Breaking: Greece Threatens To Leave Eurozone, Reintroduce Own Currency 

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/06/2011 11:57 -0400

• GREECE THREATENS TO LEAVE EURO AREA, GERMANY'S DER SPIEGEL SAYS
• FINANCE MINISTER FROM EUROZONE AND EU COMMISSION HOLDINGS CRISIS MEETING TODAY IN LUXEMBOURG
• MEETING AGENDA INCLUDES POSSIBLE NEAR-TERM DEBT RESTRUCTURING FOR GREECE
• EUROGROUP CHAIRMAN JUNCKER "TOTALLY DENIES" MEETING TO BE HELD TODAY TO DISCUSS GREECE
  • And cue panic and furious denials:
    
• French finance ministry official cannot neither confirm or deny Spiegel report of emergency Eurozone meeting
• Austrian Finance Minister spokesman says Eurozone breakup "absolutely unthinkable"
• German government source says theres no plan for Greece to leave the Eurozone

Greece Denies 

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/06/2011 12:31 -0400

From Reuters: Senior Greek government official denies report that Greece raises possibility of leaving Eurozone. So pretty much everyone has denied this, the EUR has crashed, and in a worst case the EUR is one step closer to reverting to its fair value: the DEM? Of course, with a record number of EUR longs, meaning the spec bandwagon in the EURUSD is orders of magnitude greater than the silver trade, the kneejerk response was down, and likely wrong. And yes, if Greece has gotten so far, German banks are certainly now happy to write off their exposure, and convert their EUR-denom Greek exposure to the drachma. The only question is what the impact to the ECB would be. As per Spiegel: "The European Central Bank (ECB) would also feel the effects. The Frankfurt-based institution would be forced to "write down a significant portion of its claims as irrecoverable." In addition to its exposure to the banks, the ECB also owns large amounts of Greek state bonds, which it has purchased in recent months. Officials at the Finance Ministry estimate the total to be worth at least €40 billion ($58 billion). Of course, the ECB can simply print, print, print.

 

 

 

 

 

560 Pip Plunge In EURUSD In Two Days 

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/06/2011 12:44 -0400

For all those lamenting the sad fate of "commodity" guys, we suggest you save your tears for the FX brigade. Levered between 10 and 100 times more, the recent 560 pip move in the EURUSD means that at least one macro fund, who has not hedged FX exposure, has gone under. Oh, and this whole move is nothing but a EUR hit job. There is no chance that Greece will leave the eurozone (at least not for a long time and not voluntarily).

 

 

 

 

The Ben Bernank Doesn’t Know About Currency Movements, He Doesn’t Know About Anything

posted by Admin at Jim Rogers Blog - 2 hours ago

All he said was that he didn’t know much about anything. When he was asked about currency movements I nearly fell off my chair. What does he know about? He doesn’t know about currency movements, he doesn’...

 

 

 

 

As 88% Of SLV Shares Outstanding Trade Yesterday, The "Silver Put Buyer" Generates A 68,294,229,502,717.3% Annualized Return 

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/06/2011 10:33 -0400

Our friends at Lighthouse Investment Management point out something rather amusing: yesterday, yet another day in which the SLV saw far more notional volume than the SPY, the ETF traded 87.5% of its total shares outstanding. In other words, virtually the entire holder base changed hands. And just as amusing: for those who recall our post from April 11 in which we highlighted that an SLV put buyer bought roughly $1 million in SLV $25 July puts, well we have an update: as of today, the same mysterious buyer has now made about a 500% return on his or her investment (with a peak of 700% yesterday, or about 68,294,229,502,717.3% annualized). So fascinated is the market with this development that even Dow Jones has dedicated a column on it: "Market watchers want the anonymous April silver bear in listed options to take a bow. The unknown investor's mid-April $1M bet that iShares Silver Trust (SLV) would hit $25 or lower before mid-July is worth more than $7M after this week's plunge. Not just the drop in price, but huge jump in price volatility, has goosed has enriched this trader's options position. "The investor didn't get this trade right. He or she got it spectacularly right." 

 

 

 

 

Charting America's Transformation To A Part-Time Worker Society (Part 2) And Parting Thoughts On The Household Survey 

Before we finally leave the topic of today's NFP data, we wanted to point out one last thing. While the total payroll number increased by 244K, the household survey indicated a drop of 190K. While this may be simply due to a calendar shift in which the Household survey catches up with the Establishment Survey, we wanted to bring readers' attention to one other fact. Observing the Household data breakdown into full time and part time workers, we see that the drop was actually more pronounced: while the March full time (112.755 MM) and part time (27.087MM) total summed nicely to the total headline number of 139,864, off by just 2K, the April data indicated that the component breakdown highlighted a much more pronounced drop in the headline number than the 190K indicated. Summing up the components adds to 139.572 MM, 102K less than the total 139.674 MM disclosed. In other words, the true drop when summed across components was not 190K, but 290K. And next, for the focus of this post, we look at whether this drop occurred in full time or part time jobs. To our complete lack of surprise, of the 290K drop, 291K was from full time jobs. As for part time jobs, you guessed it, increased by 1,000 in April. As the attached chart shows, since the start of the depression, America has lost 9.1 million full time jobs, offsetting this by a gain of 2.3 million part time jobs. No need to outsource to Asia any more: America now outsources jobs to temp agencies. And so the transition of America into a part-time worker society, first discussed in December of 2010 continues.

As People Not In Labor Force Hit New Record, Those Who "Want A Job Now" Jump By 232,000 In One Month 

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/06/2011 09:21 -0400

Another observation from today's BLS data: while the labor participation rate may have remained flat, the total number of persons not in the labor force as an absolute number just hit a new all time record of 86.248 million, higher than the previous record hit in February of 86.216 million. And just as relevantly, the total number of "people who want a job now" jumped by 232,000 from March to April to 6.482 million, just short of the previous record of 6.643 million. Can someone please redirect all these people to the minimum wage, part time jobs that just opened up at US fast food retailers please?