The company which two years ago activist investor Carl Icahn thought was a steal at $37.25 just filed for bankruptcy (needless to say Suite #4700 at 767 Fifth Avenue is right now painted with sacrificial lamb blood: janitors who are told to clean it all up by tomorrow have just quit). In a press release the Southfield, MI parts supplier said it was hoping for a prompt Chapter 11 process and that it had already received a $500 million DIP compliments of JP Morgan and Citi (the latter probably has to pretend it is still a bank of some sort).
Lear Corporation (NYSE: LEA), a leading global supplier of automotive seating systems, electrical distribution systems and electronic products, announced today that the Company has reached an agreement in principle regarding a consensual debt restructuring with steering committees representing its secured lenders and its bondholders. The Company plans to commence shortly the proposed restructuring under court supervision pursuant to a voluntary bankruptcy filing under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code by the Company and certain of its U.S. and Canadian subsidiaries. The agreement in principle provides that, subject to certain limited exceptions, Lear’s trade creditors will be paid in full.
Unfortunately, the Company seems to not have heard that the recession is over:
Given the unprecedented economic downturn and corresponding decline in global automobile production volumes, as well as continued difficult conditions in credit markets generally, Lear’s Board of Directors concluded that in order to protect the long-term business interests of the Company, this protective action was the fastest and most effective way to delever its capital structure. During the reorganization process, Lear is committed to continuing to deliver to its customers the superior quality, service and innovation they expect.
Furthermore, an “expedited” restructuring will be contingent on whether the company’s bondholders, in turn, have heard about the recession ending:
The Company’s restructuring plan has the support of a majority of the members of a steering committee of the Company’s secured lenders and a steering committee of bondholders acting on behalf of an ad hoc group of bondholders The Company is seeking support for its restructuring plan from additional lenders and bondholders. However, no assurance can be given as to the level of additional support for the restructuring the Company ultimately will be able to obtain from its lenders and bondholders.
Joe Saluzzi of Themis Trading on Bloomberg TV, discussing several critical topics previously covered extensively on Zero Hedge: the real state of the economy, high frequency program trading and outright market manipulation.
To quote Joe:
"I have a feeling one day the door is gonna close, everyone is going to be running for the exits, there is going to be a major move in the market and everyone is going to wonder "what happened?"
There is problem structurally in the equity markets that nobody wants to talk about. There is intervention, there is manipulation going on. No one has exact proof of what is going on but it’s out there, and the real liquidity has been gone for a while. People don’t understand, the liquidity is not coming back."
Today I’m going to take another look at the S&P 500 Index. It appears that some of the rose coloring on traders’ glasses is beginning to wear thin. Many more traders now perceive this as a two way trading market as opposed to a one way street we witnessed in March and April.
I am going to be analyzing a daily S&P index chart and making some observations that I think potentially could work out if certain elements fall into place. At the present time our “Trade Triangle” technology is indicating a neutral stance in this market.
The monthly chart is still on a buy signal while the weekly signal is on a sell, leaving Adam fairly neutral. Click here to watch the video.
Nowhere is the recovery in financial markets more evident than in corporate bonds, where Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s bankruptcy is becoming a distant memory.
U.S. investment-grade company debt returned 9.2 percent in the first half of the year, outperforming Treasuries by 13.7 percentage points, the most on record, according to Merrill Lynch & Co. index data. Corporate bonds also did better than the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of stocks, marking the first time since 2002 that the fixed-income securities outshined both Treasuries and equities.
Yields on investment-grade company securities fell to within 3.31 percentage points of Treasuries yesterday, the least since Sept. 10, according to Merrill’s U.S. Corporate Master Index. Spreads widened to a record 6.56 percentage points on Dec. 5, and the securities lost 6.8 percent in 2008, the worst year on record, as the shock to financial markets from Lehman’s collapse Sept. 15 froze credit markets and sparked a run on Treasuries that caused bill rates to fall below zero.
“Spreads on corporate debt were so out of whack coming into the year, implying default rates that indicated more than 20 percent of all speculative-grade companies would go bankrupt,” said Kevin Sherlock, co-head of loan and high-yield capital markets at Deutsche Bank in New York. “The risk appetite is far more aggressive now than it was three months ago. It’s about where we were last summer at pre-Lehman levels.”
The biggest returns came in the riskiest securities. High- yield, high-risk bonds gained 29 percent, or 34 percentage points more than Treasuries, Merrill Lynch indexes show.
While credit spreads are narrowing, defaults continue to rise. The U.S. speculative-grade default rate jumped to 8.1 percent in May, the highest since October 2002, and may reach 14.3 percent by the first quarter of 2010, according to S&P.
“The easy money has been made,” said Richard Lee, a managing director in the fixed-income trading department of closely held broker-dealer Wall Street Access in New York. “You could have bought any corporate credit in January and February and made out like a bandit.”
For all you investment bankers out there, just dying to see those league tables in which your bank with 4 deals in the quarter somehow made the Top 10.
For those that like to interpret "Soros-speak," that’s as powerful a sign as any that one of the world’s most successful investors is "going long."
But is he wrong?
On one hand, the World Bank is busy roiling the markets with recently updated figures that project a 2.9% decline in global economic activity this year. Then there are the signs that the "green shoots" (how I’ve come to detest that term) may be more like weeds. Debt is devastating the developed world and the once-mighty G-7 looks more like a G-1 every day.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t bet against him. When it comes to financial influence and acumen, Soros is about as powerful and prescient as they come. He’s made billions over the years speculating on things that others simply couldn’t see or, more often, didn’t want to believe. He’s as iconic as he is legendary for making big bets on market timing even if, by his own admission, he’s not always right.
For the millions of investors who are tempted to interpret Soros’s comments as bullish, that admission forces me to urge caution. In fact, my advice to proceed with caution extends to any comments that might be made by such other investment legends as Warren Buffett, or even Soros’ former investment partner, noted author and commentator Jim Rogers.
I preach caution for three reasons:
Despite the fact that each of these men is fabulously successful, the typical retail investor has no idea how much money they’re betting on the upside, or what percentage of their wealth is involved in any publicized position.
It’s not clear what - if any - protective stops are being used so you don’t know whether the positions they’ve taken represent core portfolio holdings or speculative trades.
These revelations - disclosures - are usually made after the fact, which means that investors who may want to tag along for the ride are put in the risky position of having to make "me too" investments.
So if you’re a savvy investor, what steps can you take to translate moves being made by three of…
Equity indices benefited from optimism carried over from the European and Asian sessions after better manufacturing reports raised hopes that the global recession is easing. The positive sentiment was given a further boost following an in-line reading for the June ISM manufacturing data. However, the upward momentum was not sustained amid lower volumes, as traders turned their focus to today’s NFP report. Further to that, downbeat comments out of GM related to creditor payments, as well as news that California’s governor has declared a state of “fiscal emergency”, put further pressure on stocks later on in the session. Finally, at the closing bell DJI closed up 0.68% at 8504.06, S&P 500 closed up 0.44% at 923.32 and NASDAQ100 closed up 0.28% at 1481.34.
Fixed Income Wrap
Treasuries were lower during the early hours of trade after investors turned their attention to looming supply in the form of TIPS, 3,10 and 30y notes refunding announcement tomorrow. However, T-notes moved off lows after a lower ADP reading raised concerns the upcoming NFP report may top analyst estimates. T-notes then accelerated their ascent after the Fed bought USD 2.99bln of Treasuries in its latest coupon pass with an offer/cover ratio inline with the previous. Finally, the closing stages saw prices grind higher and at the pit close to finish flat at 116.085.
As eventful as the past few months have been (what with Greece, California, Illinois, Iran, the Lehman Brothers revelations, U.S./China trade friction, and record deficits just about everywhere), you’d think the financial markets would be agitated, to put it mildly. Instead, just about everything is range-bound, and the things that aren’t, like U.S. stocks, are trending slowly, reassuringly, higher. This has taken the VIX, the main measure of fear (i.e. volatility) in the options market down to levels last seen before the ...
The front month on the SP futures has now switched from March to June as a part of the Quad Witching Expiration. (Technically it switched last week, but for charting purposes I made the switch last night.) The June Futures have essentially the same formations as did March, it's just that the earlier months have few trades to mark them.
This is the first serious test for US equities since mid-February, as it has been on a spectacular rally streak, no doubt fueled by excess liquidity applied to a selling exhaustion in the funds. Curiously not among corporate...
As I always do before options expiration I reviewed our Buy List, which, this quarter, is a list of 37 stocks we've been playing since late December and, sadly, after reviewing 37 of our favorite investments very carefully this week - I could only conclude that cashing them out was the only decision I could be comfortable with this week. Of 66 trades we had on our 37 stocks, 64 are winners with an average return since 2/8 of 28% - since most of the trades were designed to make 40% for the year - it just seems silly not to take the money and run now, on March 19th.
You are not supposed to have 64 out of 66 winners in 6 weeks, you are not supposed to make 3/4 of what you anticipate for the year in 6 weeks - that is NOT how the markets are supposed to work! When the ma...
Today’s tickers: BBY, DNDN, GLD, BAC, AET, BA & NBR
BBY - Best Buy Co., Inc. – Shares of the world’s largest electronics retailer rallied 2% to $41.25 during the trading session after receiving an upgrade to ‘buy’ from ‘neutral’ at Goldman Sachs Group where analysts increased BBY’s target share price to $47.00 from $44.00. Options traders employed a few different bullish tactics to position for continued upward movement in the price of the underlying stock through expiration in April. Plain-vanilla call buyers targeted the April $44 strike to purchase 5,100 calls for an average premium of $0.55 apiece. These investors stand ready to accrue profits if Best Buy’s share price increases 8% from the current value to exceed the effective breakeven point on the calls at $44.55 by expirati...
Let's take a look at Insider Buying and Selling over the last week or so. These are screen shots from Finviz - the significant buys against a green background first and significant sells against the pink background second. All the buys fit into my screen shot but the sells did not. Click here to see all the sells.
Note that the largest buy in the group, for KITD was at a price of 9.73 (KITD is currently at 11.54). The buy was part of an Equity Offering rather than an open market purchase. Tuzman Kaleil Isaza's (KITD's Chairman and Chief Exec. Officer) history of buys is http://www.insidercow.com/more from Insider
Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
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On one hand, 
I preach caution for three reasons:
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
(