Morning Report

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Brent Nyitray

Vital Statistics:

Last Change Percent
S&P Futures 1355.9 0.0 0.00%
Eurostoxx Index 2513.0 -6.0 -0.24%
Oil (WTI) 106.31 0.0 0.03%
LIBOR 0.4906 -0.001 -0.20%
US Dollar Index (DXY) 78.971 -0.254 -0.32%
10 Year Govt Bond Yield 2.03% 0.02%

Markets are flat on a better than expected jobs report. Initial Jobless claims were 351k vs 355k expected, and continuing claims dropped to 3,392k vs 3,455k expected. The FHFA House Price Index will be released at 10:00 am and the Kansas City Fed Manufacturing Activity Index will be released at 11:00. Bonds and MBS are flat-to-slightly lower.

Freddie Mac released its February Economic Outlook yesterday. Punch line: Housing is recovering gradually. Interesting statistic from the report regarding affordability:  “At the end of 2011, a family earning the median family income had almost double the income necessary to qualify for a conventional loan covering 80% of a median-priced existing singly-family home.” Mortgage applications rose by 4.1% in January, and 80% of those were for refinancings. We are entering a seasonally strong period for house prices – it will be interesting to see if low rates and low prices finally pull people off the sidelines.

For a glass-half empty view, look here. Mark Hanson makes a very good point – that when a stock doesn’t do what it is supposed to do in response to news or events traders will key on that and position accordingly. A market darling that “beats” earnings expectations but doesn’t go up is a great short candidate. Mark makes the same point with housing – we have record low interest rates and affordability, yet housing isn’t going up. Which means it is going lower.

A few years ago, everyone was talking about the yen carry trade. Japanese companies would borrow yen for basically nothing and invest in higher yielding assets overseas, typically in Europe. Traders would watch the Euro / Yen cross rate like hawks, and every time the euro weakened against the yen, world markets would roll over. After the financial crisis drove everyone into Treasuries, people have been wondering when the dollar carry trade would take over. Well, it looks like that day has come. J.P. Morgan has been picking up European MBS to find some yield. While a $72 billion bet on foreign MBS is a drop in the bucket, if JPM is doing it, so is everyone else.

 

Filed under: Uncategorized | 19 Comments »

Bits & Pieces (Wednesday Night Open Mic)

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Kevin S. Willis

An Actress of Rare Beauty, Gladys Frazin, from the days of more modest covers of National Police Gazette.

Looking for evidence that we are indeed moving forward as a society, and humanity is progressing nicely? Then, look to the past and National Police Gazette, and contemplate the fact that it finally stopped publishing in 1977. Progress, people. Progress.

Filed under: Bits and Pieces, Uncategorized | Tagged: | 4 Comments »

Morning Report

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Brent Nyitray

Vital Statistics:

Last Change Percent
S&P Futures 1359.4 -0.7 -0.05%
Eurostoxx Index 2526.7 -14.9 -0.59%
Oil (WTI) 106.1 -0.2 -0.14%
LIBOR 0.4916 -0.001 -0.20%
US Dollar Index (DXY) 79.286 0.178 0.23%
10 Year Govt Bond Yield 2.05% -0.01%

Markets are weaker this morning on a weaker than expected economic report out of Europe and a lousy forecast from Dell. Mortgage applications fell 4.5% for the week ending Feb 17. Existing Home Sales will be released at 10:00 am.

Obama has laid out the broad brush strokes for a corporate tax overhaul. He plans on lowering the statutory rate to 28%, while eliminating loopholes. His plan will benefit domestic manufacturers and he will target the energy sector for more revenues.  It looks like he is proposing some sort of AMT for corporations, with a minimum tax for overseas earnings. The plan will be revenue-enhancing.

Of course, the devil is always in the details, and hopefully the administration is smart enough to draw a distinction between overseas production meant to be sold overseas and outsourcing to cut costs. He could end up hurting US competitiveness if he doesn’t think this through.

The FHFA sent a letter outlining its plan for the GSEs aptly titled “The Next Chapter in a story that Needs an Ending.” It is a strategic document, not a step-by-step plan. They intend to build a new infrastructure for the secondary market, gradually reduce the footprint of Fannie and Freddie, while maintaining foreclosure prevention activities and credit availability.

With the S&P 500 rallying, bonds have sold off a bit, driving best-ex mortgage rates back over 4%. FWIW (and I am not a big technical analysis guy) it appears the March Treasury futures are stuck in a 140-145 range, which implies a yield range of 1.85% to 2.05%. We are again at the top end of that range. As I have mentioned before, the S&P 500 is right up against resistance and looks like it wants to break out. The Fed has been stepping into the MBS market when rates hit these levels, so we’ll see if that continues.

Filed under: Federal Reserve, housing | 67 Comments »

Bits & Pieces (Tuesday Night Open Mic)

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Kevin S. Willis

"I can tell you exactly how this will look in one hundred years."

Climate Models Need Revising. And those will need revising. And then those will need revising. Because the climate is god-awful complicated and the predictive power of computer modeling on god-awful complicated systems is still in its infancy. Which is why deniers often bring up our inability to accurately predict the weather a few days (sometimes a few hours) in advance: not because climate = weather, but predicting outcomes in both cases is god-awful complicated, and using them for forecasting the future has, at least currently, very little efficacy.

These results are significant as until now projections of the possible effects of predicted climate change have assumed that droughts and heat waves would always have an effect on ecosystems – and that in turn would lead on to carbon level changes leading to more temperature rises and so on. These assumptions may now have to be revisited.

Also in Climate News: Leaked Climate Gate emails are good and wholesome and totally whistleblowingly appropriate, if they are the emails of climate change skeptics. But could one of them be plant?

°°°

The 4 Reasons Why Human Beings Will Never Understand Each Other.

… It’s harder to think that these are human beings who probably don’t arbitrarily decide on a hobby of being wrong about things because it is fun, and that they’re being driven by basic human qualities that we also have, like fear or ego. Or that they feel the need to make larger-than-life monsters and heroes out of real people (throwing away facts to do so) in order to make sense out of the confusing and painful situation our country has been going through (the economy, the release of the Ghost Rider sequel, etc.).

They’re not good reasons, but they are reasons, beyond just “They’re bad people, that’s what bad people do.”

One of the most poorly used words to describe why bad people do what they do is “hate.” Everything from racial attacks to bullying to terrorism to political rhetoric is driven by “hate,” which has pretty much become a catch-all word to cover any kind of conflict.

Unfortunately, sometimes this gives the wrong impression that all the racists, sexists and demagogues are basically the same — they have some kind of burning anger against people who are different and just want to lash out against them. Who knows where it comes from, and who cares?

… But no fucking human being wakes up in the morning and schemes about how they are going to “destroy America” for the sake of evil. No matter how awful you think abortion supporters or opponents are, they’ve convinced themselves that the side they picked is really the right thing to do or, at the very least, they are getting money or positive attention by lobbying for it.

Even people who worship Satan do it because they think it will make them look cool. People do what they do because they think it’s right, or to benefit themselves, or both. Nobody pursues evil like some kind of charitable cause …

And plenty other good points.

•••

A review of Apple’s upcoming release of OS X 10.8 (or Mountain Lion).

No new news on ancient Japanese scrolls that depict the incredible ninja-warrior powers of flatulence. Alas.

A bizarre write-in campaign to keep the Democrats from running anyone against Scott Walker by writing in Scott Walker as his challenger in the primary. How does that work legally? Since Walker cannot run against himself, why not just dismiss the votes clearly intended to sabotage the election? I have a hard time seeing this working.

∞∞∞

A vote for Rick Santorum is a vote against Satan. I’m having a hard time getting the audio through the net nanny, but this does not seem smart.

Also, Rick apparently believes that “pursuit of happiness” exclusively means “doing the will of God”. Given that “pursuit of happiness” was at one point the more specific “right to own property”, I think Santorum has that almost exactly backwards. He’s at least 172° out of phase.

And that’s that for me! — KW

__________________________________

For the Calvin and Hobbes fans: Pants are overrated

— Mike

Filed under: Bits and Pieces | Tagged: , | 10 Comments »

Morning Report

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Brent Nyitray

Vital Statistics:

Last Change Percent
S&P Futures 1363.6 3.9 0.29%
Eurostoxx Index 2532.8 -17.4 -0.68%
Oil (WTI) 105.04 1.8 1.74%
LIBOR 0.4926 -0.001 -0.10%
US Dollar Index (DXY) 79.145 0.005 0.01%
10 Year Govt Bond Yield 2.03% 0.03%

We have a deal in Greece. Bondholders had to take a slightly bigger haircut – 53% vs 50% already agreed to. The $170 billion will be more than enough for Greece to meet its payment at the end of March. The Eurostoxx index is down slightly on the news – another case of “buy the rumor, sell the fact.”

Are we out of the woods with Greece?  No. Greece intends to hold elections in the next few months, and there is nothing preventing a new government from undoing all of the austerity measures imposed for this deal.

The Chicago Fed released its National Activity Index this morning. It came in at .22, which indicates the economy is growing faster than its historical trend.  An index value of zero means the economy is growing at its historical trend.  Employment and Production were large positive components, while Consumption and Housing were negative components. December was revised higher as well.

The Home Despot reported better than expected earnings this morning, which should be another positive indicator for housing and the economy. Macy’s also reported a strong holiday selling season.

Economic data on tap this week:  Existing Home Sales on Wed, Initial Jobless Claims on Thurs, New Home Sales on Fri.

Filed under: Earnings Announcements, Economic data, Greece | 12 Comments »

Sequestering CO2 to get more Oil!

Posted on February 21, 2012 by markinaustin

This could be cool.  Clean coal, more oil.

Of course, the coal is filthy, but NRG in TX has a plan to pump the CO2 deep into an old abandoned oil field in S. Texas.  Pump it deep enough, the theory goes, and it won’t come back into the atmosphere.  Here, the greenhouse gas, pumped into the oil bearing formation, will force the remaining oil out of the rock, making it recoverable.

The story also presents the critics, of course – but I thought I would post a “good news” story to begin the week.

And here’s the written story:

http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2012/02/21/how-biggest-power-plant-in-texas-will-use-pollution-to-pump-oil/

Filed under: Energy, global warming | 8 Comments »

Bits & Pieces (Monday Night Open Mic)

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Kevin S. Willis

Apparently, Obama Girl is becoming disillusioned with Barack. And doing it to the tune of “You’re The One That I Want” from the hit musical Grease! 

 

 

Kind of unspecific, but certainly not as head-over-heels as Obama Girl’s 2008 videos.

Ancient Japanese Fart Scrolls. Nuff said.

Why do Tiger’s Have Stripes? Alan Turing figured it out years ago!

ABC tours the Foxconn’s factory that makes all the groovy Apple stuff.

As a call back to a recent discussion a brief history of Coke cans. There was once a 32 oz can with a cone top and a bottle cap that required a bottle opener, like the classic glass bottles.

Filed under: Bits and Pieces, Obama | Tagged: , , | 257 Comments »

Citizen’s United II

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Mike

Tom Goldstein at SCOTUSblog posted over the weekend about the upcoming challenge to the Montana SC decision upholding a ban on corporate expenditures in state elections. While the case itself is likely not going to be all that exciting (the Citizens United majority will assuredly reverse the MT SC), the inside baseball look that Goldstein provides on Ginsburg/Breyer’s grant staying the MT SC decision is very interesting.

An excerpt:

What, then, does Justice Ginsburg’s statement tell us? First, these two Justices at this stage recognize a square conflict between the Montana Supreme Court’s decision and Citizens United. They “vote[d] to grant the stay” because the state supreme court was “bound to follow this Court’s decisions” – ipso facto, the state court’s ruling did not follow Citizens United. If these two strong opponents of Citizens United see that conflict, then presumably the Citizens United majority does as well. That means that the state’s argument that its law is distinguishable because it “imposes far different obligations” than did the statute in Citizens United has no traction for a potential majority as a ground for distinction, though perhaps it could be a basis on which Citizens United could be “modified.”

Second, look to what Justice Ginsburg does not say. The statement indicates no sympathy for the claim that this case does not present an appropriate opportunity to consider the question presented. So there is no interest in the state’s contention that, with respect to these petitioners, “the Act operates as no more than a disclosure law of the sort this Court has long upheld.” As a result, the state has to work from the understanding that certiorari is certain to be granted, and the case is going to present the question whether Citizens United should be overruled or modified.

Third, and most important, the statement seemingly identifies the argument that Justices Ginsburg and Breyer think has the best chance: “whether, in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates’ allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway” or instead should be “withdrawn or modified.” That argument should be based on the practical evidence of “Montana’s experience, and experience elsewhere.”

Filed under: Uncategorized | 29 Comments »

Bites & Pieces (Sunday Edition)

Posted on February 19, 2012 by okiegirl

I’ve missed Bites & Pieces, so here goes.

We’re already getting some lovely asparagus at the markets where I shop and at relatively inexpensive price, so I thought this recipe might be timely. It’s easy and quick to make, and I love it with poached salmon.  Adapted from eatingwell.com.

Asparagus Pasta

Asparagus Pasta
Ingredients

  • 8 ounces whole-wheat penne pasta
  • 1 bunch asparagus, trimmed and cut into 3/4-inch pieces
  • 1 1/2 cups low-fat  buttermilk
  • 4 teaspoons whole-grain mustard
  • 4 teaspoons flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
  • 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 3 tablespoons minced garlic
  • 2 teaspoons minced fresh tarragon, or 1/2 teaspoon dried
  • 1 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest
  • 2 teaspoons lemon juice
  • 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided

Preparation

  1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Meanwhile, whisk milk, mustard, flour, salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant and lightly browned, 30 seconds to 1 minute. Whisk in the milk mixture. Bring to a simmer, stirring constantly, and cook until thickened. Stir in tarragon, lemon zest and juice.  Remove from heat.
  2. When water boils, add pasta and cook for 3 minutes less than the package directions. Add asparagus, reserving tips, and continue cooking until the pasta and asparagus are just tender, 3 minutes more. Drain and return to the pot.
  3. Stir the sauce and reserved asparagus tips into the pasta-asparagus mixture. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring, until the sauce is thick, creamy and coats the pasta, 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in 1/4 cup Parmesan. Divide the pasta among 4 bowls and top with the remaining 1/4 cup Parmesan.

Nutrition

4 servings, 1 1/2 cups each

Per Serving: 292 Cal; 8 g Fat (4 g Sat; 2 g Mono; 1 g Poly; 0 g Trans); 16 mg Cholesterol; 42 g Carb (8 g Sugar; 7 g Fiber); 16 g Protein; 430 mg Sodium

Salad Dressings

The asparagus pasta is great with a cucumber-tomato salad, but it also works well with a simple green salad.  Here are a couple of homemade salad dressings that take minutes to make but are healthier than store-bought dressings.  Both go well with the asparagus pasta.

Parmesan Pepper Dressing

Ingredients

  • 1/3 cup nonfat buttermilk
  • 1/3 cup nonfat cottage cheese
  • 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
  • 4 teaspoons white-wine vinegar
  • 1 small clove garlic, minced
  • 1/2 teaspoon cracked black pepper, or to taste

Preparation:  Combine buttermilk, cottage cheese, Parmesan, vinegar and garlic in a food processor or blender; blend until smooth. Stir in pepper.  Makes about 1 cup.

Nutrition: Per tablespoon: 16 Cal; 1g  Fat; 2 mg Cholesterol; 1 g Carb (1 Sugar; 0 Fiber); 2 g Protein; 57 mg Sodium

Goat Cheese & Tomato Dressing

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup crumbled goat cheese
  • 2 tablespoons white-wine vinegar
  • 2 teaspoons maple syrup or honey
  • 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
  • 2 plum tomatoes, seeded and chopped
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • Freshly ground pepper, to taste
  • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon

Preparation:  Combine goat cheese, vinegar and syrup or honey in a blender or food processor and blend until combined. Add oil and tomatoes and blend until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in tarragon.  Makes about 1 cup.

Nutrition:  Per tablespoon: 44 Cal; 4 g Fat (1 g Sat; 3 g Mono); 2 mg Cholesterol; 1 g Carb; 1 g Protein; 85 mg Sodium; 24 mg Potassium


Filed under: Bites and Pieces, food, recipes | 18 Comments »

Bits & Pieces (Weekend Open Mic)

Posted on February 18, 2012 by Kevin S. Willis

Until something better comes along anyway.

Enjoy this PSA from the cast of That 70s Show urging people of the present not to be douche bags.

 

 

Have a great weekend! — KW

Filed under: Bits and Pieces | Tagged: , | 31 Comments »

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