right? This news is also conveniently drowning out Obama’s proposed 6-year Public Works Program to combat unemployment by committing $50Bn for needed reparis on roads, rails and airport runways – putting some of our nation’s unemployed construction workers back to…
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POMO Thursday – Bernanke Serves Up Another Round
by Phil - August 19th, 2010 8:29 am
Today we get another round of Permanent Open Market Operations.
POMOs are the Fed’s way of creating additional bank reserves to finance asset purchases and loans for it’s Primary Dealers (the Gang of 12 or, as David Fry calls them, Da Boyz). GS and Co. then turn around and use this money to fuel their bots to buy equities and we believe we saw a little test run of those programs a couple of times this week as we had very irrational, sharp rallies for no particular reason and I had commented to Members, during chat, that it looked like some Bot testing.
Note that in David’s picture, Bernanke is still playing the role of the generous bartender he played in the hit video "Hayek vs. Keynes – An Economic Smackdown." Note this all ends badly for Keynes but WHAT A PARTY!
We made 3 aggressive upside spreads looking for a big finish for the week in yesterday morning’s Alert to Members on SSO, QLD and DDM. Fortunately our timing was good as my call to look for a run once we got past the 10:30 oil inventory report was on the money but then we were very disappointed by the size of the sell-off in the afternoon – even though we were short at that point (we can root for the bulls while betting against them). It’s all about jobs this morning and we need to see less the 450,000 pink slips handed out in the past week to get a little more aggressive.
My prediction in the morning was: "We should get our bottoms with the crude inventories at 10:30 so no hurry on bullish plays, most likely. Selling XOM $60 puts for $1 or more (now .47) on a dip today is a nice play into expirations as you can always roll them along." The XOM puts topped out at .63, so no luck there, but the action (see Davids chart) was right on the money for us:
We took a long play on USO at the bottom that did well (and we took money and ran) and we flipped back to bearish at 1:41 with put plays on IWM and DIA that did nicely into the close. As I had said in the morning post – blissful agnosticism!
8:30 Update: 500,000 jobs lost last week! Ouch!!! Looks like we should have held onto those puts because this is going…
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Fearful Thursday – Manic Over, Depression Sets In
by Phil - August 12th, 2010 8:59 am
The markets are clearly insane.
I diagnosed manic depression in the markets years ago but it’s been getting worse and worse to the point where we now have mood swings from week to week and sometimes even day to day. Much of this is politically driven with the Conservatives currenly in overdrive – looking to "prove" that every single thing the Democratically-controlled Government does is nothing short of a disaster. Nothing works, nothing will work and nothing proposed will work other than more tax cuts and "throwing the bums out" (the Democratic bums, not the Republican bums).
There is a 24-hour television network that is slightly conservative and, if you look on the Fox web site, you will find out that 8% of the children in the US are born to "illegals," that cutting the World’s largest defense budget will make U.S. less safe (YOU DECIDE – they say), Democrats IGNORE ethics cloud by attending Charlie Rangle’s 80th birthday party, Democrats are using the Tea Party against the GOP (but don’t worry because "the tide is turning at the polls"), the drilling ban is crippling the Gulf, we’re "wasting" Billions of dollars by sending aid to other countries and, best of all, the page is sponsored by BipolarDepression.com!
Heck, after reading that page I’m ready for a few Xanex myself!
The front page of the WSJ is not much better with the headline: "ECB Warns on Economic Recovery" along with their very accurate Page 1 print headline: "Markets Swoon on Fears." Of course, if you actually read the ECB article, you’ll find what they actually said is "The sustainability of the recovery in global and euro-area trade will depend critically not only on a further strengthening of private demand, but also on the robustness and health of the global financial system" IN THE CONTEXT of an article analyzing the collapse of global trade in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. But that doesn’t make a great headline does it? That doesn’t make you pick up the paper or stay tuned through the commercial so it’s ALTERED, spun to maximize the FEAR reaction in the readers – the one that is most likely to lead to a purchase decision.
The European Union’s Eurostat statistics office, meanwhile, said industrial output dropped 0.1% from May and was 8.2% stronger than last June. Economists…
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Which Way Wednesday – Beige Book Boost or Bust?
by Phil - July 28th, 2010 8:29 am
Our last Beige Book was June 9th and we liked that one. My comment to Members at that time was:
Wow, this is good stuff! Ben was not BS’ing - It’s a slow, tedious recovery but a recovery nonetheless! On the whole, a pretty good report! Not enough to support $75 oil but a nice, not too inflationary recovery is in the works. It’s no quick fix though, as it will take 2 good Qs before corporations will be willing to add staff so I bet not much until next spring unless the government steps in (and they’d better).
At the time, the S&P was at 1,055 and we flew up to 1,120 on June 21st before the next market flip-flop, which we have just flip-flopped back from and yesterday we tested 1,120 again and here we are, back at the Beige Book. So now, the market is about where it should have been based on the last BBook (and no government help so far). I thought yesterday was too early to pop through ahead of the data and it turns out it was. If anything, I’m a lot more worried that a deteriorating report tanks the markets this afternoon (2pm release).
We’ll get a clue this morning as we see Durable Goods at 8:30 and those are expected to be up 1% from down 0.6% in May. Oil Inventories are reported at 10:30 and don’t expect demand to be picking up and no one has even mentioned what a disaster this is during summer driving season (speculators are circling their tankers one more time as they pray for hurricanes to make their long bets pay off). If we do survive the BBook this afternoon, we have a 10% upgrade to Q2 GDP to look forward to tomorrow morning (to 3% from 2.7%) along with Chicago PMI at 9:45.
We know that Leading Economic Indicators turned down 0.2% since the last BBook, the Philly Fed has dropped from 21 in May to 8 in June to 5.1 in July, Construction Spending fell 0.2% with Commercial far worse than Residential, ISM fell almost 6% with a 10% drop in orders leading the downturn and a very deflationary prices paid, Factory Orders in general were off 1.4% (which does not bode well for today’s Durable Goods), Auto Sales slumped 5%, Non-Farm Payrolls contined to decline, Consumer Credit continued…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
(