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Archive for July 2nd, 2009

Taibbi Goes On Air

Taibbi Goes On Air

Taibbi in his first TV interview since the “Squid” was let loose. Hat tip Calgary Schmooze





FDIC TGI Failure F… er… T

FDIC TGI Failure F… er… T

Failure Friday is early today: today’s bank shooting green all the way to the grave is John Warner Bank, from Clinton, IL. Likely more to come today.

The FDIC and State Bank of Lincoln entered into a loss-share transaction on approximately $31 million of The John Warner Bank’s assets. State Bank of Lincoln will share in the losses on the asset pools covered under the loss-share agreement. The loss-sharing arrangement is projected to maximize returns on the assets covered by keeping them in the private sector. The agreement also is expected to minimize disruptions for loan customers.

The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $10 million. State Bank of Lincoln’s acquisition of all the deposits was the “least costly” resolution for the FDIC’s DIF compared to alternatives. The John Warner Bank is the 46th FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the seventh in Illinois. The last FDIC-insured institution to be closed in the state was Bank of Lincolnwood, Lincolnwood, on June 5, 2009.





ROSENBERG: DEFLATION ALL OVER EMPLOYMENT REPORT

ROSENBERG: DEFLATION ALL OVER EMPLOYMENT REPORT

unemployment, depressionCourtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist

David Rosenberg had some great thoughts on today’s deflationary empoyment report:

Today’s employment report had deflation thumbprints all over it. And you don’t have to take my word for it – have a read of San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen’s speech on June 30th when she dared to utter the “D” word. And that was before today’s payroll release which contained disturbing signs of weakness on many fronts.

For those that missed it: Yellen said the predominant risk was that inflation would remain low for an extended period of time and will be “be too low, not too high, over the next several years.”

The headline came in at -467k compared with -350k consensus and the back revisions were negligible (+8k). At no time in the 1990 or 2001 recessions did we ever come close to seeing such a detonating jobs figure, not even at the depths of those downturns, and yet we have a whole industry of ‘green shoot’ advocates today telling us that the recovery has already arrived. As always, the devil was in the details. In almost every industry, job losses were deeper in June than they were in May. The diffusion index fell to 28.6 from 31, which means that nearly three-quarters of the corporate sector is still in the process of shedding jobs. The Household Survey showed a 374k job decline, and all centered in full-time jobs. In fact, we have lost a record 9 million full-time jobs this cycle, more than triple what is normal in the context of a post-WWII recession, with over 2 million pushed onto part-time work (and the number of people now working part-time because they have no other choice due to the weak economy has more than doubled).

This in turn has taken the total hours worked in the private sector down to a new record low of 33 hours from 33.1 hours in May – in fact, what this means is that if companies had kept hours worked at May’s levels, then to achieve the same labour input that they achieved would have required a 800,000 job slice! Just to put the entire labour market picture into a certain perspective.

When we say that deflation has gripped the labour market, we are not exaggerating. Average weekly earnings – the proxy for wage-based income – fell 0.3% in June and have been flat or…
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Bullish Motorola Play In Options Action

Today’s tickers: MOT, AXP, JOSB & ILMN

MOT – A large-volume bullish reversal initiated in the October contract on MOT today suggests some investors are positioning for a rally. Currently shares are off by more than 3% to stand to $6.25. Perhaps traders are anticipating that Motorola’s new lineup of phones, based on Google’s Android operating system, will boost sales for the firm. It appears that approximately 15,000 puts were sold at the October 5.0 strike price for 14 cents apiece in order to partially fund the purchase of 15,000 calls at the October 7.0 strike for 34 cents per contract. The net cost of the bullish stance amounts to 20 cents. Thus, shares of MOT would need to rev upward by 15% from the current price to $7.20 in order for investors to profit by expiration. Interestingly, it appears that today’s reversal has been added to similar bullish positioning as seen in the open interest at each of the strike prices described. Today’s activity could be the work of an investor who is merely adding to a position. Or, perhaps we are seeing traders hopping on the bull-bandwagon. – Motorola, Inc.

AXP – The global payments and travel company edged onto our ‘most active by options volume’ market scanner after one bearish trader dug his claws into the August contract. AXP shares are down 1% to $22.75. It appears that the investor has sold 5,000 puts at the deep in-the-money July 25 strike price for 2.54 apiece in order to get long of 7,500 puts at the closer-to-the-money August 23 strike price for 2.03 each. The trader likely took profits on the sale of the near-term put options and proceeded to reestablish a position in protective put options at a lower strike with more time to expiration. – American Express Company

JOSB – The designer of men’s clothing and accessories has surrendered more than 6.5% to stand at $32.44 today. Traders expecting further declines initiated interesting trades involving put options. It appears that about 3,000 puts were sold short at the deep in-the-money July 35 strike price for a premium of 2.19 apiece and spread against the purchase of some 3,000 puts at the more bearish August 30 strike price for 1.39 per contract. The net credit received from the transaction amounts to 80 cents. Writing puts in the near-term July contract leaves traders exposed to having shares of the underlying put to them…
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NYSE Extends Closing To 4:15 PM, Cites “System Irregularities”

NYSE Extends Closing To 4:15 PM, Cites “System Irregularities”

Tsk tsk. Those pesky SPARCs. Anyone remember March 2007? In other news, Sky Net will be nominating a robo-president for 2012 shortly.





The June Non-farm Payrolls Report

More on the employment numbers from the Cafe, with very colorful charts showing a very discouraging picture.

The June Non-farm Payrolls Report

Courtesy of Jesse’s Café Américain

The headline jobs number came out worse than expected, and the paint peeled off the US stocks tape from its recent run into the end of the second quarter.

The trend herd had been looking at the bounce off the bottom and before today’s number had some hopes that the leveling off or even a surprise to the upside would confirm a bottom in the economy. The sharp downturn threw cold water on those happy thoughts. [click on charts for larger images]

Net Monthly Non-Farm Payrolls

The actuals came in about as expected, a little lower perhaps, and as you can see there was a strong downward seasonal adjustment.

Monthly Non-Farm Payrolls Growth

The "Birth-Death" model was in line with the usual swag that the BLS performs at this time of year. As you know this number is added to the "actual jobs number" before seasonal adjustment, so at this time of year it helps to inflate the headline number slightly.

With this regular repetition of the number without regard to the underlying economic activity over the years, and its feed into the actuals, one has to wonder why they don’t just roll this number into their seasonal adjustments? Do they feel the need to justify their tinkering with actual number beyond some limit? The Birth-Death model is certainly no viable rationale, but it does serve to employ a few analysts, and is likely some pet project of a past BLS director.

Monthly Non-Farm Payrolls Birth Death Model

And here is the only chart worth watching, the long term trend. There has been no bottom yet reached in the jobs lost. This is not so much a reflection on the stimulus because of the lag, and the obvious data showing that consumers tended to use the stimulus to pay down their immediate debt which is a worthwhile endeavor, but does not give a quick boost to jobs.

The issue might be a bit of a red herring, because the economic stimulus pales by comparison with the enormous amount of stimulus provided to the banking sector, which is stimulating some operators like Goldman Sachs to pay their employees, on average, a record $700,000 in annual pay. Now THAT is stimulus, but perhaps one that is counterproductive.

Non Farm Payrolls Growth

We are on the record in the opinion that the Obama economic team is ineffective, backward-thinking, compromised, and possibly…
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Slow Afternoon News Roundup

Slow Afternoon News Roundup

  • Dan Loeb’s Third Point June P&L: 1.8%; 7.2% YTD (Third Point)
  • Captain Morgan - Best use of $2.7 billion in TARP funding. Ever (Moneynews, h/t Cris)
  • BOE’s Miles says helpful to include housing in inflation gauge [Amen]
  • Boeing lost orders for 15 787 Dreamliners in past week: those lost airplanes sure not helping the manufacturing index
  • China Vice Premier says global financial crisis hasn’t bottomed
  • Russia Central bank says scraps recommendation for banks not to increase foreign currency denominated assets from Q3
  • Weather Derivatives latest forecast sees average temperatures in the US for the next 6-10 days to be 0.2F vs. Prev. -1.3F
  • US to provide $1.175 bln to wind down GM, previously the number was $950 million
  • FDIC board weighs rules for buyout firms acquiring failed banks
  • Gazprom seeks global deal to build gas grid encircling Europe (Bloomberg) - Naming contest is on: most PC incorrect name wins of course
  • Michael Lewis on Wall Street’s Day of Reckoning (WS Tech h/t Joe)
  • William Cohan on Goldman Sachs and AIG (Tech Ticker)




China Requests Debate on Reserve Currency at G14 Summit

China Requests Debate on Reserve Currency at G14 Summit

Le Café AméricainCourtesy of Jesse’s Café Américain

China is proposing a new reserve currency regime less dependent on the dollar, along with other BRIC countries, and the US and its financial allies in the status quo will resist change because it is in their short term interest to do so.

China can take ‘pre-emptive’ action by diversifying its holdings ahead of any change, and there are some indications that it is doing so already. But while the dollar is the prime medium of international trade, China must buy dollars to support its mercantilist industrial policy. Its own alternative is to boost its domestic consumption and ‘grow a middle class’ which in some minds erodes the power of the narrow political elite which rules the country.

The US needs to stand firm in some areas, and acquiesce in others. Standing firm with regard to the yuan being free of a peg and currency controls is one area that ought to have been sine qua non when first Clinton and then Bush gave China its openings as a preferred trading partner even while maintaining de facto industrial subsidies through its currency and markets.

The first line of negotiation will be to agree on a dollar substitute, which will probably be the SDR. The US will resist and delay this as long as is possible.

British EmpireThe fallback position then will be the composition of the SDR, and a long phasing of the change in the primacy of the dollar and a few G7 currencies. China will seek more diversity and the inclusion of gold and silver, which is anathema to the Wall Street banking cartel.

The US must change or face more seismic, involuntary dislocations. As Britain surrendered its far flung colonial Empire, so the US must downsize its financial sector, restore balance to its own economy and its place in the world economy, and relinquish the primary reserve currency status which has become a powerful instrument of manipulation by the Wall Street banking cartel.

The dollar is the last, the mother of bubbles. Few understand this even now.

The epic US credit expansion was enabled by the preferred position of US debt instruments as the reserve currency of the world. The bond and the dollar are the absolute foundation of that debt pyramid.

Those days are undeniably over. What comes next and in what order and timing remains open to question for sure, but that substantial change is…
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Jobs Contract 18th Straight Month; Unemployment Rate Hits 9.5%

Here’s a comprehensive review and analysis of the unemployment situation by Mish.

Jobs Contract 18th Straight Month; Unemployment Rate Hits 9.5%

Courtesy of Mish

This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the June Employment Report.

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in June (-467,000), and the unemployment rate was little changed at 9.5 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Job losses were widespread across the major industry sectors, with large declines occurring in manufacturing, professional and business services, and construction..

unemployment rate

nonfarm payment employment
Establishment Data

labor market activity

click on chart for sharper image

Highlights

  • 467,000 jobs were lost in total vs. 345,000 jobs last month. 
  • 79,000 construction jobs were lost vs. 59,000 last month. 
  • 136,000 manufacturing jobs were lost vs. 156,000 last month.
  • 244,000 service providing jobs were lost vs. 120,000 last month. 
  • 21,000 retail trade jobs were lost vs. 18,000 last month. 
  • 118,000 professional and business services jobs were lost vs. 51,000 last month. 
  • 34,000 education and health services jobs were added vs. 44,000 added last month. 
  • 18,000 leisure and hospitality jobs were gained vs. 3,000 added last month.
  • 52,000 government jobs were lost vs. 7,000 last month. 

A total of 223,000 goods producing jobs were lost (higher paying jobs), and in contrast to last month, the service sector was hit hard again. Indeed most of the improvement in May was a 149,000 relative improvement in the service sector as compared to April.

It was nearly a clean sweep again this month with education and health services jobs the only real winner for the month.

Note: some of the above categories overlap as shown in the preceding chart, so do not attempt to total them up.

Index of Aggregate Weekly Hours

Work hours are now down to 33.0 in aggregate. This is contributing to household problems. The expectation was for work hours to rise.

Birth Death Model Revisions 2008

click on chart for sharper image

Birth Death Model Revisions 2009

click on chart for sharper image

Birth/Death Model Revisions

After the typical in January in which the Birth/Death Model revisions bore some semblance of reality, the Birth/Death numbers remain in deep outer space.

At this point in the cycle birth death numbers should have been massively contracting for months. The BLS is going to keep adding jobs through the entire recession.

The Birth/Death numbers are a complete joke and has been for at least two years now.

BLS Black Box

For those unfamiliar with the birth/death model, monthly jobs adjustments are made by the BLS based on economic assumptions about the birth and…
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Aircraft repair jobs sold to foreign workers

Something to think about before boarding the airplane on the way to your next big adventure.

Aircraft repair jobs sold to foreign workers, resumes not important

airbusCourtesy of Mish

Here’s something to think about when the unemployment numbers come out Thursday Morning: Aircraft repair jobs sold to foreign workers, resumes not important.

A News 8 investigation found that hundreds of aircraft mechanics have been brought into the United States to work at aircraft repair facilities.

Insiders say the companies that are importing the mechanics are so eager to save money, they’re overstating their qualifications. The result may be a threat to safety, abetted by lax enforcement of immigration law.

At daybreak any morning at San Antonio Aerospace, hundreds of workers amble through the gates for the day shift. They repair big jets like Airbuses, Boeing 757s and MD-11s.

Jada Williams used to work for one of the contracting companies, Aircraft Workers Worldwide (AWW), based in Daphne, Alabama. AWW supplied workers for two facilities, Mobile Aerospace Engineering (MAE) in Mobile, Alabama and San Antonio Aerospace, which are both controlled by ST Aerospace. San Antonio Aerospace is a division of ST Aerospace, the largest aircraft repair company in world.

"They’ve employed over 200 since I left,” said Williams, who said she was unfairly fired by the contractor last fall. "And I know we had over a hundred when I was in there, just in Mobile.”

San Antonio Aerospace uses several contracting companies to supply it with workers. It can be a high-profit business for the contractors. They can make $3 to $12 an hour for every worker hired by SAA, contractors say.

The drive for profits is so big, Williams and other insiders said, that the contractors often falsify the qualifications of the imports.

"We had two,” she said. “One of them was a female. She was about 16. It was a brother and a sister. One guy was a grocery bagger, one was a security guard in Puerto Rico. Their ages were between 18 and 22.”

Their ages are important because it takes years of experience or schooling to learn how to repair a big jet, experience they couldn’t have had.

One former SAA mechanic, who spent years learning his trade before being laid off, said foreign workers got their training on the job from the Americans they worked with.

"The more experienced mechanics, we would get paired up with either one or two of these guys,” he says. “And they would watch us for…
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Phil's Favorites

Curtain of Tragedy Will Indeed Be Raised Next Year, But Perhaps Not Yet in Japan

Curtain of Tragedy Will Indeed Be Raised Next Year, But Perhaps Not Yet in Japan

Courtesy of Jesse’s Café Américain

"Ninety-five percent of Japan's debt is domestically owned. Fickle foreigners have almost no sway. Indeed, Japan's problem is still an excess of savings ." (at patriotic but abormally low rates of return that serve to subsidize government mismanagement.)

As you know, I forecast in 2005 that a new school of economic thought is likely to rise out of the financial crisis which the world is in today. The crisis is certainly not over, despite the government propaganda and economic window dressing that is being applied. Qu...



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Zero Hedge

One Very Tragic Death

Courtesy of Tyler Durden

Even as the Lehman scapegoating campaign is on in full force, there is little doubt that the man who somehow was in the middle of virtually everything, was not Dick Fuld, or any of the bevy of rotating Lehman CFOs, but Lehman's very much under the radar Global Product Controller, Gerard Reilly. Reilly was the point man on Repo 105, the point person for E&Y's "investigation" into the Matthew Lee whistleblower campaign, Lehman's Level 2 and Level 3 asset valuation, the brain behind the idea to spin off Lehman's commercial real estate business, Lehman's Archstone investment, and likely so much more. Reilly stayed on at Lehman, solid as a rock, even as the CFO's above him rotated one after another. Tragically, on December 29, 2008, a 44-year old Gerald [sic] Reilly died while skiing alone on New York's Whiteface mountain, while on a trip with his wife, 4 small chi...



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Chart School

Bears Emboldened By Low CBOE Equity Put to Call Ratio

Bears Emboldened By Low CBOE Equity Put to Call Ratio

Courtesy of Bill Luby at Vix and More 

Truthfully, I have not surveyed our ursine friends this morning, so I really have no idea if they are emboldened by the low CBOE equity put to call ratio (CPCE), but they should be.

My preferred way of looking at the equity put to call ratio involves using an exponential 10 day moving average (EMA) as a smoothing factor. The 10 day EMA generates the dotted blue li...

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Trading Goddess

Options and My Patience Expire Today

Well now we're officially cashed out!


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...



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Oxen Group Trades

The Oxen Report: Five Keys to Fundamental Day Trading

Identifying the Fundamentals

Stocks move under the influence various factors that we can use to identify stocks that are likely to move 3-5% in a single day. Even t...



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The Options Report

By Andrew Wilkinson


Best Buy Option Investors Condone Broker Upgrade in Bullish Action

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...



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Insider Zone


Insiders: March to Exit

By Ilene

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

OpTrader


Swing trading portfolio - week of March 15th 2010

This post is for live trades and daily comments. 

To learn more about the swing trading portfolio (strategy, membership etc.), please click here

- Optrader

...

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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...

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