The "up-to-the-minute Market Data" thread

Originally posted by redhatty
G20: Stupid All Around

As I expected....

LONDON (AP) -- G-20 protesters clashed with riot police in downtown London on Wednesday, breaking into the heavily guarded Royal Bank of Scotland and smashing its windows. Earlier, they tried to storm the Bank of England and pelted police with eggs and fruit.

If those acts were committed by people looking for someone to be held to account for criminal fraud I could understand it, even though I am decidedly against violence.

But....

Demonstrators shouted "Abolish Money!" and clogged streets in the area known as "The City" even as Prime Minister Gordon Brown and President Barack Obama held a news conference elsewhere in the British capital.

Abolish money eh? Let me guess - they used what to get on the planes, trains, and cars to get to the protests? Yeah, ok. That makes sense.

Nor are these protesters particularly intelligent, it would appear:

Demonstrators hoisted effigies of the "four horsemen of the apocalypse," representing war, climate chaos, financial crimes and homelessness.

Financial crimes are a part of the cause of homelessness, but trying to link this to "climate chaos" is just plain stupid. Let's not even talk about the war thing, since that's not my beat.... I suspect these protesters wouldn't like my view there either.

This is the problem with such protests and demonstrations, and there is an embedded lesson here for our administration, although I doubt they will learn it at British expense, having to experience it themselves.

Unfortunately when these sorts of things get going they quickly wind up with an "animal spirit" component to them that can turn truly nasty, will not remain focused on the original offense and its remedy, and has the potential to be a spark that sets off the powderkeg.

Fearing they would be targeted by protesters, some bankers swapped their pinstripe suits for casual wear and others stayed home. Bolder financial workers leaned out their office windows Wednesday, taunting demonstrators and waving 10 pound notes at them.

Anyone doing the latter deserves what they get. Taunting demonstrators eh?

Heh, free speech cuts both ways, but when the demonstrators have shown willingness to turn their protest violent and smash windows one might be a bit more circumspect, lest they discover that they have, in addition to rocks and rotten fruit, come prepared with boiled rope and intend to reprise the 1873 banker hangings.

The bank wasn't guarded at all and was the ONLY one to not have it's windows boarded up. The bank was also closed and the staff was at another RBS in London. The only one's there where a security staff.

They where shouting our streets and a bit later LET US OUT The police coralled them in and wouldn't let any of the thousands in or out.

The enviormental people where protesting the "carbon credit and tax system" as not being a viable way to tackle polution etc. Was also one of the few places that was totally peaceful. A few people tried to come in and drum up some trouble after a few hours and where promptly escorted out by police.

And finally the protests where really peaceful and people where dancing and singing etc until... they realised that they had been blocked in and where not being allowed to leave. They started yelling our streets let us leave etc. But didn't do much of anything, a few groups came to the front of the crowd and tried to push through a few times and the police finally let them go on.
It was about an hour after that when the very small group of people started the crap over at RBS. The police where able to catch 12 of them that had been part of it. From the live feed I would say they got all but 3 of them.

reply to post by xoxo stacie


Thanks for the man on the street update Stacie

How ya like this Video of CNBC's Faber Apologizing for NOT running the AIG Money Laundering story earlier

Ticker Guy's take on it

[edit on 4/1/09 by redhatty]

General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson's base salary as chief operating officer was cut 30 percent to about $1.3 million this year when GM accepted government loans.
Ain't that funny.

Dog and ponnies show, as always with Obama.

And the whole Madoff thing may be around 170 BILLIONS about 3 times the initial amount...
Here

[edit on 1-4-2009 by Vitchilo]

Isn't that special...

CNBC is showing Bernie Madeoffs boat being seized while real news is going on in the world...

Being as this is April Fools' Day, fits perfect...what a joke...


Feeder Cattle 93.175 0
Pork Bellies 87 0.45
Lean Hogs 60.20 -0.15
Live Cattle 81.30 -0.40


[edit on 4/1/2009 by Hx3_1963]

WTF??????

G20: Country by country stimulus funds

resorted by amount - all in BILLIONS of DOLLARS

US 787.00
China 586.00
Japan 110.00
Germany 103.30
Mexico 54.00
UK 36.35
Canada 35.00
France 33.00
Russia 20.00
Saudi Arabia 17.30
Argentina 13.20
South Korea 10.80
Australia 10.15
Italy 6.30
Indonesia 4.50
India 4.00
South Africa 3.74
Brazil 3.60
Czech Republic 3.30
Turkey 3.20


And WHERE IS THIS COMING FROM??????????

CNBC right now on Call of the Wild

They are saying that the only two options for some bank is either Nationalization or Rescue.

Am I still asleep? How is there any way that markets are up right now?

Originally posted by redhatty
reply to post by xoxo stacie

 

Thanks for the man on the street update Stacie

How ya like this Video of CNBC's Faber Apologizing for NOT running the AIG Money Laundering story earlier

Ticker Guy's take on it

[edit on 4/1/09 by redhatty]

Will have to watch it in a few. I have got to many live feeds and twitter leads open right now. The riot police are getting in place obviously to get the last several thousands to go home etc.....stinks though because they keep cutting it off and going over to the speakers from the g20.

reply to post by redhatty


I don't think it's more stimulus... it's those already passed. But he's probably asking for 2 trillions more.

reply to post by redhatty


didn't you get the memo? They found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow....a.k.a your wallet.
But seriously they are totally flooding the entire world with so much money that there is just a stupifying amount of it! Whether or not it is hard or electronic it is going to really bring things to a head not to long from now.
I could see it not being a problem if they had something to actually back it up other than the middle class of the world. But so far the only thing they are doing is moving massive amounts of monies over to centeral banks and their lackey's. This in order to pacify them and keep them from tanking our entire monetary system with their bad gambling habbits.
Perhaps it is time someone gave them that 800 number for gamblers annonymous!

Thornburg Mortgage, `Jumbo' Home Lender, to File for Bankruptcy, Liquidate
www.bloomberg.com...

April 1 (Bloomberg) -- Thornburg Mortgage Inc., the “jumbo” residential loan specialist battling a slump in home sales and the collapse of mortgage markets, plans to file for bankruptcy protection and shut down.

The lender’s remaining assets will be sold or liquidated to pay bondholders and creditors, and the firm will then discontinue operations, according to a statement today from the Santa Fe, New Mexico-based company.

Thornburg specialized in mortgages of more than $417,000, typically used to buy more expensive homes. The firm started running short of cash in August 2007 as foreclosures nationwide headed toward new highs and investors became leery of assets backed by home loans. Thornburg lined up new backers including MatlinPatterson Global Advisers LLC, which became the company’s biggest shareholder.

MatlinPatterson returned its stake earlier this year and warned on March 17 that a Thornburg bankruptcy was likely.

Eight investment firms including JPMorgan Chase Funding Inc. and Citigroup Global Markets Limited agreed to delay their demand for payments from Thornburg through April 30, according to the statement. In return Thornburg will allow additional sales of loans held by the counterparties, with proceeds used to reduce the company’s debt.

Thornburg also agreed to transfer its mortgage-servicing rights to the investment firms, the company said. The company has about 150 employees, said Suzanne O’Leary Lopez, a spokeswoman.

“Our dissolution was created by one issue - the inability to support the equity requirements for financing our mortgage securities portfolio, given the continued decline in mortgage- backed securities prices,” she said.

Thornburg hired Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin Capital Inc. to help sell its assets, according to the statement.

The operations of Thornburg Investment Management aren’t affected by the mortgage business, according to the statement. The two firms share a campus, and both are chaired by Garrett Thornburg.

Cemex Unlikely to Get Government Rescue in Debt Refinance, Santander Says
www.bloomberg.com...

April 1 (Bloomberg) -- Cemex SAB, the largest cement maker in the Americas, is unlikely to receive a government “rescue” plan, Banco Santander SA said.

Speculation that the Mexican government would intervene to help Cemex refinance its debt has helped boost the stock price, Santander analyst Gonzalo Fernandez wrote in a note to clients.

The analyst said that while he expects the government to support Cemex in its negotiation with banks because of the “importance” of the company and the “significant amount” of its debt, he doesn’t anticipate a rescue.

Cemex may be able to access “general” government programs such as the central bank’s currency swap facility with the U.S. Federal Reserve, Fernandez wrote.

“We reiterate our view that Cemex’s cost of debt after refinancing its debt maturities would be key to determining the fair value of the stock,” the analyst wrote.

Cemex rose 3.1 percent to 9.2 pesos at 10:08 a.m. New York time in Mexico City trading. The shares have rallied 12 percent over the past month, compared with a 10 percent gain for the Bolsa index.

The American depositary receipts climbed 5.3 percent to $6.58 in New York. They have plunged 75 percent in the past year on concern the company may struggle to refinance short-term loans it used to pay for the $14.2 billion purchase of Rinker Group Ltd. in 2007, and as cement demand drops.

[edit on 4/1/2009 by Hx3_1963]

Yesterday's Treasury Purchase

Permanent OMOs: Agency
Fed purchases $3.223 billion in agency coupons

The current program to purchase direct obligations from housing-related GSEs is intended to reduce the cost and increase the availability of credit for the purchase of homes.

Operation 1 - RESULTS
Operation Date: 03/31/2009

Operation Type: Outright Agency Coupon Purchase

Release Time: 10:30 AM

Close Time: 11:00 AM

Settlement Date: 04/01/2009

Total Par Amt Accepted (mlns) : $3,223

Total Par Amt Submitted (mlns) : $7,400

Inclusions:

Security Description Par Amt Accepted ($)
FNMA 04.375 10/15/15 0
FHLMC 04.750 11/17/15 0
FHLMC 04.750 01/19/16 267,000,000
FNMA 05.000 03/15/16 472,000,000
FHLMC 05.250 04/18/16 337,000,000
FHLB 05.375 05/18/16 317,000,000
FNMA 05.375 07/15/16 39,000,000
FHLMC 05.500 07/18/16 268,000,000
FNMA 05.250 09/15/16 222,000,000
FHLMC 05.125 10/18/16 0
FNMA 04.875 12/15/16 275,000,000
FHLB 04.750 12/16/16 0
FNMA 05.000 02/13/17 129,000,000
FHLMC 05.000 02/16/17 225,000,000
FHLMC 05.000 04/18/17 309,000,000
FNMA 05.000 05/11/17 79,000,000
FHLB 04.875 05/17/17 126,000,000
FHLMC 05.500 08/23/17 20,000,000
FHLB 05.000 11/17/17 0
FHLMC 04.875 06/13/18 99,000,000
FNMA 06.250 05/15/29 0
FNMA 07.125 01/15/30 6,000,000
FNMA 07.250 05/15/30 13,000,000
FNMA 06.625 11/15/30 20,000,000
FHLMC 06.750 03/15/31 0
FHLMC 06.250 07/15/32 0

In the above, the letter "C" following security description denotes that the security is callable.

Source

TODAY'S Treasury Purchase

Operation 1 - RESULTS
Operation Date: 04/01/2009
Operation Type: Outright Coupon Purchase
Release Time: 10:14 AM
Close Time: 11:00 AM
Settlement Date: 04/02/2009
Maturity/Call Date Range: 05/31/2012 - 08/15/2013
Total Par Amt Accepted (mlns) : $6,008
Total Par Amt Submitted (mlns) : $16,948 (OUCH!)

CUSIP ID Security Description Par Amt
Accepted ($)
912828GU8 T 04.750 05/31/12 970,000,000
912828GW4 T 04.875 06/30/12 1,201,000,000
912828GZ7 T 04.625 07/31/12 1,079,000,000
912828AJ9 T 04.375 08/15/12 1,000,000
912828HC7 T 04.125 08/31/12 657,000,000
912828HE3 T 04.250 09/30/12 282,000,000
912828HG8 T 03.875 10/31/12 359,000,000
912828AP5 T 04.000 11/15/12 262,000,000
912828HK9 T 03.375 11/30/12 264,000,000
912828HM5 T 03.625 12/31/12 205,000,000
912828HQ6 T 02.875 01/31/13 41,000,000
912828AU4 T 03.875 02/15/13 363,000,000
912828HT0 T 02.750 02/28/13 0
912828HV5 T 02.500 03/31/13 0
912828HY9 T 03.125 04/30/13 0
912828BA7 T 03.625 05/15/13 0
912828JB7 T 03.500 05/31/13 324,000,000
912828JD3 T 03.375 06/30/13 0
912828JG6 T 03.375 07/31/13 0
912828BH2 T 04.250 08/15/13 0

[edit on 4/1/09 by redhatty]

CDOs Become `Unmanageable' as Contract-Trading Costs Surge, Fitch Reports
www.bloomberg.com...

April 1 (Bloomberg) -- Managers of collateralized debt obligations are struggling to operate the funds because the cost of trading the underlying contracts has soared, according to a report by Fitch Ratings.

Some CDOs that package credit-default swaps are now “virtually unmanageable” because prices for the contracts have risen so high, Fitch said in the report today. Managers select contracts included in so-called synthetic CDOs, and seek to protect bondholders by trading out of companies that may fail.

Banks started closing down or scaling back units that bought and sold CDOs last year, Fitch said. That’s increased the spread between bid and offer prices for credit-default swaps that banks left in the market can demand.

“Those desks that remain in the correlation trading business have seen their allocated capital and risk appetite dramatically reduced, resulting in larger bid/ask spreads,” analysts Manuel Arrive and Lars Jebberg wrote in the report. The lack of market “liquidity” has become “a major hindrance” for managers of CDOs, they wrote.

The cost of credit-default swaps on the benchmark Markit iTraxx Europe index of investment-grade bonds has risen to almost 180 basis points from about 20 in 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That means it costs 180,000 euros ($239,000) a year to protect 10 million euros of debt from default for five years compared with 20,000 euros before the credit crisis.

The contracts used to speculate on corporate creditworthiness and a rise indicates a deterioration in credit quality. CDOs pool bonds, loans or credit-default swaps, channeling their income to investors in layers of differing risk.

Great...

742K jobs lost??? What are those people going to do when benefits run out???
This is staggering to me.Just some FYI here:


SectorVue weekend update for the week of March 30th, 2009

PiPP Squeak

The Dow Jones rallied 497 points and the NDX gained 64 points as Geithners toxic
waste plan fueled a short covering and end of quarter pile on. Unfortunately Mondays rally
was the total gain for the week and we ended on a Short term Sell signal.

Sector Action for the week was plus 477 with all Sectors up except Gold. Our Market
Barometer leapt up into Overbought territory. Volatility and Trading range are the ‘swing
thoughts’ for the coming weeks.

Rydex Alerts- A full bearish position in Russell and NDX.

Short term Trading indicator- Overbought Sell from the Market Breadth Oscillator

INTERMEDIATE TERM TRENDS- Slightly Bullish

INTERMEDIATE OSCILLATOR - Overbought needing a pause to refresh.

With all the excitement gains in the Dow Jones were not able to get us to the top of the ravine - the
level we started down from, or about 8200. I was surprised when we broke Dow 7500 and our
numbers clearly showed we were due for a bounce. I am disappointed all of this action is occurring
below what I had outlined as a lower trading range of 8000 to 9500.

I have not figured out how the Toxic waste recovery purchases, PiPP, helps the overall economy
yet. I can see it as an outlet for FDIC closing failed banks. I do not see it helping people who need
to refinance ARM mortgages which is one of the root problems.

Semiconductor SOX- Number one in overall rank. We took profits our Ultra bullish and
regular ETF’s USD and SMH.

Banks BKX- fell into the lower ranks looking like a classic ‘buy the rumor sell the news’
situation. I am at the point where I do not believe anything the Bank CEO’s say and I am
having doubts about FOMC members statements as well. They continue to obfuscate
issues and claim Transparency would be harmful yet until you have

Ultra ETF’s- trade Ultras get cash! Took profits on Ultra bullish Semiconductor USD.
QiD and TWM are very tradeable.

Oil XOI- Continues to sink. This has been a good indicator of worldwide economic growth
or contraction. It looks like we are still in “contraction” mode.

Solar TAN - up the most in relative rank led by First Solar FSLR. This is a classic Hedge
and Mutual fund pile onto a high Beta stock. Almost a pump and dump situation.

Utilities UTY- We took profits here too and will look to buy on pullbacks for the high
dividends.

Anyone who believes the Government can fix this mess should keep an eye on the Red
River flooding. You can’t mess with Mother Nature or the Market.

David Schultz

Total Par Amt Accepted (mlns) : $6,008
Total Par Amt Submitted (mlns) : $16,948 (OUCH!)

That means that the treasury must print 10.940 billions today to continue? This is going directly into inflation?

[edit on 1-4-2009 by Vitchilo]

Originally posted by Vitchilo

Total Par Amt Accepted (mlns) : $6,008
Total Par Amt Submitted (mlns) : $16,948 (OUCH!)

That means that the treasury must print 10.940 billions today to continue? This is going directly into inflation?

NO, Not at all, the FED is buying back Treasuries. It hold the buyback and T holders submit their T's for buyback - there were $16,948 Million submitted, but the FED only bought back $6,008 of them - the specific ones are listed in the post.

The OUCH is because since the buyback program started, that seems to be the highest amount submitted yet - that means more and more T holders are trying to get rid of them

News...

Moody's reports credit card charge-offs surge to 20-year high

Credit card charge-offs advanced decisively in February to 8.82%, representing an all-time high in the 20-year history of the Moody's Credit Card Index. The percentage of delinquent borrowers also rose to 6.14% -- a 17-year high. Additionally, the principal payment rate index, a measure of cardholders' willingness and ability to repay their credit card debt, slipped sharply due in part to the continued secular trend of softer payment rates that we expect throughout 2009, but perhaps more so from a technical day count issue due to the relatively short month of February. While the yield index staged a rebound despite persistently low interest rate levels, the excess spread index continued to narrow as the jump in charge-offs more than offset the improvement in yield.


briefing.com

Nassim Taleb Says Geithner’s Bank Plan Will Fail (Update1)
www.bloomberg.com...

April 1 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s plan to remove toxic assets from bank balance sheets will fail to revitalize the financial system, “Black Swan” author Nassim Nicholas Taleb said.

“We’re heading in exactly the wrong direction,” Taleb said in a Bloomberg television interview. “I want an overhaul, I want something drastic. This is going to fail, this is not it.”

Geithner has proposed to revive banks without resorting to nationalization through the Public-Private Investment Program that will buy difficult-to-value assets. Leaders from the Group of 20 nations meeting in London this week are unprepared to fix the global financial system because they don’t grasp how markets work or the root causes of the credit crisis that has led to $1.2 trillion in losses and asset writedowns, Taleb said.

Rare and unforeseen events are known as “black swans,” after Taleb’s 2007 book, “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable.” Taleb is a professor of risk engineering at New York University and also advises Universa Investments LP, a Santa Monica, California-based firm opened in 2007 by Mark Spitznagel, Taleb’s former trading partner.

The Treasury’s plan is unfair to taxpayers and rewards the failure of banks that didn’t understand the risks they took when using debt to boost returns in the mortgage market, Taleb said.

Subsidize Failure

“I don’t understand why I as a taxpayer need to subsidize those who failed, by giving them options so they can rebuild their balance sheets,” he said. “Taxpayers take the downside and Wall Street as usual is going to take the upside, another classical problem of socializing the losses, privatizing the gains.”

Taleb said it’s “shocking” that the government would allow banks to estimate the value of the toxic assets that remain on their books because there is effectively no market for the securities, making them almost impossible to value.

“I don’t understand letting banks mark to market, after all this incompetence,” he said. “Why don’t we allow people to mark their house at what they think the value of their house is?”

reply to post by Vitchilo


It's going to be another stimulus working on Congress as we speak, it was already talk about after the Obama's one was signed in.

Still this means that the already 12.something trillions allocated for bail out will be added too.

Still as the unemployment keeps raising and that means more gouging from state government to cover from the lack of funds that Obama stimulus has not allocated yet after signing the bill and neither the million infrastructure jobs that he was promised to make.

But no to worry we will be getting something the Obama incredible spending bill.



[edit on 1-4-2009 by marg6043]

reply to post by Hx3_1963


Can we expect anything else from Geithner he is after all the portrait of the banking system protégé.

Do you think he cares about the main street hell no, when he is taking money from private interest to do what they tell him to do he can crap on anything else.

This is the face of Americas political leaders.



[edit on 1-4-2009 by marg6043]

While the Fed and Geithner keeps leaching the nation and been allowed by the Obama administration the nation have not means to become productive enough to pay back the debt.

Of the trillions of dollars in spending appropriations pushed through by the recently empowered Democrats, only a tiny fraction have been earmarked to go toward our industrial infrastructure. The Fed has lent billions out to banks hoping to get them lending again to businesses and consumers, but instead they just hoard the cash and wait for more handouts.

www.economyincrisis.org...

It is me or everybody here while doing the math is realizing that is not way in hell that we can get off the economic crisis without a boost on the industrial and manufacturing sector.

Why this is been put on the back burner?





[edit on 1-4-2009 by marg6043]

reply to post by marg6043
The way *I think* this is SUPPOSED to work is...

Government gives no stimulus to Industry...

Government gives money to Banks to lend to Industry...

Banks keep money parked in Treasury to use interest for balance sheet padding...

AIG funnels more money to them from backdoors for balance sheet padding...

Banks happy...everyone else scroomed...

Sound right???


BTW: Really sad breaking news...

Nicolas Cage Sells His Bavarian Castle, Mittelbayerische Zeitung Reports
www.bloomberg.com...

[edit on 4/1/2009 by Hx3_1963]