Monday, November 17, 2008

Sex in the (Subprime) City

Per reader demand of more "human interest" sidebar, preferrably with feminine flavors:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_47/b4109070638235_page_2.htm


"Multiple wholesalers began inundating mortgage brokers with offers for the same applications. Some brokers chose to exercise their power by asking for something extra in exchange for their business: sex. "

"Wholesalers also offered sexual favors to co-workers."

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Social Unrest indicator ticks up!

After ticking down per foreign swap lines and AIG moneys. I have 60-70% probability this will NOT turn down.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Of all this talk about Mensa and CQ, IQ stuffs

by the self-declared clever Bill Gross, he cannot mask himself a failed liar.

http://www.pimco.com/LeftNav/Featured+Market+Commentary/IO/2008/IO+Gross+November+2008+So+CQish.htm

Look at these two statements in the article:

1. "The past era can best be described as a more than half-century build up in credit extension and levered finance."

2. "There will come a time, however, perhaps over the next few weeks or months, when deleveraging of the private sector is met by the leveraging up of the government sectors: the TARP, CPFF, and MMIFF will inject over a trillion dollars of liquidity into the system over a short period of time."

Dead giveaway. If I were a cop, I would smash the perps head to the desk and yell "Where the f*** did you bury the hooker you son of a *****. Who says lying is easy.

( Also, never mind that several days after the article: a) the 700B gameplan has changed and b) the whole thing is a drop in the bucket of deflationary ocean. )

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Chinese National Anthem

I sat down and listened carefully in case the e-mail someone sent to me was bogus, but it is Chinese National Anthem. I could not find the Star's techno tho.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Examine my most recent posts and contemplate:






















Then waddaya know, this well-known poster showed up and voila, he said
"Mr. Spy, you are using recent past to predict immediate future. In my limited experience, that method does not work well in the financial markets. You might as well find out the positions of moon and Venus over the last few weeks, and identify some pattern."

Moon and Venus eh? Check it out, it's still very recent, and the blog is just right under the previous one.

Today I pull out the AUD chart and it looks like this, wow, and this is NOT good enough to some????!























Additionally, in the personal blog of that-poster-who-shan't-be-named, I wrote:
" MTGSPY said... I sensed it too, and it's because Ob-timis-bama-ism.Dont you dare short the market here, What are you thinking? The first black man to be ;resident and y'all wanna shit in the carpet? Bama Market Patrol will be in full force for a week - think Zimbabwean stock market for a while now.November 2, 2008 1:44 PM"

Well? OK, last words:










YES WE CAN!

Monday, November 3, 2008

And yet this very system is STILL the ONLY system running the lending business in USA

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/business/02gret.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin

I assure you, every red penny going to "plug" the hole, ... never mind, the system was a hole, ... would come from your pocket. Every single one of them. And so far there is no indication there is going to be any change in the system at all, let alone bringing the corruptors to justice.


Quotes from the article:

1. Brokers often tried to bribe Ms. Cooper to approve loans, she says. One offered to pay $900 to send her son to football summer boot camp if she would approve a loan that had been declined by a host of other lenders.

2. Four months later, the loan was in default, she says. The borrower had not made a single payment.

3. WaMu executives told employees they were not making enough loans and had to get their numbers up, she says.

4. “WaMu was allowing brokers to get 6 to 8 percent off one loan,”

5. “When they went to foreclose on the house, they found it was an empty lot,”

6. “The more you fight, the more you get in trouble,”

7. "“I swear 60 percent of the loans I approved I was made to,”

8. "“Killinger pocketed tens of millions of dollars from WaMu, while investors were left with worthless stock.”

and of course

9. "The lawyer representing WaMu and Mr. Killinger did not return a phone call seeking comment."

Friday, October 31, 2008

If FX is the trigger, then

this chart suggests we're not there yet. Election = market cops will be out in force? It's in fact what I would do if I were running Ben, I mean Fed. (Ben is independent, nobody is running him :D)

I really think we dodged a bullet today.

I went to bed at 1:30 am, and was convinced everything will be OK, afterall Yen was 98.5+, there was a rate cut, AUD 67.4+ and climbing and futures were recovering.

Woke up this morning and all the colors were flipped. That after all the rhetorics and CAPS yesterday was an absolute shock. It sends shivers up my spine so badly I actually felt dizzy.

It does look like PPT was feeling EXACTLY the same and was on "overdrive" mode this morning. "They" have to stabilize the money flow right here and now. And the way to do that is none other than unlimited currency swap, moral hazard be damned. I am fully aware of what the strength in USD at this rate would do to the "hard industry" in america (as opposed to the paper industry). Anyone with any amount of self preservation instinct would not stop at anything to protect those from liquidity issues. I would absolutely give away USD for free just to prevent that from collapsing, or I'd really have an unsolveable problem in my hands, if I were Ben.

"Gary Rosenberger's monthly survey of placement industry executives, not surprisingly, found pervasive weakness. Firms are sitting on their hands in terms of hiring, and placement agencies are seeing floods of resumes coming in, as the pool of jobseekers balloons. The tone of the comments ranged from 'bad but surprised it's not even worse' to 'disaster.' There seemed to be some degree of variance on whether contacts had felt the full brunt of the credit crunch/economic slowdown yet. Some had just started to see worsening over the past week or so, while others have been suffering since September. In a sign of the times, several contacts talked about their concerns of whether their customers (employers) would pay their bills.

The negative tone of Gary's piece is of course no great surprise, as it is exceedingly clear that the economy is as weak as it has been in a generation. The only pertinent question seems to be just how bad the payroll data can be. RBSGC looks for a 220,000 job loss for October, and declines at least that large if not bigger in November/December. At this point, our expectations are sufficiently low, that not much could surprise us on the downside."

Thursday, October 30, 2008

MIDNIGHT OCT 30 ULTIMATUM: I like playing BOTH BULL and BEAR Markets

Washington DC, 12AM, 10/30/2008:

BUT I am afraid there WILL NOT BE EITHER IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS IF HALF THE COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD COLLAPSE AND BY IMPLICATION WE, AS WELL.

The last chance US government has, short of declaring WHO IS GUILTY and FORCED OPEN the TOXIC ASSET to the open, is to ANNOUNCE AN UNLIMITED SUPPORT OF USD LIQUIDITY FOR EVERYONE WHO NEEDS IT. EVERYONE, ESPECIALLY SOVEREIGN, PREFERRABLY BY TOMORROW.

DON'T DO THIS, AND YOU WILL SEE EXACTLY WHAT I MEAN.

Signed,

Mtgspy, Your Humble Servant

Stop Trading.

Now I didn't learn that from Mad Money.

The last bout of insanity was due to USD scarcity and the news is that Ben committing INFINITE USD swap ANYTIME ANYWHERE ANYONE asked.

Since currency = politics, AND we have PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION on Tuesday: I strongly suggest not to take any sizeable short position and especially avoid shorting those AsPac/LatAm currencies and maybe even going long there for at least a week. Not a good sign shorting those currencies because technicals just don't look like it and fundamentals CERTAINLY against it. Those who shorted congratulations and now please get out of DODGE before the sherriffs come and get you.