STOCK MARKET WATCH, Tuesday March 10

Source: du

STOCK MARKET WATCH, Tuesday March 10, 2009

Bush Administration Officials Under Indictment = 0
Financial Sector Officials Under Indictment = 0
Financial Sector Officials In Prison = 1

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON March 9, 2009

Dow... 6,547.05 -79.89 (-1.22%)
Nasdaq... 1,268.64 -25.21 (-1.95%)
S&P 500... 676.53 -6.85 (-1.00%)
Gold future... 918.00 -24.70 (-2.69%)
30-Year Bond 3.59% +0.09 (+2.57%)
10-Yr Bond... 2.89% +0.06 (+2.05%)

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U.S. FUTURES & MARKETS INDICATORS
NASDAQ FUTURES..............................................S&P FUTURES

Market Conditions During Trading Hours

GOLD, EURO, YEN, Loonie and Silver

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Read more: du

10:00 Wholesale Inventories Jan
Briefing.com -1.1%
Consensus -1.0%
Prior -1.4%

http://www.briefing.com/Investor/Public/Calendars/EconomicCalendar.htm

(not on the report list as TBTB don't care about home prices anymore -not since they're not going up anyway)

http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN0947962120090310

NEW YORK, March 10 (Reuters) - U.S. home price drops accelerated in January, falling 3.5 percent from December and erasing another $610 billion from the value of housing stock, according to the IAS360 House Price Index released on Tuesday.

That drop brings the destruction in home equity wealth since the financial crisis deepened in September to about $2.4 trillion, said Integrated Asset Management, a Denver-based default management and property valuation company that compiled the index.

Home prices have fallen 24.7 percent since the peak of the housing market in November 2006, according to IAS's data. Some Florida counties have seen home prices decline more than 50 percent, it showed.

The "tailspin continues" for the U.S. housing market, IAS said in a statement.

...more...

Mar 10 10:00 AM
Wholesale Inventories Jan
report -0.7%
briefing.com -1.1%
concensus -1.0%
prior -1.5%
rev'd from -1.4%

SINGAPORE – Oil rose to near $48 a barrel Tuesday in Asia after OPEC signaled it will likely announce another production cut within days, adding to large supply reductions the cartel has already implemented.

Benchmark crude for April delivery rose 73 cents to $47.80 a barrel by midafternoon in Singapore on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil prices gained $1.55 on Monday to settle at $47.07.

Leaders of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries have suggested for weeks that the group may cut output quotas at its next meeting on March 15 in Vienna.

....

In other Nymex trading, gasoline for April delivery was steady at $1.36 a gallon, while heating oil was little changed at $1.22 a gallon. Natural gas for April delivery was steady at $3.86 per 1,000 cubic feet.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/oil_prices

An AIG report to the Treasury Department last month warned that if the government didn't come to its rescue again, its collapse would trigger a "chain reaction of enormous proportion" that would "potentially bankrupt or bring down the entire system" and make it impossible for AIG to repay the billions it already owed the U.S. government.

Four days later, AIG was given $30 billion in federal aid on top of the $130 billion it had already received.

....

A draft of the report, obtained by ABC News, was marked "strictly confidential."

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=7040420

---

Draft of the Treasury report here.

Discussion on a DU thread here.

The government's plan to strip banks of troubled assets could force some firms to record large losses, but the painful purge would help restore confidence in the banking system, according to Sheila C. Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

....

Bair said yesterday that the effort might require more money than the $700 billion Congress has approved to aid the financial industry, but she added that taxpayers would probably reap an eventual profit on the asset purchases.

She said the greatest challenge was persuading banks and taxpayers to accept the necessity of the costly program.

The government plans to partner with private investors to buy troubled assets, in part by providing financing at low cost. Bair and other federal officials said discussions were ongoing about the appropriate extent of the federal subsidy. A larger government contribution would allow investors to pay higher prices, limiting the losses that banks would record but also exposing taxpayers to greater risk.

....

Bair calls the initiative an "aggregator bank," though Treasury officials contend that the partnerships should be called "public-private investment funds."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/09/AR2009030902627.html

---

So this is being marketed as a "get tough" approach in dealing with worthless bank assets. But it is a new sales pitch for the worthless Geithner plan. We've heard enough of this shit.

WASHINGTON — America's five largest banks, which already have received $145 billion in taxpayer bailout dollars, still face potentially catastrophic losses from exotic investments if economic conditions substantially worsen, their latest financial reports show.

Citibank, Bank of America , HSBC Bank USA , Wells Fargo Bank and J.P. Morgan Chase reported that their "current" net loss risks from derivatives — insurance-like bets tied to a loan or other underlying asset — surged to $587 billion as of Dec. 31 . Buried in end-of-the-year regulatory reports that McClatchy has reviewed, the figures reflect a jump of 49 percent in just 90 days.

.....

While the potential loss totals include risks reported by Wachovia Bank , which Wells Fargo agreed to acquire in October, they don't reflect another Pandora's Box: the impact of Bank of America's Jan. 1 acquisition of tottering investment bank Merrill Lynch, a major derivatives dealer.

.....

The biggest concerns are the banks' holdings of contracts known as credit-default swaps, which can provide insurance against defaults on loans such as subprime mortgages or guarantee actual payments for borrowers who walk away from their debts.

The banks' credit-default swap holdings, with face values in the trillions of dollars, are "a ticking time bomb, and how bad it gets is going to depend on how bad the economy gets," said Christopher Whalen , a managing director of Institutional Risk Analytics, a company that grades banks on their degree of loss risk from complex investments.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090309/pl_mcclatchy/3184724

fixing the problem.

What... This was sold as a more 'open and transparent' Administration?!?!

We need more Shoring The Foundations Up and less Rhetoric from this Treasury Crowd...

I'm still not convinced they were President Obama's first choices, but, they were the first choice of SOMEBODY.

(Funny 'toon today Ozy)

It sure would be nice to have that youthful idealism back. Could that be a new cabinet post: Secretary of Youthful Idealism? Geithner would be a shoo-in.

Geithner was probably Summer's and Bernanke's first choice, not Obama's. As for Bair - more's the pity. The FDIC might have had a more tangible role in forging coherent crisis management.

If you look in the very back of this crowd, you might see the top of Paul Volker's head. Beyond that, he's nowhere to be seen. Geithner and Summers made that scenario top priority. Anyone who is not a captive of the banks' agenda does not pass muster with their clique.

after Bush shredded our Founding Document, we also need a high-level economist. Geithner is none of the above.

Too bad Obama didn't minor in it, nor Michelle.

And neither of them has any "real world" experience with more than the simplest economic issues.

:hi: Demeter...

Sorry, I missed the WEE this last weekend, but, I was very Ill.

Much better now... Very weak still.

That's one reason I'm getting a special laugh out of Ozy's 'toon for today.

It wouldn't be the same without you.

Do you need the link?

I'm sure there are others who might miss it unless you do. :)

:rofl:

And here I thought you didn't do humor. Ozy!

I'm sure the government will be repaid with stacks of twenty dollar bills, carefully crafted, bearing the image of a cyclops Andrew Jackson missing all but three of his teeth.

I'll take humor where my inner twelve-year-old can find it.

sorry is this is a re-post - I was out of commission yesterday and ....

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090316/scheer?rel=hp_picks

This is crazy! Forget the bleating of Rush Limbaugh; the problem is not with the quite reasonable and, if anything, underfunded stimulus package, which in any case will be debated long and hard in Congress. The problem is with what is not being debated: the far more expensive Wall Street bailout that is being pushed through--as in the case of the latest AIG rescue--in secret, hurried deal-making primarily by the unelected secretary of the treasury and the chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Six months ago, we taxpayers began bailing out AIG with more than $140 billion, and then it went and lost $61.7 billion in the fourth quarter, more than any other company in history had ever lost in one quarter. So Timothy Geithner and Ben Bernanke huddled late into the night last weekend and decided to reward AIG for its startling failure with thirty billion more of our dollars. Plus, they sweetened the deal by letting AIG off the hook for interest it had been obligated to pay on the money we previously gave the company.


AIG doesn't have to pay the 10 percent interest due on the preferred stock the US government got for the earlier bailout funds because that interest will now be paid out only at AIG's discretion, which means never. The preferred stock, which got watered down, carried a cumulative interest, meaning we taxpayers would have recaptured some money if the company ever got going again, but that interest obligation was waived in the new deal.

We've already given AIG a total of $170 billion--an amount that dwarfs the $75 billion allocated to helping those millions of homeowners facing foreclosures. And more will be thrown down the AIG rat hole because President Barack Obama is blindly following the misguided advice of his top economic advisers, who insist that AIG is too big to fail.

"AIG provides insurance protection to more than 100,000 entities, including small businesses, municipalities, 401(k) plans and Fortune 500 companies who together employ over 100 million Americans," the joint Treasury Department and Fed statement declared while insisting that for that reason, plus the "systemic risk AIG continues to pose and the fragility of markets today, the potential cost to the economy and the taxpayer of government inaction would be extremely high."

...more...

reposting link for kpete's thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3775441

(Reuters) – Prominent banking analyst Meredith Whitney warned that "credit cards are the next credit crunch," as contracting credit lines will lower consumer spending and hurt the U.S. economy.

"Few doubt the importance of consumer spending to the U.S. economy and its multiplier effect on the global economy, but what is underappreciated is the role of credit-card availability in that spending," Whitney wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

.....

Whitney said available lines were reduced by nearly $500 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008 alone, and she estimates over $2 trillion of credit-card lines will be cut within 2009, and $2.7 trillion by the end of 2010.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090310/bs_nm/us_creditcard_whitney

March 10 (Bloomberg) -- Hiring plans by U.S. employers for the second quarter dropped to a record low, indicating the labor market will remain weak through the first half of the year, according to a private survey.

Manpower Inc., the world’s second-largest provider of temporary workers, said its seasonally adjusted employment gauge for April through June plunged to minus 1 from 10 in the first quarter. That’s the first time the measure has been negative, according to Manpower spokeswoman Bethany Perkins.

The U.S. economy lost more than 600,000 jobs each month from December through February, the longest series of losses that big since records began in 1939. Rising unemployment is fueling cutbacks in the consumer spending that makes up about 70 percent of the economy, leaving companies hesitant to expand.

....

The Manpower survey is conducted quarterly and has a margin of error of plus or minus 0.6 percentage point in the U.S. The company interviewed 31,800 employers in the U.S. for its national outlook, while the global survey consists of responses from almost 72,000 businesses worldwide.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aMl3sPf.uCv4&refer=news

March 10 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. jobless rate will reach 9.4 percent this year and remain elevated through at least 2011, threatening the nation’s longer-term growth potential, a monthly Bloomberg News survey indicated.

The peak in unemployment surpasses the 8.8 percent estimated last month, according to the median of 54 projections in a survey taken from March 2 to March 9. The average rate for the next two years will exceed the 25-year high of 8.1 percent reached in February, the survey shows.

....

Federal Reserve policy makers in January estimated U.S. long-term growth potential at 2.5 percent to 2.7 percent, with an unemployment rate of 4.8 percent to 5 percent (Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!), a level that will be exceeded for at least four years, according to the Bloomberg survey. The jobless rate averaged 5.8 percent in 2008 and 4.6 percent in 2007.

....

As unemployment rises, more Americans won’t be able to make mortgage or car payments, choking off growth and leading to even higher joblessness, said David Rosenberg, chief North American economist at Banc of America Securities - Merrill Lynch in New York, who projected the jobless rate would reach 10 percent by the end of the year.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&refer=news&sid=aWHdSE69tNtk

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOGASmp4V6s

He said the stimulus plan seeks to save or create 3.5 million jobs, and that's good. But this recession has already cost 5 million jobs, and we need to add about one million a year just to keep up with population growth. That's 6 million we're down. Add to that we're losing about 600,000 per month and it is clear that Obama's jobs plan needs to be much more aggressive.

Personally, I generally find simple arithmetic pretty persuasive.

Willem Buiter Strikes Again, Calls for Over-Regulation of Banks

Today Buiter takes up one of my favorite causes: the need to leash and collar bankers. He dismisses the canard so often trotted out in the US, that too many restraints might inhibit financial innovation. Paul Volcker deemed the most important financial innovation in the last 30 years to be the ATM machine. Nassim Nicolas Taleb has dismissed the supposed advantages conferred by the development of the Black-Scholes option pricing model.

Given the considerable costs gambling innovation hath wrought, the calls to shackle bankers seem completely warranted. If any other class had done this much damage, they'd almost certainly be in jail.

....

From VoxEU:


much more at link...

:rofl:

I must agree! Heartily! Well, that is until the likes of Diebold and unregulated fees rendered ATMs another gouging tool for the Banks. Oh, and don't get me started on the consumer protections provided by Debit Cards.

with ATMs acting as gateways to banking networks, ATM network-interdicted thefts are somewhere in excess of $1 billion per year (actual amount kept secret).

Now, personally, of all of the things you rightfully list... The one I find the most disturbing is the displacement of the Teller's jobs by automation.

Really that much? I heard a few years back that all the bank robberies for the year put together only amounted to $70 million. I recall that was in a news report comparing that to CEO Dennis Kozlowski's alleged theft of $700 million from Tyco. The story probably came out in 2004. Their point was he alone apparently stole ten times what all the bank robbers in the country took. So, students, the conclusion is obvious: White collar crime pays better.

According to official FBI statistics, the total "loot taken" in the 4th quarter of 2007 was $24.5 million. http://www.fbi.gov/publications/bcs/bcs2007/bank_crime_2007q4.htm

Here are a few interesting numbers: In 1561 robberies, only 5 people were killed, 4 of them perpetrators, 1 a guard. In most of the robberies, no weapon was actually shown, just threatened. Nowhere near as much violence as you might expect from the TV shows.

I wonder how many people committed suicide because they lost their life savings after the Enron, Tyco, and Worldcomm scandals? There's a fair chance the white collar crimes led to more deaths.

The chain was looped around the ATM, connected to the trailer hitch. Then the truck screamed down the street dragging the ATM in its wake. There's a certain poetic charm in that act of theft.

so yes, ATM machines are the first truly innovative thing in 80 years, financially.

They're just better than banks.

Making them a sound place for your hard earned savings... as contrasted with the Bailout Needy Banks. Irony.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8225c532-0d28-11de-a555-0000779fd2ac.html



Chinese consumer prices in February fell for the first time in more than six years with the benchmark consumer price index falling 1.6 per cent from a year earlier, down from a 1 per cent rise in January.

The drop marked the tenth consecutive month of moderating price rises and compares with an 11-year record rise in the CPI of 8.7 per cent last February, when food and energy prices were soaring.

Beijing has targeted headline inflation of 4 per cent this year but many analysts say the government will struggle to meet that target and will have to act quickly if it is to avoid a period of prolonged deflation...

... The 1.6 percent drop in the consumer price index (CPI) in the year to February, which was bang in line with a Reuters survey of 26 analysts, gives the central bank ample scope to cut interest rates further if need be to boost the economy.

Goldman Sachs said now seemed a "natural point" to lower borrowing costs to ease the financial burden on firms, which are battling a slump in overseas demand and in domestic construction.

Commerce Minister Chen Deming and Industry Minister Li Yizhong, speaking at a joint news conference, both used the word "grim" to describe the immediate outlook for Chinese exports and the manufacturing sector.

Li said he was encouraged that power consumption had declined at a slower pace in the first two months of the year. But he added, "The situation of industrial production remained grim."

...

Economists worry that, unless China's 4 trillion yuan ($585 billion) stimulus plan kicks in soon, these deflationary pressures will intensify because the economy is saddled with excess capacity at a time of depressed demand.

...

Shanghai stocks .SSEC recouped early losses and ended 1.88 percent higher as investors shrugged off the slide into deflation and took comfort from strong lending data.

DON'T PANIC

Wang expects consumer prices to decline 1 percent in 2009.

By contrast, the government of Premier Wen Jiabao, who has sought to bolster confidence by talking up the economy's fundamentals, expects inflation to average around 4 percent.

Mingchun Sun with Nomura in Hong Kong agreed the lapse into deflation was likely to be temporary. Inflation would return by the second half of the year and reach 2.8 percent in the fourth quarter. For all of 2009 the CPI was likely to rise 0.6 percent.

"Considering the inflationary nature of the stimulus package, we believe the People's Bank of China will hesitate in cutting rates. Therefore, we now expect just one more 27 bp (basis point) cut this year -- down from three in our earlier forecast -- and see that as more of a symbolic reaction to deflation," Sun said in a report.

/... http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINPEK32186320090310?rpc=44&sp=true

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cbc200e6-0cda-11de-a555-0000779fd2ac.html

European ministers said on Monday they had no plans to add to recent fiscal stimulus packages despite calls from the US for radical expansions in government action to boost ailing economies.

Meeting in Brussels, finance ministers from the countries in the eurozone said they wanted first to see the effect of stimulus packages that had been passed. Peer Steinbrück, the German finance minister, said: “We are not debating any additional measures.”He said that Germany had recently passed a second stimulus package worth €50bn ($63bn, £46bn) and was also counting on the automatic fiscal stabilisers that increase government spending in a downturn.

Jean-Claude Juncker, chair of the “eurogroup” of ministers, said: “The 16 finance ministers agreed that recent American appeals insisting Europeans make an added budgetary effort were not to our liking.”Lawrence Summers, senior economic adviser to Barack Obama, US president, told the Financial Times recently that the Group of 20 countries should agree to boost government demand. On Monday Christina Romer, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said: “The more that countries throughout the world can move toward monetary and fiscal expansion, the better off we will all be.”

But European ministers are concerned that building up more government debt would threaten the stability of the eurozone and say that they want to assess the effects of spending boosts that have already been passed before considering more. The US Treasury declined to comment on their remarks on Monday.

....
A recent assessment by the International Monetary Fund said that the US had enacted new discretionary economic stimulus equal to 2 per cent of gross domestic product for 2009, compared with 1.5 per cent for Germany, 1.4 per cent for the UK and just 0.7 per cent for France. But the IMF said that automatic stabilisers were worth 2 per cent of GDP for the UK and France, which have relatively large welfare states, compared with 1.5 per cent for the US....

TOKYO, March 10 (Reuters) - Japan pledged on Tuesday to do whatever it takes to drag its ailing economy out of recession as a rift emerged between the United States and Europe over whether governments have done enough to fight the financial crisis.

Finance ministers from the G20 group of rich nations and big emerging powers meet at the weekend to prepare for a summit in London on April 2, where leaders hope to present a united front in tackling the worst economic crisis in decades.

"We'd like to act based on an agreement of countries across the globe that each nation will take whatever steps necessary to achieve an economic recovery," said Japanese Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano.

...

Yosano's comments appeared to put Japan in step with the United States, which seemed to suggest other major nations should step up their efforts to battle the crisis.

"We're doing more in weeks than other countries do in years," U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Reuters after briefing U.S. lawmakers on the administration's economic stimulus and financial stability programmes.

On Monday Lawrence Summers, U.S. President Barack Obama's chief economic adviser, had urged governments to pump more money into their economies to counter recession.

But that call was rejected when euro zone finance minister met the same day in Brussels.

"The 16 finance ministers agreed that recent American appeals insisting Europeans make an added budgetary effort were not to our liking, given that we are not prepared to go further in the recovery packages we have put forward," said Jean-Claude Juncker, who chaired the meeting. "We take the view that we don't need to make a further effort at the moment."

...

Analysts say Japanese banks, while not as badly mauled by the global financial crisis as Western peers, could hoard cash and be forced into a fresh round of capital raising soon as sliding stock prices swell their losses.

Yosano, who also holds the economy portfolio, said after a cabinet meeting that the government would consider steps such as issuing deficit-covering bonds to fund additional fiscal stimulus.

Japanese government bonds 2JGBv1 fell on worries about an increase in government debt issuance.

/... http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINSP47369420090310?rpc=44&sp=true

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/475b3a92-0cea-11de-a555-0000779fd2ac.html



A new private equity house was set to be born from the wreckage of Lehman Brothers on Monday, with investors in the failed US investment bank’s buy-out business expected to vote for its recreation in a shrunken form.

While many institutional investors are exiting their troubled private equity holdings, Johann Rupert, the South African billionaire, joined forces with managers from Lehman Brothers Merchant Banking Partners to buy it out of the bank.

....

On Monday night votes were being counted from 320 investors in LBMB, which is expected to have about $3.4bn of assets under management, mostly in the US and Europe. It is expected to secure the necessary majority to survive under new owners....

My guess is, we're seeing a little of the TARP (Pre-Obama) at work here.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dbb79f02-0d33-11de-8914-0000779fd2ac.html

Citigroup has had its best profit performance in over a year in the first two months of 2009 and has generated revenue of more than $19bn despite growing uncertainties over its future, chief executive Vikram Pandit told employees.

In a memo to Citi’s 300,000-plus global staff, Mr Pandit tried to allay fears over its share price, which is hovering around $1, and debt, reiterating that a planned capital injection by the US government and other investors would strengthen its balance sheet. The deal will turn the federal authorities into Citi’s single largest shareholder with a stake of up to 36 per cent.

Citi has suffered five consecutive quarters of multi-billion dollar losses on huge credit-related writedowns. Executives have pinned their hopes of dispelling market concerns over its survival on recording a profit in the first three months of 2009.

In the memo, Mr Pandit said: ‘We were profitable through the first two months of 2009 and are having are best quarter-to-date performance since the third quarter of 2007.”

The Citi chief added that in January and February alone – two months in which investment banks did well because of a partial thawing of credit markets – the bank generated revenues of $19bn before markdowns.

Citi executives said its investment bank, the former Salomon Brothers, had a good January and February in debt, equity and merger and acquisitions, but cautioned that markets had become tougher in March.

In a hint that constant speculation over its future might have taken at least some toll on parts of Citi’s sprawling business, Mr Pandit’s memo said Citi’s deposits were “relatively stable”. Citi executives have said they have not noticed any significant deposit flight during the company’s prolonged travails and Mr Pandit’s statement is the first suggestion that such a move, albeit small, might have occurred.

The memo also said that Citi has conducted its own “stress test”, using tougher assumptions on the scale of the economic downturn than those to be adopted by the US government and was “confident” of its capital strength.

Mr Pandit also addressed some investors’ concerns over Citi’s ability to reap the benefits of billions of dollars in deferred tax assets. The memo said that even if economic conditions deteriorated significantly, Citi would be able to take advantage of the majority of those assets, boosting its balance sheet.

TO WHICH THERE IS ONLY ONE POSSIBLE REPLY:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w2_1IX1L44

Music from "Spamalot"

Monty Python reference. I was sad to see BBC take the reruns off the their Friday night programing. I suppose the dead parrot skit will be appropriate when this sucker rally finally flops.

Have a good day everyone! We are just a sittin' and a waiting the blizzard thats comin' in. This is getting to be a realllly looong winter.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/75ede290-0d00-11de-a555-0000779fd2ac.html

The trustee who is recovering money for victims of the alleged fraud perpetrated by Bernard Madoff has approved 12 claims for payment totalling $6m, in the first tranche of money set to be released to investors.

Irving Picard, the trustee, said in a statement on Monday that he would be paying each of the claimants $500,000 from funds from the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, the non-government agency that helps customers of failed brokerages.

However, each of the claims exceeds the $500,000 limit and further money could be distributed as the trustee liquidates Mr Madoff’s business.

But Mr Picard recently said that he had recovered less than $1bn so far, underscoring what could be a long and complex process to return money to investors.

“Each claim requires not only the review of documents provided by the customer but also in-depth research and analysis of information about the customer’s account that is available from books and records,” the trustee said in the statement....

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6ec2c74a-0cfd-11de-a555-0000779fd2ac.html

Published: March 9 2009 23:14 | Last updated: March 9 2009 23:14

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Monday it was seeking to identify potential “victims” who invested in a slew of companies associated with Sir Allen Stanford as part of an ongoing investigation.

The agency is seeking information from anyone who invested in either Stanford Financial Group or its affiliated companies – Stanford Capital Management, the Stanford Group Company, the Stanford International Bank, the Stanford Trust Company, and the Bank of Antigua....

(Mixed small amounts.)

= Held by the Public + Intragovernmental(FICA)
= 6,662,243,974,550.62 + 4,289,334,334,308.40
UP 851,040,035.06 + DOWN 2,307,142,696.19

Source: Debt to the penny:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

THINKING IN BILLIONS: Think 3 or 4 dollars per billion in a 306-Million person America.
If every American, man, woman and child puts in $3.27 each THAT'S 1B$.
A family of three: Mom, Dad, Child: $9.81, ABOUT TEN BUCKS for a 1B$ federal program.
I hope that is clear. However, I'd suggest using $3 per 1B$ to underestimate it.
Use $4 per 1B$ to overestimate the cost when thinking: Is the federal program worth it?
Aid to Dependant Children: 2B$/yr =$8/yr(a movie a year) Family of 3: $24/yr(an hour of bowling)

PERSONALIZED DEBT:
Every 14 seconds we net gain a another American, so at the end of the workday of this report, there should be 305,924,658 people in America.
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html
Currently, each of these American's owe $35,798.29.
A family of three owes $107,394.86. (And that is IN ADDITION to their mortgage.)

ANALYSIS:
There were 20 reports in the last 30 to 28 days.
The average for the last 20 reports is 11,714,896,875.66.
The average for the last 30 days would be 7,809,931,250.44.
The average for the last 28 days would be 8,367,783,482.61.
There were 252 reports in 365 days of FY2007 averaging 1.99B$ per report, 1.37B$/day.
There were 253 reports in 366 days of FY2008 averaging 4.02B$ per report, 2.78B$/day.
There were 75 reports in 112 days of GWB's part of FY2009 averaging 8.03B$ per report, 5.38B$/day.
There were 32 reports in 45 days of Obama's part of FY2009 averaging 0.63B$ per report, 0.52B$/day so far.
There were 107 reports in 157 days of FY2009 averaging 8.66B$ per report, 5.90B$/day.

PROJECTION:
There are 1,416 days remaining in this Obama 1st term.
By that time the debt could be between 12.9 and 22.8T$.
It could be higher. It could be lower.

HISTORICAL:
President's term begins and ends on Jan 20.
(Guess who might want to hide the Reagan Bush years. Jan 20 data is missing before 1993.)
01/20/1993 _4,188,092,107,183.60 WJC Inaugural
01/22/2001 _5,728,195,796,181.57 WJC (UP 1,540,103,688,997.97)
01/20/2009 10,626,877,048,913.08 GWB (UP 4,898,681,252,731.43)
03/06/2009 10,951,578,308,859.02 BHO (UP 324,701,259,945.94 so far since Obama took office.)

Fiscal Year ends: Sep 30
Borrowed in FY1993: (Maybe later.)
Borrowed in FY1994: 281,261,026,873.94
Borrowed in FY1995: 281,232,990,696.07
Borrowed in FY1996: 250,828,038,426.34
Borrowed in FY1997: 188,335,072,261.61
Borrowed in FY1998: 113,046,997,500.28
Borrowed in FY1999: 130,077,892,735.81
Borrowed in FY2000: _17,907,308,253.43 Bill alone
Borrowed in FY2001: 133,285,202,313.20 Bill and George
Borrowed in FY2002: 420,772,553,397.10 All George
Borrowed in FY2003: 554,995,097,146.46
Borrowed in FY2004: 595,821,633,586.70
Borrowed in FY2005: 553,656,965,393.18
Borrowed in FY2006: 574,264,237,491.73
Borrowed in FY2007: 500,679,473,047.25
Borrowed in FY2008: 1,017,071,524,650.01
Borrowed in FY2009: 926,853,411,946.60 so far this fiscal year.

LAST FIFTEEN REPORTS OF ADDITIONS TO PUBLIC DEBT(NOT FICA):
02/13/2009 -000,268,428,512.00 ---
02/17/2009 +028,425,868,676.29 ------------********** Tue
02/18/2009 +000,178,127,394.43 ------------********
02/19/2009 +012,906,622,783.22 ------------**********
02/20/2009 +035,338,367,983.16 ------------**********
02/23/2009 -000,426,861,213.78 --- Mon
02/24/2009 +000,473,801,933.93 ------------********
02/25/2009 +000,413,635,509.27 ------------********
02/26/2009 +048,048,940,708.92 ------------**********
02/27/2009 +000,306,718,307.89 ------------********
03/02/2009 +074,163,317,993.12 ------------********** Mon
03/03/2009 +000,498,419,440.82 ------------********
03/04/2009 +000,625,214,862.41 ------------********
03/05/2009 +006,943,273,604.61 ------------*********
03/06/2009 +000,851,040,035.06 ------------********

208,478,059,507.35 Total of 15 above reports.

Heavy borrowing seems to start after 09/18/2008.
US borrowed $1,286,946,505,599.95 in last 169 days.
That's 1,287B$ in 169 days.
More than any year ever, including last year, and it's 127% of that highest year ever only in 169 days.
And it is over 100% of ANY dismal Bush, for any dismal Bush-year, ONLY IN 169 DAYS NOT 365.

For a prettier and more explanatory view of our nation's debt:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock

(Debt to the penny keeps changing. Stuff is missing. Best to keep our own history.) LAST REPORT:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3774124&mesg_id=3774163

(Mixed small amounts.)

= Held by the Public + Intragovernmental(FICA)
= 6,662,204,653,404.08 + 4,290,458,377,199.33
DOWN 39,321,146.54 + UP 1,124,042,890.93

Source: Debt to the penny:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

THINKING IN BILLIONS: Think 3 or 4 dollars per billion in a 306-Million person America.
If every American, man, woman and child puts in $3.27 each THAT'S 1B$.
A family of three: Mom, Dad, Child: $9.81, ABOUT TEN BUCKS for a 1B$ federal program.
I hope that is clear. However, I'd suggest using $3 per 1B$ to underestimate it.
Use $4 per 1B$ to overestimate the cost when thinking: Is the federal program worth it?
Aid to Dependant Children: 2B$/yr =$8/yr(a movie a year) Family of 3: $24/yr(an hour of bowling)

PERSONALIZED DEBT:
Every 14 seconds we net gain a another American, so at the end of the workday of this report, there should be 305,943,172 people in America.
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html
Currently, each of these American's owe $35,799.66.
A family of three owes $107,398.99. (And that is IN ADDITION to their mortgage.)

ANALYSIS:
There were 20 reports in the last 30 to 28 days.
The average for the last 20 reports is 11,746,841,487.77.
The average for the last 30 days would be 7,831,227,658.51.
The average for the last 28 days would be 8,390,601,062.69.
There were 252 reports in 365 days of FY2007 averaging 1.99B$ per report, 1.37B$/day.
There were 253 reports in 366 days of FY2008 averaging 4.02B$ per report, 2.78B$/day.
There were 75 reports in 112 days of GWB's part of FY2009 averaging 8.03B$ per report, 5.38B$/day.
There were 33 reports in 48 days of Obama's part of FY2009 averaging 0.56B$ per report, 0.42B$/day so far.
There were 108 reports in 160 days of FY2009 averaging 8.59B$ per report, 5.80B$/day.

PROJECTION:
There are 1,413 days remaining in this Obama 1st term.
By that time the debt could be between 12.9 and 22.8T$.
It could be higher. It could be lower.

HISTORICAL:
President's term begins and ends on Jan 20.
(Guess who might want to hide the Reagan Bush years. Jan 20 data is missing before 1993.)
01/20/1993 _4,188,092,107,183.60 WJC Inaugural
01/22/2001 _5,728,195,796,181.57 WJC (UP 1,540,103,688,997.97)
01/20/2009 10,626,877,048,913.08 GWB (UP 4,898,681,252,731.43)
03/09/2009 10,952,663,030,603.41 BHO (UP 325,785,981,690.33 so far since Obama took office.)

Fiscal Year ends: Sep 30
Borrowed in FY1993: (Maybe later.)
Borrowed in FY1994: 281,261,026,873.94
Borrowed in FY1995: 281,232,990,696.07
Borrowed in FY1996: 250,828,038,426.34
Borrowed in FY1997: 188,335,072,261.61
Borrowed in FY1998: 113,046,997,500.28
Borrowed in FY1999: 130,077,892,735.81
Borrowed in FY2000: _17,907,308,253.43 Bill alone
Borrowed in FY2001: 133,285,202,313.20 Bill and George
Borrowed in FY2002: 420,772,553,397.10 All George
Borrowed in FY2003: 554,995,097,146.46
Borrowed in FY2004: 595,821,633,586.70
Borrowed in FY2005: 553,656,965,393.18
Borrowed in FY2006: 574,264,237,491.73
Borrowed in FY2007: 500,679,473,047.25
Borrowed in FY2008: 1,017,071,524,650.01
Borrowed in FY2009: 927,938,133,691.00 so far this fiscal year.

LAST FIFTEEN REPORTS OF ADDITIONS TO PUBLIC DEBT(NOT FICA):
02/17/2009 +028,425,868,676.29 ------------********** Tue
02/18/2009 +000,178,127,394.43 ------------********
02/19/2009 +012,906,622,783.22 ------------**********
02/20/2009 +035,338,367,983.16 ------------**********
02/23/2009 -000,426,861,213.78 --- Mon
02/24/2009 +000,473,801,933.93 ------------********
02/25/2009 +000,413,635,509.27 ------------********
02/26/2009 +048,048,940,708.92 ------------**********
02/27/2009 +000,306,718,307.89 ------------********
03/02/2009 +074,163,317,993.12 ------------********** Mon
03/03/2009 +000,498,419,440.82 ------------********
03/04/2009 +000,625,214,862.41 ------------********
03/05/2009 +006,943,273,604.61 ------------*********
03/06/2009 +000,851,040,035.06 ------------********
03/09/2009 -000,039,321,146.54 ---- Mon

208,707,166,872.81 Total of 15 above reports.

Heavy borrowing seems to start after 09/18/2008.
US borrowed $1,288,031,227,344.34 in last 172 days.
That's 1,288B$ in 172 days.
More than any year ever, including last year, and it's 127% of that highest year ever only in 172 days.
And it is over 100% of ANY dismal Bush, for any dismal Bush-year, ONLY IN 172 DAYS NOT 365.

For a prettier and more explanatory view of our nation's debt:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock

(Debt to the penny keeps changing. Stuff is missing. Best to keep our own history.) LAST REPORT:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3775553&mesg_id=3775631

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5d8b5e18-0c14-11de-b87d-0000779fd2ac.html

Barack Obama’s top economic adviser has urged world leaders to pump more public money into the economy in a co-ordinated effort to boost demand and lift the world out of recession.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Lawrence Summers said the urgent need for a short-term increase in spending by governments temporarily overrode the longer-term goal of tackling the global imbalances many economists believe caused the financial crisis.

The US administration had no choice but to take strong public action to “save the market system from its own excesses”, he said.

His comments, ahead of next month’s crunch G20 summit in London, make it clear that the US administration wants industrialised nations to share responsibility for engineering a global demand-led recovery and does not believe this burden should fall on China alone.

“The old global imbalances agenda was more demand in China, less demand in America. Nobody thinks that is the right agenda now,” said Mr Summers.

“There’s no place that should be reducing its contribution to global demand right now. It is really the universal demand agenda.”

While the US and other western nations should return to living within their means in the medium term, everyone should raise spending sharply now.

“The right macro-economic focus for the G20 is on global demand and the world needs more global demand,” said Mr Summers.

Widely seen as being among the most pro-market voices in the White House, having been Bill Clinton’s last Treasury secretary in the 1990s, Mr Summers said the view that the market was inherently self-stabilising had been “dealt a fatal blow”.

At a time when the Republican critique of Washington’s aggressive response to the crisis is growing more trenchant, Mr Summers made an unapologetic case for government intervention.

“This notion that the economy is self-stabilising is usually right but it is wrong a few times a century. And this is one of those times . . . there’s a need for extraordinary public action at those times.”

Mr Summers’ influence in the White House is central, particularly given the difficult start to the tenure of Tim Geithner, Treasury secretary, whose nomination was overshadowed by the revelation that he failed to pay more than $34,000 dollars of taxes on time.

He put up a robust defence of the administration’s focus on tackling historically high rates of inequality in the US. But he insisted the underlying aim should be to restore the capitalist market system to health



IF THIS IS THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE, WE ARE DOOMED. TOO BAD IT'S ONLY MAYBE 4 WATTS....

Summers has blown smoke up peoples' asses for a very long time.

A better charlatan would be hard to come by.

One would like to think that Barack Obama would know better,

I guess the Harvard alum deal is hard to look past....

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3f9a2bd8-0c0e-11de-b87d-0000779fd2ac.html


Falls in the value of financial assets worldwide might have reached more than $50,000bn, equivalent to a year’s global economic output, the Asian Development Bank will warn on Monday.

Asia has been hit disproportionately hard, the bank will say, in a report that warns of many Asian stimulus plans lagging behind those of the leading global economies.

Separately, the World Bank said on Sunday that developing countries faced a financing gap of between $270bn and $700bn a year as capital flows dried up, with only a quarter of vulnerable countries able to cushion the blow of the economic downturn.

The ADB report estimates capital losses last year in Asia, excluding Japan, at $9,625bn, or 109 per cent of gross domestic product, compared with a global average of 80-85 per cent of GDP. For Latin America, the study estimates 2008 losses at $2,119bn, or 57 per cent of GDP.

“Even as Asia and Latin America have diversified their investment and trading partners, the effect of the slowdown on exports, finance and investment is earthshaking,” the report warns.

The ADB’s estimates take into account falling stock market valuations and losses in the value of bonds supported by mortgages and other assets, though not financial derivatives. About a fifth of the losses in dollar terms arise from the depreciation of many currencies against the US dollar.

The World Bank report said $2,500bn-$3,000bn in public and private debt in emerging markets needed to be rolled over in 2009, most of it denominated in foreign currencies. This would put pressure on developing country governments, many of which had inadequate reserves to help their banks and companies refinance, the bank said.

Although the bank itself and other official institutions such as the International Monetary Fund have been increasing their lending, even at the lower end of the $270bn-$700bn range “existing resources of international financial institutions would appear inadequate to meet financing needs this year”, it said.

The ADB study, to be presented on Monday by Haruhiko Kuroda, president, was commissioned from Centennial Group, a consultancy company.

Mr Kuroda says: “I am afraid things may get worse before they get better. However, I remain confident that Asia will be one of the first regions to emerge from it, and it will emerge stronger than ever before.”

I never feel a thing is real
When I'm away from you
Out of your embrace
The world's a temporary parking place
Mmm, mm, mm, mm
A bubble for a minute
Mmm, mm, mm, mm
You smile, the bubble has a rainbow in it


Say, its only a paper moon
Sailing over a cardboard sea
But it wouldn't be make-believe
If you believed in me
Yes, it's only a canvas sky
Hanging over a muslin tree
But it wouldn't be make-believe
If you believed in me
Without your love
It's a honky-tonk parade
Without your love
It's a melody played in a penny arcade
It's a Barnum and Bailey world
Just as phony as it can be
But it wouldn't be make-believe
If you believed in me

http://www.tsrocks.com/e/ella_fitzgerald_texts/its_only_a_paper_moon.html

Dow futes up 105 as I write this.

Go long? Not for longer than a day or two - this is another opportunity to get short, IMO.

Here's a take on a possible "bounce" today:

Bouncity-Bounce Time
http://market-ticker.org/archives/859-Bouncity-Bounce-Time.html

http://quotes.ino.com/chart/?s=NYBOT_DX&v=i

Last trade 88.565 Change -0.600 (-0.77%)

Why The Trend is Your Friend

http://www.bktraderfx.com/site/fx-weekly-reports/fx-weekly-0305-1209-why-the-trend-is-your-friend

This week I wanted digress from our usual format and discuss an interview with Bill Dreiss in the April 2009 issue of Active Trader magazine which I believe carries many useful insights on the art of trading. Mr. Dreiss has been successfully trading markets longer than most of us have been alive and while he is a strict systems guy while we at BKT are discretionary traders I agree with many of his observations and think its worthwhile to examine them in more detail.

Bill Dreiss has been trading since the early 1970’s before there was even a CFTC and a CFA accreditation, so it is fair to say that he has seen just about every type of a market environment there is, noting himself that “I’ve trading long enough that as far as I am concerned there is nothing new under the sun.” More importantly Mr. Dreiss has managed to not only to survive but to prosper for 40 years, and if there is one factor that you should prize in trading above all else it is longevity.

Not only is this game hard to master on a day to day basis, but it is extraordinarily difficult to maintain performance over the long term. Take anyone from a technician like the Elliot Wave guru Bob Prechter, to the ultimate fundamental investor like Warren Burret and you can see that irrespective of what side of the spectrum you stand on - long term success for even the best traders can be extremely elusive.

Mr. Prechter of course flamed out after the 1987 crash stubbornly calling for Dow 700 while the market started its greatest bull run in history of mankind and Warren Buffet- the “world greatest investor” now finds himself in such a mess financially that the cost of CDS insurance (the cost of insuring against the bankruptcy of Berkshire Hathaway debt) is now higher that that of Vietnam sovereign debt.

All the more interesting then to hear what Mr, Dreiss has to say given the fact that he has averaged nearly 19% compounded rate of return over the past 15 years and never had more than two losing years in a row. Mr. Dreiss message is actually quite straightforward and relatively simple.”If you’ve done your own research, as I have, its clear that markets exhibit persistence, which over the long term favors trend followers and weeds our strategies that favor risk aversion. Al that means is if a market is headed in a certain direction, its more likely to continue in that direction that it is to go in the other direction.”

Our whole BKT model is based around that central premise. We effectively look for two types pf trades - a breakout to trend or a retrace to trend opportunity. Of course those are not the only criteria we use, but unless we have the underlying framework we wont even consider a trade. None of this assures us of success, but it does increase our probabilities in the long run and that is all that we can ask for.

Trend traders often get eviscerated in choppy range bound environments and many novice retail traders when faced with this problem often like to resort to “reversion to the mean” trades averaging up or down into the position hoping that it will come back to profit. To that Bill Dreiss offers perhaps the strongest and best rebuke I have ever read anywhere so I will simply quote him at length.

“Suppose you go to Las Vegas and instead of playing a fair game where the chances are equal that you’ll win or lose, you are playing a game that’s actually stacked against you a bit. Nevertheless, you can double down and make money right? Just use the standard doubling down strategy and you’ll always make a steady return - as long as you don’t run out of money. That’s what Wall Street and many hedge funds do.

But the problem is, every now and then you run out of money. That’s what happened to LTCM. when the investmnet banks came in and bailed it out they learned to use the same approach. It’s a great strategy - if you can run it for several years and collect 2 percent management fees and 20 pecent incentive fees off of it, you can make a fortune. And when the thing blows up you don’t have to pay the money back.

This is the con game Wall Street has been running for at least the past couple of decades, which is now coming up apart. Madoff is considered a crook because he ran a Ponzi scheme, but it’s all a Ponzi scheme.”

...more...

US Dollar Could Succumb to Weak Fundamental Forces This Week

http://www.dailyfx.com/story/currency/eur_fundamentals/US_Dollar_Could_Succumb_to_1236561154388.html

The US dollar ended last week mixed across the majors as the currency gained against the British pound, euro, Japanese yen, Canadian dollar but fell versus the Swiss franc, New Zealand dollar, and Australian dollar. However, when looking at the big picture – aka the DXY Index – the greenback remains in the uptrend that started in mid-December, which presents potential for further gains. This bias would be negated on a DXY index break below Friday’s lows near 88.00, and ultimately, the outlook may depend greatly upon risk trends and where equities go in coming weeks.

Looking ahead to data releases this week, the big indicator to watch will hit the wires on Thursday at 08:30 ET. The Commerce Department is forecasted to report that US retail sales fell negative for the seventh time in the past eight months in February, as the surging unemployment rate, tight credit conditions, and a year-long recession weigh heavy on the minds of consumers. More specifically, advance retail sales are anticipated to have contracted 0.5 percent during the month, and excluding auto sales are expected to have slumped 0.2 percent, marking what may end up being a consistent trend through the first half of 2009. The impact of a disappointing result may be mixed for the US dollar, as the Federal Reserve has already cut the fed funds target to a record low range of 0.0 percent - 0.25 percent and has no room to cut further. As a result, it will be important to gauge the impact of the news on DJIA or S&P 500 futures, as a sharp shift could suggest either flight-to-quality or a pickup in risk appetite.

Other indicators to watch that may not be as market-moving, but just as important as a gauge of economic health include: jobless claims, the trade balance, the import price index, and the University of Michigan (U of M) consumer confidence survey. On March 12 at 08:30 ET, both initial and continuing jobless claims are anticipated to rise further, with the latter forecasted to hit fresh record highs of 5,150,000. On March 13 at 08:30 ET, low oil prices could help lead the trade deficit to narrow slightly to $38 billion from $39.9 billion while the annual rate of import price growth could plunge to a new record low of -13.6 percent. Finally, the U of M sentiment index is projected to fall to 55.0 from 56.3, which would mark the lowest level since May 1980.



...more...

... of too much savings overseas, and all that money pouring into the U.S.

Had nothing to do with the shell games of out-of-control credit default swaps and sliced-and-diced derivatives of derivatives of derivatives.

Riiiiight. :eyes:

President Obama, please cut this guy loose when his term is up.

March 10 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke urged a sweeping overhaul of U.S. financial regulations in an effort to smooth out the boom-and-bust cycles in financial markets.

“We should review regulatory policies and accounting rules to ensure that they do not induce excessive” swings in the financial system and economy, the central bank chief said today in remarks prepared for an address to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

Bernanke recommended that lawmakers and supervisors rethink everything from the amounts firms set aside against potential trading losses and deposit-insurance fees to protections for money-market funds. His remarks reflect a judgment that the U.S., just like emerging-market nations in the past, failed to properly manage a flood of capital over the past decade and a half.

Bernanke also reiterated his call for an agency to take on overarching responsibility for financial stability. While he didn’t specify which regulator should take that job, he noted that the Fed was first formed to address banking panics and said the initiative would “require” some role for the central bank.

Congress and the Obama administration are embarking on the broadest revamp of the oversight of U.S. finance since the Great Depression. Bernanke’s speech marks the Fed’s contribution to the policy debate.

Rival Regulators

Analysts are skeptical that the Fed will be the sole agency to emerge with more supervisory powers because Congress has been critical of the Fed’s regulatory oversight as the crisis grew.

Politicians and the public will “ask what was the Fed doing not only in 2007 and 2008, but what was it doing in 2005” during the credit boom, said Dino Kos, managing director at Portales Partners LLC in New York, and a former markets director of the New York Fed.

...

“Governments around the world must continue to take forceful and, when appropriate, coordinated actions to restore financial market functioning and the flow of credit,” Bernanke said today. “Until we stabilize the financial system, a sustainable economic recovery will remain out of reach.”

...

Among the biggest challenges faced by regulators is addressing the issue of banks that are so big and interconnected with other firms that their failure would put the entire banking system at risk.

Bernanke said firms that are too big to fail are “an enormous problem.” Large firms will require “especially close” oversight in the future, he said. Regulators need the authority to seize such firms, such as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. already has for deposit-taking institutions, he said.

Money Funds

Among other changes, Bernanke urged steps to protect against an outflow of money from money-market mutual funds, and said one market where banks and securities firms finance themselves -- known as the triparty repo market -- may need to move to a central clearing system.

“Given how important robust payment and settlement systems are to financial stability, a good case can be made for granting the Federal Reserve explicit oversight authority for systemically important payment and settlement systems,” Bernanke said.

The Fed chairman also called for a review of accounting and capital guidelines that may cause banks to pull back in downturns.

“We should review capital regulations to ensure that they are appropriately forward-looking, and that capital is allowed to serve its intended role as a buffer -- one built up during good times and drawn down during bad times,” the chairman said.

Accounting Changes

“Further review of accounting standards governing valuation and loss provisioning would be useful, and might result in modifications to the accounting rules that reduce their pro- cyclical effects,” Bernanke said.

Asked about rules that require companies to value some investments at their current market values, Bernanke said “I strongly endorse the basic proposition of mark-to-market, which is that we should make our financial institutions’ balance sheets as transparent, as clear as possible.” He added that he “would not support any suspension of mark-to-market.”

Still, in periods of financial stress, when some markets don’t exist or are highly illiquid, “the numbers that come out can be misleading or not very informative,” Bernanke said. Regulators could provide “guidance” on reasonable ways to value assets, he said.

‘Systemic Risk’

U.S. lawmakers, while agreeing on the need for federal supervision of “systemic risk,” have yet to agree on which agency should assume that role and its necessary statutory power.

/... http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=ae28zU9ATxmk&refer=economy

March 10 (Bloomberg) -- For more than a decade General Electric Co. could easily avoid disclosing the value of its real estate and business loans. Not any more.

Since Jan. 2, GE has lost 54 percent on the New York Stock Exchange, mostly because shareholders are no longer willing to accept whatever the Fairfield, Connecticut-based company tells them about its finance subsidiary unless it’s based on so-called mark-to-market accounting rules.

The world’s biggest maker of jet engines and power turbines told shareholders last week that 2 percent of GE Capital Corp.’s assets are being valued based on market prices. The remaining $624 billion is being carried at levels that GE, the last original member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, established in many cases years ago, according to CreditSights Inc.

“The notion of having 98 percent opaque and 2 percent valued with clarity is something that by its very nature would make investors nervous,” said Robert Arnott, founder of Research Affiliates LLC, which oversees $30 billion in Newport Beach, California and owned 481,201 GE shares as of Dec. 31. “Having some clarity on what the other 98 percent is worth is valuable.”

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said today that he wouldn’t support any suspension of mark-to-market accounting.

/... http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aanSIg9Vo6hA&refer=exclusive

Smells Like.....Fraud.

So The Futures Are Flying, and the Fairies Are Ready For A Full Court Press, With ALL NEW MATERIAL!

Here are your Turnaround Tuesday Propaganda Headlines, Ready for The Telescreens!......

For Immediate Release In the Meadow.....

Bernanke says regulatory overhaul needed
Tuesday March 10, 9:19 am ET
By Jeannine Aversa, AP Economics Writer
Bernanke calls for overhaul of nation's regulatory structure to avoid future financial crises

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's financial regulatory system must be overhauled to strengthen oversight of banks, mutual funds and large financial institutions whose collapse would put the entire economy in peril, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Tuesday.

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"We must have a strategy that regulates the financial system as a whole, in a holistic way, not just its individual components," Bernanke said in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations.

The Fed chief's remarks come as the Obama administration and Congress are starting to crafting their overhaul strategies. For the administration, critical work on that front will be carried out among global finance officials this weekend in London. That will help set the stage for a meeting of leaders from the world's 20 major economic powers in April.

Revamping the U.S. financial rule book -- a patchwork that dates to the Civil War -- is a complex task. Congress, the administration and the Fed are involved because they want to strengthen the system to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis -- the worst since the 1930s-- that has plunged the U.S. and many other countries' economies into recession.

:eyes: Just :eyes:

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/090310/bernanke.html



Pandit: Citi operating at profit through February
Tuesday March 10, 7:43 am ET
By Stephen Bernard, AP Business Writer
Citi CEO says bank had operating profit in first 2 months of year

NEW YORK (AP) -- Citigroup Inc. has been operating at a profit through the first two months of the year, according to a letter that the embattled bank's chief executive sent to employees.

In the letter sent Monday, CEO Vikram Pandit said Citi had an operating profit of $8.3 billion before taxes and special items through February. Pandit said the first-quarter performance so far has been the bank's best since the last time it recorded net income for a full quarter -- that was in the July-September period in 2007.

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Provisions that could offset all or part of the operating profit include credit losses, write-downs and additions to loan-loss reserves. Pandit did not disclose the size of any potential provisions.

Citi has been among the hardest hit banks by the ongoing credit crisis and recession. It has been forced to take tens of billions of dollars in write-downs and loan losses since late in 2007 as the value of its investments plummet and more customers fall behind on repaying loans.

The New York-based bank has posted five consecutive quarterly losses, including a fourth-quarter loss of $8.29 billion.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/090310/citigroup_ceo_letter.html

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Oh Vik!!!!! Baby!!!!! You're Killing Me!!!! Stop!!!!! STOP!!!!!


European markets buoyed by Citigroup hopes
Tuesday March 10, 7:57 am ET
By Pan Pylas, AP Business Writer
European markets buoyed by Citigroup hopes; Nikkei hits new 26-year low

LONDON (AP) -- European stock markets rallied Monday on hopes that the worst may be over for Citigroup Inc. after a leaked memo from the company's chief executive Vikram Pandit indicated that the troubled U.S. banking giant enjoyed its best financial performance in over a year during the first two months of 2009.

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Most Asian stocks rose, though Japan's Nikkei closed at a new 26-year low, while U.S. stock futures pointed up.

In a letter sent to employees Monday, Pandit said Citi had an operating profit of $8.3 billion before taxes and special items through February. He says that is the bank's best performance since the third quarter of 2007.

Even though Pandit did not say how large the special items, such as credit losses and writedowns, are, the memo was enough to spark a modest amount of buying. The letter was written to reassure employees as the New York-based bank's stock has taken a beating in recent weeks as the government is increasing its stake in the bank.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/090310/world_markets.html

Wow. Just WOW. You can't MAKE this stuff up. I mean my God, I didn't even think things were going to get this Bizarre.

When Citi finally gets Nationalized, we are forever going to be re-visiting this morning. There are just no words for what these people are doing.

It's pretty clear that this is all a game to them.

And you know who the loser ultimately will end up being.

US.

Jail These Bastards.

PERIOD.

YAY! Stock market euphoria thanks to Citi!!!!1!!

http://www.tijd.be/nieuws/markten/Beurzeneuforie_met_dank_aan_Citigroup.8154624-442.art

Really now. I would post over there if I hadn't already found out they do NOT allow honest discourse on the state of things.

I used to think this was as serious a finance paper as you can get - now (after several "hooray time to buy end of the tunnel-episodes) I know they are just a propaganda rag.

made an easy and substantial 1-day profit.

But, of course, insider-dealing is highly-regulated, always investigated and very illegal. :sarcasm:

The only people regulated have the first name Martha!

NOTICE how it leaves a perfect out for this weasel when they end up reporting a LOSS for the 1st Quarter.

"Oh, we were doing SO WELL the first two months of the year, Maria! Things were really looking up, and it looked like we were going to turn the quarter, but as you know, there are THREE MONTHS in the corner, and who could have FORSEEN......Such a tough, tough Break. Oh well! There's always NEXT QUARTER! Oops, look at that. NATIONALIZATION! Darn It All!"

The gall of these people is nothing short of stunning.

On Edit: In reality what they will probably do is follow the Barclays model and just expand their balance sheets to make their profits look good.

There is no end to the Madness.

They will do ANYTHING to stay breathing, and to keep their BS flowing, and their Status Quo Buoyed.

Even if it means killing the rest of us.

It's never been about us. It's always been about them keeping their power and money (our money).

So for the wealthy few, they are willing to bring down not only our country, but the whole global world, just to keep their Status Quo.

May they rot in hell.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123553469005467485.html

Talks? Fuck him. FDIC takeover, and break them up.

On edit: As the immortal John McCay once said, when asked about his team's (Tampa Bay Bucs) execution.

"I'm all for it".

:evilgrin:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/03/house_of_cards.php

Paper shorted the close yesterday in the pit and got DESTROYED; they ran in and covered this morning and lit it up.

Now we're into institutional and personal short covering - traders got too aggressive as shorting any pop was the right play for over a month.

We keep blasting through overhead levels and as each one goes down more bears go underwater and cover which just adds more fuel.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/09/business-interests-weaken_n_173317.html

bump to the top. Dana ; )

LONDON, March 10 (Reuters) - European shares closed higher on Tuesday, snapping a three-day losing run, with banking stocks surging after a positive Citigroup (C.N) memo.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3 index of top shares rose 5 percent to close provisionally at 689.94 points, the biggest one-day percentage gain since Dec. 8.

...

"This is a market less sensitive to bad news, and more sensitive to good news," said Bob Parker, vice chairman of asset management at Credit Suisse.

He added: "Markets are focusing on Citigroup. People are now less paranoid about the banking sector. There is a feeling that further writeoffs in the banks are going to be minor."

A Citigroup memo helped boost sentiment in the banking sector.

...

Citigroup shares rose more than 37 percent on Wall Street.

Back in Europe, banking shares were the standout winners. BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA), Banco Santander (SAN.MC), Barclays (BARC.L), Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX), Deutsche Bank DBGKn.DE, HSBC (HSBA.L), and UBS (UBSN.VX) all rose between 10.4 and 17.7 percent.

Energy stocks reversed earlier losses, as crude futures CLc1 prices ticked up to above $47 a barrel. Total (TOTF.PA), ENI (ENI.MI), BP (BP.L), Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) and Repsol (REP.MC) were up between 3 and 8.5 percent.

Across Europe, the FTSE 100 .FTSE index was up 4.9 percent, Germany's DAX .GDAXI was 5.3 percent higher and France's CAC 40 .FCHI was up 5.7 percent.

/... http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idCALA1619720090310?rpc=44

I modified the headline a little.

LONDON, March 10 (Reuters) - Britain's leading share index rallied nearly 5 percent on Tuesday, led by banks as a Citigroup (C.N) memo lifted sentiment towards the battered sector and by commodity stocks which tracked firmer raw material prices.

The FTSE 100 .FTSE closed 172.83 points or 4.9 percent higher at 3,715.23, gaining for the third day in a row. It was the biggest one-day percentage increase since December 8.

...

Barclays (BARC.L) surged 9.9 percent, also helped by an upgrade from Credit Suisse to "outperform" from "neutral", while HSBC (HSBA.L) bounced more than 14 percent after losing one-third of its value since Feb. 26.

Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY.L), Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L) and Standard Chartered (STAN.L) surged between 8 percent and 16.3 percent.

"Banks and financials are driving equities higher today, and it is good to see a little bit of confidence returning to the market," said Angus Campbell, head of sales at Capital Spreads.

"The outlook is pretty dire, technically still very weak. But news over the recent days has been so dire, we may have overextended the recent falls and in the absence of any news flow and any economic data the market is finding a little bit of momentum and a little bit of support."

European shares also finished the day higher, while U.S. stocks rallied, boosted by comments from Rep. Barney Frank that he expected the Securities and Exchange Commission uptick rule to be restored in about a month.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said he did not favour suspending mark-to-market financial accounting, but understood the problem of valuing assets in highly disrupted markets.

The International Monetary Fund warned that the world economy will likely contract this year in a "Great Recession".

In the UK, industrial output fell 2.9 percent in February -- more than twice as fast as expected -- and shrank at its fastest annual pace since January 1981, while the British Retail Consortium said the value of like-for-like retail sales fell 1.8 percent last month, compared with a year ago.

Volumes on the FTSE were more than 130 percent of the index's 90-day average daily volume.

INSURERS, COMMODITIES SHINE

Beaten-down insurers also rebounded, with Prudential (PRU.L), Standard Life (SL.L), Old Mutual (OML.L), Friends Provident (FP.L) and Legal & General (LGEN.L) rising 15.3 percent to 21 percent.

Miners tracked stronger base metal prices. Kazakhmys (KAZ.L), Eurasian Natural Resources (ENRC.L), Xstrata (XTA.L), Anglo American (AAL.L), BHP Billiton (BLT.L) and Rio Tinto (RIO.L) were up between 7.9 percent and 14.5 percent.

...

Firmer crude prices aided oil producers. BP (BP.L) put on 3 percent and Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) added 4.6 percent.

Security firm G4S (GFS.L) advanced 6.4 percent after it posted a 23 percent rise in 2008 profit and hiked its dividend by 30 percent.

Man Group (EMG.L) soared 13 percent after Citigroup upgraded the hedge fund manager to "buy" from "sell", saying it sees the firm as a survivor of the hedge fund industry turmoil.

/... http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idCALA94518520090310?rpc=44&sp=true

most of them): Capital punishment is frowned upon in Europe, you know.

But someone may think up something much worse... :evilgrin:

shareholder with a grudge.

March 10 (Bloomberg) -- Industrial production plunged in the U.K. and France in January, threatening to push Europe into a deeper recession.

U.K. factory output fell 2.9 percent from December and 6.4 percent in the three months through January, the most in at least four decades. French industrial production sank 3.1 percent on the month, five times the pace predicted by economists, and 13.8 percent from a year earlier.

...

“Manufacturing is being very hard hit and there’s little prospect of a turnaround,” said Collin Ellis, European economist at Daiwa Securities SMBC Europe Ltd. in London. “The data raises fresh questions about the severity of the European downturn.”

British manufacturing has now dropped for 11 months, the worst streak of contraction since 1980, when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister. Factory production accounts for about 15 percent of the economy, compared with about 75 percent for services and 6 percent for construction.

“This is unbelievably grim,” Alan Clarke, a London-based economist at BNP Paribas SA, said in an interview. “There’s no sign of the slowdown abating. The Bank of England will probably need to do more.”

Out of 13 categories of manufacturing, nine fell and four rose on the month, the statistics office said. Transport equipment, electrical, optical goods, and machinery and equipment led the declines. Production of motor vehicles and auto parts drove the slump in the transport category, the data showed.

Car Sales

European car production will probably fall 25 percent and sales are likely to drop 20 percent this year, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association said on March 5.

Separate reports today showed the French trade deficit swelled in January as the value of exports fell to the lowest in almost four years, while German shipments slid for the fourth straight month by declining 4.4 percent on the month.

/... http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=aUvgE0D.somI&refer=economy

They're reporting a plea deal may be in the--

Hold up! That's what a Wall Street Journal blog said. AP and Bloomberg say he did NOT waive indictment, but is "ready to." And they expect a plea deal, perhaps on March 12. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hnkPe640MG8WMCAvAwv5GqtqxsOAD96OOHS00
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a_rj0dqCKdzw&refer=home

There's a "mini-Madoff," Bruce Karatz, former CEO opf KB Home, who another report says was indicted. "Karatz was indicted by a federal grand jury on 20 counts of mail, wire and securities fraud, and making false statements." That's from: http://jta.org/news/article/2009/03/09/1003564/mini-madoffs-facing-federal-fraud-raps

Another Bruce, Bruce Friedman, has not been indicted, but has been sued by the SEC, kinda like Stanford. "Friedman, 59, is accused in a SEC lawsuit of using his two investment firms to bilk some 300 clients across the country, mostly senior citizens, of at least $17 million to support a luxurious lifestyle and high-profile philanthropies. He had pleaded no contest to a felony charge of grand theft in 1981 and was sentenced to 40 months in the California state prison." (From the same link.)

R. Allen Stanford remains unindicted and unarrested, despite being accused of billions in fraud.

Just can't find any reports of rich folk in jail. Apparently that scale Justice holds up is to weigh the defendant's wallet. If it's heavy enough, you get a pass.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Alphonse_Karr - also: On the proposal to abolish capital punishment, "je veux bien que messieurs les assassins commencent" — "let the gentlemen who do the murders take the first step".

Plus I do not have the time to chase down the news reports. I'm hoping a blogger will round up the news with stats.

It took just about forever, but it did happen, regardless of the grounds.

This is a pump, a "fascist float" as I call it, a prop that makes shorts run for cover. The S&P could rally another 180 points and still be in a downtrend.

What a short term rally.

Usually a false sense of optimism descends on the place while there's a dearth of economic data to report.

Pandit has shouted himself hoarse over the past three weeks announcing to the world how chest-poundingly strong is his company Cult of Citi. Jeebus! Some people never matured beyond high school in the image they present of themselves to the world.

but hey, I'll cheer along with you: GO TEAM CITI! RAH RAH RAH!

RAH RAH RAH:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :party: :party: :party: :toast: :toast: :toast: :puffpiece: :puffpiece: :puffpiece: :fistbump: :fistbump: :woohoo: :woohoo: :applause: :applause: :spray:

But how is unemployment doing for the first week of March? When will that come out? Thursday?

It portends to be yet another grounding report. It's also Triple Witching day.

Hope... investors have hope that our Congressional representatives will serve them fairy tale fodder on a platter.

Dow 6,926.49 Up 379.44 (5.80%)
Nasdaq 1,358.28 Up 89.64 (7.07%)
S&P 500 719.60 Up 43.07 (6.37%)
10-Yr Bond 2.982% Up 0.096
NYSE Volume 9,623,291,000
Nasdaq Volume 2,433,966,500

4:30 pm : All three major indices registered fresh multiyear closing lows in the prior session, but came rallying back this session to log their best single-session performance by percent in months. The rebound came after Citigroup issued an encouraging update and reports indicated the uptick rule may be reinstated.

Citigroup (C 1.45, +0.40) told investors that it earned a profit during the first two months of 2009. Given the conditions and challenges facing the financial sector, news that the beleaguered financial giant is moving in the right direction supported a bid for financial stocks.

Financial stocks were further bolstered by reports that House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank said he believes the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will reinstate the uptick rule as early as next month. The rule would help prevent traders from adding to the momentum of falling stocks. That could be particularly helpful to financial stocks, which have fallen more than 40% year-to-date.

Investors are also hoping that a congressional committee meeting this week will move to temporarily relax mark-to-market rules. The rules have caused banks and financial firms to incur massive write-downs, which have driven losses and destroyed capital.

Rep. Frank stated mark-to-market accounting rules must be improved, but Senator Shelby says any mark-to-market accounting changes should be made by the SEC. The SEC stated it will not seek to suspend such rules.

Financial stocks surged 15.6% this session, providing leadership to the broader market, which had become quite oversold in recent sessions. The stock market's advance was further helped by short-covering. Still, trading volume on the NYSE climbed above 2 billion shares, which is well above recent averages, suggesting there was also some conviction behind the advance.

Roughly 97% of the companies in the S&P 500 finished with a gain. All 30 of the Dow components closed higher.

Investors showed little reaction to Fed Chairman Bernanke's speech about financial reform and systemic risk.

Other corporate news also had little effect on sentiment. Whirlpool (WHR 23.11, +3.72) reaffirmed its 2009 outlook, which allows for an upside surprise, but United Technologies (UTX 40.79, +3.23) issued estimates that fall short of the consensus. Texas Instruments (TXN 15.66, +0.97) and Exelon (EXC 42.57, -1.27) expect earnings that are in-line with analysts' expectations. Kroger (KR 21.44, +1.98) issued upside guidance along with better-than-expected fourth quarter earnings results.

Economic data was lackluster. Monthly wholesale inventories fell 0.7% in January. Economists, on average, expected a decline of 1.0% in January. The prior reading was revised modestly lower to reflect a 1.5% decline. DJ30 +379.44 NASDAQ +89.64 NQ100 +6.6% R2K +7.1% SP400 +6.9% SP500 +43.07 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2243/2.15 bln/468 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2918/2.15 bln/221

Usually he's a leader without a crowd.