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Hot Potato Melee


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Too early to tell, but it appears that the Bagholders are starting toss around lots of Hot Potatos.

 

Who are the Bagholders?

 

- AIG

- MBI

- JPM

- ABK

- C

- BAC

- Numerous Caribbean Banking Centres

 

 

Which Hot Potatos are on fire?

 

- GM debt

- Ford debt

- Any and all debt of auto suppliers

- Calpine debt

 

 

Which Hot Potatos are warming up?

 

- MBNA securitizations

- FNM and FRE paper

- Converts and junk debt

 

 

Which Hot Potatos are dormant, ready to become Nuclear Bombs?

 

- Gold and silver paper short positions

- The Inflation Genie Bottle

 

 

The Hamptons are cranking up. Here's a conversation this weekend between two 27-year olds with "billons under management."

 

HedgeFund No. 1:

 

"Hey man, I shorted and leased some gold bullion out at .001% interest and used the proceeds to write some Credit Default Insurance on GM bonds. I pocketed a return of 7000%.

 

HedgeFund No. 2:

 

"Yeah? Somebody is going to be coming after you wanting a check. Do you have any money to pay if GM files bankruptcy?"

 

HedgeFund No. 1

 

"Sure. I'll put on a 5:1 leveraged pyramid short position on Visteon, Dana, and Delphi stock. Those companies will certainly go to zero if GM defaults, and I'll have a huge windfall profit to make my payout."

 

HedgeFund No. 2

 

"What if Greenspan bails out these failed bonds, starts inflating the money supply again?"

 

HedgeFund No. 1

 

"That will never happen. Greenspan is viligant. Markets are liquid. My computer model says everything will work perfectly."

 

HedgeFund No. 2

 

"Oh really, what if gold gaps up to $500 in Asia one night, after Greenspan monetizes $300 billion in GM debt, and a huge short squeeze commences on the auto suppliers, the day after you short them?"

 

HedgeFund No. 1

 

"My model assigns a .00001% chance of that happening"

 

HedgeFund No. 2

 

"OK, lets go find some Russian Escorts.............."

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Auto cash bond update

 

We unloaded 1/2 of our positions in short F and GM paper the last two days

 

Spreads have gapped in from the wides 150-200bps

 

No sense in pushing it - we will monitor going forward and look to sell strength/buy in the hole

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Despite the rather transparent rescue in the final minutes, the market's inability to rise on good news (Google's blowout numbers yesterday) confirms that something is wrong.

 

Gasoline's horrific 11% rise this week reminds us that Oil Shock III is only getting started. When does the panic buying start? Got a full tank?

 

Wednesday's intraday bounce off Dow 10,000.48 was ludicrously artificial, and the whole day Thursday was one big bad tick.

 

Reality reASSerted itself today. Dow 10K will be tested, I think.

 

Prepare for a BROODING weekend. :ph34r:

 

Seven more trading days till the eighth "Al's Folly" rate hike.

 

Nine months left in Mad Al Leeson's chequered career. Pregnant with possibilities, as it were.

 

 

:ph34r: Death to the Bubble! :ph34r:

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Close: Disappointing earnings reports spurred widespread profit taking following yesterday's huge rally while a lack of follow through buying interest also failed to close the indices in positive territory... A dwindling desire to own stocks over the weekend and late-day headline risk regarding a report that N. Korea may be preparing a nuclear-weapons test, sent stocks falling even further before some last-minute buying efforts minimized what would have been substantial losses across the board...

 

While there weren't nearly as many companies reporting today as there have been all week, the absence of notable economic data placed even more importance on quarterly earnings... Google (GOOG 215.81 +11.59) had an excellent report last night, posting a nearly six-fold increase in Q1 profits on nearly double the revenues generated a year earlier... But of the 8 S&P constituents out with results this morning, only 3 companies (i.e. HAL, IP and RDC) beat expectations compared to 4 companies that missed (i.e. EK, FO, MYG and MWV)...

 

Costco Wholesale (COST 40.17 -3.85) warning that Q3 and Q4 earnings will miss anal cysts' estimates also weakened the possibility of buyers stepping in with enough conviction to sustain yesterday's strong performance... As a result, eight out of ten economic sectors closed lower... Consumer Discretionary (-1.5%) paced the way to the downside, dragged lower amid widespread selling in Retail (-2.0%) - in particular, Costco's forecasted shortcoming... Technology (-1.3%) also plummeted, as losses in excess of 1.0% were witnessed in every sub-sector... Hardware (-2.6%) was pressured a drubbing in shares of Apple Computer (AAPL 35.50 -1.68), which fell in sympathy to weakness in several iPod component makers...

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Bottom for both gold and bonds?-By Mark Hulbert, MarketWatch

 

If we take seriously the contrarian analysis of these two sentiment indexes, what might they be saying about the future?

 

THIS IS THE JELLY PART!!!!

 

The most straightforward interpretation, it seems to me, is that A CRISIS IS IMMINENT in which the viability of the financial markets is called into question -- one in which there is a flight to quality (such as government bonds) as well to hard assets (such as gold).

 

This isn't as far-fetched as it may sound, scary as it otherwise is. It is a scenario to which Richard Russell, editor of the Dow Theory Letters, has been giving serious credence for a number of months. Needless to say, Russell is not part of the bearish consensus that currently prevails in either the gold or bond arenas.

 

http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/earth...2-6A66E0C89E93}

FOR THE WHOLE ARTICLE

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every quarter I'm guessing about 1/4 of the open interest on S&P futures contracts ends up being held long by the Fed, they just settle in cash with created electronic money and nobody is the wiser, it gets reported NOWHERE

 

then they do it all again the next quarter

 

propping up a wall full of cracks holding back a tsunami

 

I say: Mr Greenspan, tear down that wall!

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Gasoline's horrific 11% rise this week reminds us that Oil Shock III is only getting started. When does the panic buying start? Got a full tank?

fellow Americans,

 

we spent $300 Billion on Iraq

 

that's a thousand bucks for each member of your family

 

did you at least get a free T-shirt out of the deal?

 

one per person maybe?

 

"No, but that's OK, we got cheap gasoline...... hey, wait a minute....."

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Fed Does A Permanent, Big Deal Or Not?

 

The Fed did something it hasn't done this year, added permanent liquidity via a TIIS pass. They also did a highly unusual 11 day repo. But the net change on the day ended up in the negative column.

 

Get instant access to real time insights! Only in the WSE Professional!

 

 

 

 

Well is it a big deal or not? :lol:

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Fed Does A Permanent, Big Deal Or Not?

     

The Fed did something it hasn't done this year, added permanent liquidity via a TIIS pass. They also did a highly unusual 11 day repo. But the net change on the day ended up in the negative column.

 

Get instant access to real time insights! Only in the WSE Professional!

 

 

 

 

Well is it a big deal or not?  :lol:

 

Well, they are overall negative, overall withdrawing liquidity. I think they want to save the bonds, so they let the stock market flounder-- although they will attempt to keep it from totally crashing-- so that people willl flee to the "quality" of bonds, thus saving bonds, U. S. debt. You notice people who have been short government bonds recently are needing a lot of vaseline. This after Greenie told them that anyone who is not prepared for higher interest rates "must be desirous of losing money." Always believe Greenie.

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Looks like the more easily manipulated DOW got the most attention of the riggers

 

& the FED's big money nominees whAT can swoop in and scalp a quick $10 to $50 million on a late-in-the-day-Friday trade by squeezing the robots--thereby lining their pockets and carrying out the orders from the FED's 700 story JPM-Bank One derivative tower, as Marky would say...note the Russells' losses...

 

DJIA Index Jun 10224 10070 10188s -38

 

S & P 500 Jun 1161.00 1144.10 1157.20s -4.30

NASDAQ 100 Jun 1444.00 1417.00 1431.50s -17.50

Russell 2000 Jun 599.25 584.50 591.65s -9.10

NASDAQ Composite 1953.77 1921.38 1932.19 -30.22

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