Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: The Kabuki theater of America's debt ceiling

 

Shorts losing control of gold, silver futures markets, Turk tells King

 

 

ISDA, Which Refuses To Declare Greece In Default, Has Given The US A 3 Day Grace Period Before A CDS Trigger

ISDA is rapidly deteriorating to rating agency status when it comes to credibility. After it made it all too clear in the past few weeks that no matter what happens it would never "determine" Greece (or any other European insolvent country) to have breached a CDS trigger (as that would apparently destroy the world), the same trade association (logically enough comprised of the same firms that make up the heart of the status quo) has joined the rating agencies, and as of last night the CME, in making it all too clear that a debt ceiling plan (preferably Reid's because it achieves absolutely nothing) has to pass, or else, after it earlier announced that the US has precisely 3 days to cure any missed debt payment before US CDS are triggered. Obviously this can not be allowed to happen, so expect this latest development to be used by the president in his nighlty scaremongering session.

 

 

 

Debt Ceiling: I Don’t Expect Them To Have Real Spending Cuts

Admin at Jim Rogers Blog - 2 hours ago

I don’t expect them to have real spending cuts. They have been talking about this for 40 years, talking about how they are going to solve the problem of the deficit. Remember the Grace Commission? Remember the Gramm-Rudman act? The Gramm-Rudman act said we couldn’t have deficit spending 25 years ago. They forgot about that. - *in the WSJ* *Jim Rogers is an author, financial commentator and successful international investor. He has been frequently featured in Time, The New York Times, Barron’s, Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and is a regular guest on Bl...

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Summarizing Boehner's Latest TV Appearance

Less than an hour ago, Boehner had another TV appearance discussing his proposed plan. Judging by the networks' reaction even the general population is getting exhausted with this neverending soap. So here, courtesy of Bloomberg All, are the summary points he touched on. Nothing notable except for his assumption that the plan has a chance of passing both the House and the Senate, and that the house may vote on his plan as soon as Wednesday.

Market Takes Out Overnight Lows On Weak Richmond Fed, New Home Sales Decline, But Confidence Up... On Hopium

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/26/2011 - 10:10 New Home Sales Richmond Fed
Another set of ugly economic data to add to the earlier Case Shiller miss: the Richmond Fed officially contracted despite expectations of a rise from 3 to 5, dropping to -1. This means that the recent rebound from negative to positive and back to negative is indicative there is something far more broken with the economy than just a transitory soft patch. New home sales also deteriorated dropping from 315K to 312K, on expectations of a rebound to 320K. The median sales price was $235,200, and the average $269,000, on 6.3 months of supply. As Joseph Brusuelas of Bloomberg said, "Nothing in data suggests any turnaround." Yet the irony is that the end consumer: the entity that is getting pounded daily by this administration and the oligarchy, just became more confident, with the number beating consensus of 56 and printing at 59.5... on Hopium! Yes, the current conditions declined from 36.6 to 35.7, but at least American have managed to revert to their standard optimistic outlook, and the six month outlook surged from 71.6 to 75.4. Hilarious. Nonetheless unlike before when this goalseeked data point would have been enough to set off a massive buying spree by the HFT algos, today it is insufficient, and following the relentless barrage of bad economic data ES just took out overnight lows.

Guest Post: Are We Headed For A Second Recession?

Is a second recession in so short of a time in the offing? It certainly seems that way. The hope for a continued recovery has grown dim as of late as many of the economic indexes are moving towards contractionary territory.  As we posted recently in "EOC Index Shows Economic Weakness" there are several concerns pressing the US economy and, in the words of David Rosenberg, chief economist at Gluskin Sheff, “one small shock” could send us into a second recession.  With the recent release of the Chicago Fed National Activity Index our proprietary economic index is just one small step away from crossing the 35 mark which has always been a pre-cursor to recession. We have discussed many times recently that with the unemployment rate remaining high, housing prices slipping into a secondary decline, consumer and business spending slowing, while gas and food prices remain high eating up more than 20% of consumers wages and salaries.  Add on top of these factors the likelihood of a Greek debt default, a slowdown in the Eurozone, a weaker dollar and Washington locked in debate over the debt ceiling - well, the list of risks far outweigh the positives.  However, that doesn't seem to deter Wall Street economists and main stream media which seem to all be wearing an extremely thick pair of rose colored glasses these days.   However, it doesn't take an economist to figure out that any one of these factors could send us tumbling into a second recession.

SAC Up 9.2% YTD, Paulson Heart Boehner, And Other Hedge Fund Observations

For those who live and breathe solely to know how Stevie Cohen has performed at any given moment, we have an update. According to Bloomberg's Hedge Funds brief, SAC Capital told investors last week that his main hedge fund is up 9.2% year to date. It is unclear if he provided any further insight into the firm's troubled relationship with various regulators and law enforcement officials. Some other fund update from Bloomberg. Balestra Capital Partners LP was negative 2.37 percent last month and has lost 7.63 percent year-to-date, according to its monthly results and commentary sent to investors. Brencourt Advisors LLC’s $260 million Brencourt Multi-Strategy Fund lost 90 basis points to drop year-to-date returns to 2.84 percent, according to an email update sent to investors. The merger arbitrage fund gained 22 basis points last month and has returned 2.17 percent through June 30. The Brencourt Credit Opportunities Fund lost 0.95 percent and has returned 3.39 percent in 2011. Broadfin Capital LLC’s Broadfin Healthcare Fund LP returned nearly 9 percent in the second quarter, according to its quarterly letter to investors, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg. Long positions in Alkermes Inc. and Hi-Tech Pharmacal Co. Inc. “were the largest drivers of the fund’s performance,” the letter said. The New York-based fund is managed by Kevin Kotler. Summarizing returns by strategy for 2010 and 2011 (table below) shows quite vividly that what worked back in 2010 is no longer in vogue, although the main exception - the best strategy for both years - continues to be Mortgage-Backed arbitrage. Although most curious for some may be that none other than John Paulson is now officially the biggest fan of John Boehner. Read on.

Mapping America's Underfunded State Pension And Healthcare Liability Debacle

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/26/2011 - 12:02 CDS Illinois The map below, which shows the gravity of America's pervasive pension and healthcare liability underfunding problem, should certainly raise a few eyebrows. Sourced from the IMF's Article IV presentation which in turn sources the data from the Pew Center, the map shows that even despite the near doubling in the S&P since the March 2009 lows, there are still at least 9 states that have a minimum 35% underfunding in their pension and liability obligations. As a result, we expect that just like in the case of Illinois recently, many more states will be forced to issue debt to fund various entitlement plans on a "paycheck to paycheck basis." It also means that ever more states will begin scrambling after high beta, low quality, and very high risk stocks (in many cases selling CDS), in order to refill their coffers. We can only hope that the biggest dip buyer of NFLX stock today is not the Louisiana Retirement Fund system (for example), but we have a feeling we would be quite wrong.

The Triple Digits Welcome Back Crude: WTI Back Over $100 Once Again

So much for the IEA's intervention. Crude is once again comfortably over $100, and by the looks of things will be heading far higher before long. Yet the climb back to triple digits was not easy. Note the numerous plunges in CL where crude prices would tumble for no other reason than having way too many trigger-fingered headline scanning algos trading each and every commodity, and massively overreacting to the smallest piece of good or bad news. Elsewhere, we expect rumblings about gas at the pump, which is now set to resume its climb to $4.00/gallon to once again return, as economic models have to be adjusted even lower as that great whooshing sound is America's marginal discretionary purchasing capacity entering millions of gas tanks side by side with the unleaded.

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