German Parliament Speaker Speaks

Siebert on the tape:

• GERMANY'S SEIBERT SAYS MORE WORK IS REQUIRED ON EURO PACKAGE
• GERMANY'S SEIBERT SAYS EU AIMS TO REACH ACCORD IN TWO STAGES
• GERMANY'S SEIBERT SAYS EU AIMS FOR EURO AGREEMENT `NEXT WEEK'
• SEIBERT SAYS `APPROPRIATE' GERMAN LAWMAKER PARTICIPATION NEEDED

And this, because the German parliament is not worthy:

• SEIBERT SAYS MERKEL TO INFORM PARLIAMENT AT `APPROPRIATE TIME'

More promises; more future tense, more uncertainty and more complete chaos.  Should be good for 50 EURUSD pips higher.

 

 

EU Actively Mulls Temporary Bans On Sovereign Ratings

Eric De Groot at Eric De Groot - 4 minutes ago

Rating agencies react to market factors, not the other way around. That's why S&P’s rating change (downgrade) of the US was met not with panic but rather indifference in the US Treasury market. Go ahead and ban sovereign ratings altogether. The decision won’t stop the wolfpack from culling the weak. Headline: UPDATE: EU Actively Mulls Temporary Bans On Sovereign Ratings BRUSSELS (Dow... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

 

 

Set Your Alarm: Germany's Government Spokesman To Make Statement At 7:30 pm Berlin Time, 1:30 pm Eastern

Ok, everyone can go on that Starbucks run: the market will be dead for the next hour when German government spokesman Siebert will make an announcement at 7:30 pm. No need for any UK tabloids to even frontrun the lies this time around. That said, we are concerned that the news won't be spinnable in a favorable fashion.

 

 

Euro Summit Imploding: Merkel Cancels Friday Government Statement On EFSF

Luckily, we never promised readers to have a quota of only one stupid European story per hour or else we would be worse liars than the European bureaucrats who finally discovered the abacus and punch cards, and have realized that, as we noted, the EFSF is DOA. The WSJ reports that Angela Merkel has cancelled a government statement on the European Union summit this weekend, due Friday, at short-notice, a spokesman for her CDU party said Thursday. The reason for the cancellation was probably a lack of agreement on new guidelines for the euro zone's rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, the spokesman said. But no reason has officially been given for the cancellation, he added. The EU confirmed earlier Thursday that it plans to hold the summit this weekend as planned. Earlier Thursday, reports had suggested the summit might be delayed over disagreement between Germany and France on how to leverage the EFSF. One wonders at this point just why the "make or break" summit is even happening? Is the catering bill so high that nobody thought of enacting a shorter than 48 hour cancellation policy? Then again this is Europe, where as Bob Pisani said, "we see thoughts as they happen in real time." Explains why the EURUSD is where it is right about now.

Fed Sells $8.9 Billion in Bills At 23 Bid To Cover

This is a topic we have touched upon in the past so we won't dwell much on it: last Primary Dealer Bid to Cover in Tuesday's 52-Week Bill  Treasury auction: 6.0x ($15.6 billion allocated to $94.7 billion in tendered bids); Bid to Cover in the just completed reverse POMO in which the Fed sold $8.870 in Bills maturing between August 2012 and March 2013 to $204 billion worth of interest? 23x. The Fed is once again four times more efficient than the Treasury at peddling US paper. Surely that is only to appease Brian Sack and not because there is million in free money to be made on the flip.

The EFSF As A Hedge Fund

There are still so many alternatives on the table and each is so confusing it is hard to come up with a decent analysis. In the meantime, here is something to think about. EFSF walks into a meeting with a potential investor. EFSF is looking to raise some additional capacity so needs to borrow some money.The meeting starts off great. The investor is told that EFSF has 780 billion of capital. That is amazing, says the investor, not many people walk through the door with that much capital at launch. The investor is curious as to when the fund will get the funding. For the first time, EFSF looks a bit uncomfortable and has to explain it doesn't really have funding, it just has some guarantees. The investor is a bit confused about this since they would rather have money than guarantees, but decides that if the guarantors are good enough, maybe it's okay. The EFSF instantly replies that the guarantors are great, they are all highly rated. Well, some of them are at least. Well, actually a few are so weak that they won't actually ever provide the guarantees, they just let us include them in the pitchbook so we could have a bigger number. The Investor is getting a little nervous at this time, but still intrigued, so wants to know how much from the good guarantors? They are reasonably happy that the answer is 726 billion. Still very impressive, but at least a little confused why they bother with the 780 billion. Their experience as investors tells them that when someone lies a little, they tend to lie a lot.

Summary Of Ira Sohn's San Francisco Conference Top Stock Picks By Portfolio Manager

For anyone deluding themselves that alpha still exists apart from beta, and can be generated sans "expert networks", we bring you the top stock picks from the Ira Sohn's San Francisco conference hosted last night. We will bring more detail shortly.

RANsquawk US Afternoon Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 20/10/11

Submitted by RANSquawk Video on 10/20/2011 - 11:39 ETC RANSquawk

Northern Ireland Man Thrown In Prison After Attempting To Turn Crap Into Gold

We take advantage of this brief lull in the European panic headline blasting for a comic interlude, presented without comment.

VIC Issues Bank Of America As "Terminal Short" Thesis

Valueinvestorclub.com: the Gotham Capital controlled pseudo-secret portal where hedge fund managers everywhere would sell both their kidneys  to be members of, as pitched ideas tend to move markets on a regular basis, and never to be confused with Whitney Tilson's pale immitation, has just released a new thesis on Bank of America, which is oddly comparable to ideas suggested by Zero Hedge over the years. The thesis summary is rather self-explanatory: "Bank Of America equity is worthless. CFC-related litigation is going from bad to worse, it can lead to violent erosion of shareholders' equity which. Combined with the run on the bank that has slowly begun, the $53 trillion in derivatives, the lack of sustainable competitive advantages and the depleting political influence, I believe this is a terminal short." The rest is rather self-explanatory as well. Now: how many hedge fund managers will use this herd aggregation signal and pile in on the short side?





Visas 4 Sale - Two years late

Posted by: Bruce Krasting

Post date: 10/20/2011 - 09:06

Chuck Schumer has a new plan to help RE. Actually, its my idea from three years ago 

Greek Parliamentary Garage On Fire And Other Dramatic Footage From Today's Athens Riots

Today's deadly protests in Athens, in which one Greek has died, have been the most violent of the year so far. For footage of the Parliament's garage building as well as numerous dramatic photos of the violents riot, which is continuing over night, see attached.

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