Monday, January 7, 2008

Monday morning Quarterbacking


A number of interesting stories over the week-end for the market:

Fed Vice-chairman admits they have no clue....

http://tinyurl.com/3aue55

Mr. Kohn is making market and himself even more confused - Fact reamins Fed is lost, now forced to go 50 bps on January 30th, despite they should be hiking - if that's a success I should be playing for Denmark upfront!

M&S follows Next, PC World, Curry's and Land of Leather to confirm that UK is DOOMED. The financial sector is going down and so is retail.

http://tinyurl.com/2wkph3



तbout leverage or high stake poker. Interesting how major building marks gets involved in major paradigm shift. Remember the Rockefeller Centre being first bought then sold as part of rise and fall of Japanese economy?

http://tinyurl.com/2dq9c5

Barrons, the ever negative indicator on stock market ran interesting piece:

http://tinyurl.com/ywe4zu


I know a few of you can not access so here is some main pointers;

DJI skidded 566 for the week, or 4.2%. It was the Dow's worst three-day start since 1932, the depths of the depression.

Q4 returns (and note these....!!!!):

- Dow Q4-2007 = - 4.5%
- S%P Q4-2007 = - 3.8%
- NAS Q4-2007 = - 1.8%
- Russel Q4-2007 = 4.9% !!!!!! Russel is the broadest index, i.e caputering the biggest trend.

It was Dow's first fourth-quarter loss in a decade! (So please let's stop talking about year-end effect and the other crap from now on!!!)

For the year, The Russel 2000 snapped a four-year winning streak and 2.7% for the YEAR!. Yes, the "stock market", the broad market fell in 2007!.......

In other news; Last week had two significant data stories in the US;

1. Manufacturing fell into RECESSION mode!
2. The Private Sector in the US cut 13.000 jobs, the first decline since 2003!

News/Data conclusion: Retail Sales across OECD continues to collapse, stock market very close to being in BEAR MARKET - first time since 2000!........and RISING UNEMPLOYMENT will soon subistitute lack of growth as key headline....

=================================================================================
Strategy;

We came into Friday with positive bias on fixed income based on our assumption of potential for weak job growth plus propability of NASDAQ move to down-side;

Friday data confirmed our view, but the magnitude of the down-move makes us think this week will see the usual rumors of inter-Fed cuts and some desperate attempts by US Administration to "get things going in the US economy" - and what's the standard tool box for that in todays market? Create some more money; i.e More inflationary impact, so we are shifting our FI bias from lower rates to longer; and add to this that our Agri-play, (DBA) made new highs while articles like this one;
http://tinyurl.com/2u2tbp

is starting to tell "our story" ---> Inflation will soon become THE FRONT PAGE.....but for now more of the same.

POSITIONS;

FX: Very lights, some JPY calls (bought too expensive right now) but home bias will prevail if stock market continues down - i.e Japanese will take money home).... shorted EURUSD (@ 1.4695 ) this a.m, and sold light in GBP.USD [@ 1.9663) with stops 1/2 daily ATR .....

FI: Buying some 10-30 y. puts today March....(Yield reference: @ 3.89 & @ 4.39)

EQUITY: Neutral. I will bet inter-market cut rumor will hit market this week, and I will be waiting to sell on those....

Long DBA - still target of 100% for the year-on-year!...

Commodities:

Waiting for Gold to hit support around 850/840 to buy..if holding..
Crude: Dont like the lack of "follow through" upside- and concerned how "slwoer OECD growth will play into the future pricing"....

OVERALL:

Theme of the day; How poorly Q4 and start 2008 was ----> Early stock market sell of...

US dollar ----> Weaker number could lead to overseas investment by US investors being cut, plus will Europe and Asia catch the "flue"?

Nice day;

Steen

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