Archive for the ‘Markets’ Category

Stagnation

A short look to the yesterdays jobless claims which came out at 502k vs. 512k consensus and 512k the week before. Again a edge down, but still high. Asia ended mixed, small moves in different directions, Europe is trading flat at the moment. German Q3 GDP growth came at 0.7% vs. 0.8% consensus and o.4% […]

Federal Housing Administration Reseves Almost Depleted

U.S. Government support to the housing market could claim another victim – The  FHA. WSJ stories: Housing Agency Reserves Fall Far Below Minimum; The FHA’s Bailout Warning. The odds are U.S. government would have to step in once more because failing to react would add another leg to the housing downturn. We have witnessed that […]

Hero Turning To A Villan – Fast

Bloomberg story: Hedge Fund Veteran Horseman to Step Down After Loss. I can understand this guy he was acting on the data coming out and not on empty media stories and politician talk.

Potash

Belisarius cough an interview with the K+S CEO Norbert Steiner on CNBC this morning and got interested in potash producers on the Mr. Steiner words that he expects 50% increase in demand measured by volume. The K+S is the seventh largest potash producer in the world (PotashCorp data) . Earnings today came out below consensus, […]

Lowering Budget and Increasing Taxes?

As  reported yesterday, Japan’s machinery orders rose 10.5% vs. 4.1% consensus in September. Bloomberg story: Japan Machine Orders Rise More Than Expected; Recovery May Last. Off course it sparked optimism for the bulls. Today Japan’s October producer prices came out at -6.7% vs. 6% consensus. This was 10th month in a row with negative figure. […]

Iron Ore FT.com/Barclays Capital Interactive Map

Very nice presentation of iron ore dynamics. Link.

U.K. Printing Press

Bank of England released its Inflation report. Report suggests that “inflation may exceed 2% target in 2012”. Bloomberg story: Bank of England Lifts Forecasts for Inflation, Growth.  Is it just me, or it sounds, let’s say,  impossible for a country running budget deficits around 12% of the GDP in this and next year; with central […]

China Loan Expansion Slows

A lot of economic announcements from China today. So, let’s start. China’s industrial production rose 16.1% in October from a year before following 13.9% rise in September. The export decline slowed to 13.8% in October (year-on-year). If we adjust for holidays, it was down only 9.1% . The trade surplus rose to 23.99 billion USD […]

Crude Oil Day

Belisarius is annoyed with united horn blowing on dollar going further down and gold going further up. So annoyed it is on the brinks of placing a short gold and long dollar trade. I’ll cool down and think on that again. Such unified consensus always leads to opposite outcome. One of the reasons is (for […]

October 2009 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices

Full report. No recovery here. Credit continues to contract; both demand is weaker and lending standards are tightened. Summary: In the October survey, domestic banks indicated that they continued to tighten standards and terms over the past three months on all major types of loans to businesses and households. However, the net percentages of banks […]

VIX Meltdown

We move fast up and down. Will watch carefully, maybe a long volatility opportunity. Chart 1. VIX

Same Old Story

Well, new week, same stories. Asia ended higher, Europe is trading higher on no news (media in claiming on G-20 stimulus). Looks we have relief rally, we survived last week filled with economic data and events and now on no major economic announcement or earnings (except WMT) this week we move up. Skeptical, as I […]

U.S. Unemployment Hits 10.2%

Bad numbers on employment continue. Non-farm payrolls came at -190k vs. -175 k consensus and -263k last month.. Contrary to my guess yesterday. Unemployment has hit 26-year high of 10.2%. Average hourly earnings up 0.3% vs. 0.1% consensus. Average workweek at 33 hours, down from 33.1 last month.

RBS Earnings

Slow day today ahead of unemployment release. RBS earnings caught my attention.

UNG problem at UUP

Divergence yesterday between PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish and index that it tracks Dollar Index (DXY) as fund manager used up SEC registered shares. Similar to United States Natural Gas earlier this year, covered on Tainted Alpha. DB Commodity Services LLC filled to the U.S. SEC to register 100,000,000 additional shares in order to meet investor demand. Reuters story:Deutsche Bank unit files for 100 mln new UUP shares. Also, more important large volume in call options, looks someone is looking to profit on short covering/squeeze.

 

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