One more cartoonish moment

Found the text and made the movie!

If you need the external link, go to XtraNormal

~LH

The Panel Says

A couple weeks back we made mention of a little-noticed event that was creeping ever closer on the calendar. If you forgot, its right here {09.30.10}. The event is the final release of Obama's Committee on Deficits, however we got a sneak peak a couple days ago. {Go here to read it in its entirety}

Here's the link to the Bloomberg write up. But let me summarize a couple of points. Just as Applegate predicted, they recommended pushing the retirement age 68 and eventually 69 {even if it is as late as 2075}. The CoD suggested eliminating various tax credits or breaks on things such as mortgage interest while lowering top tier income taxes from 35% to 23%. HUH?

Yeah, not only are they suggesting that the Federal Government lower taxes to balance the budget, they have actually stuck a cap on the total amount of receipts they can collect. Yep, that's right. The Feds can only collect receipts less than 21% of GDP. Its hard to bail the water out of a sinking ship when then hull is shattered and being held together with knitting yard.

For a fantastic read on the subject matter, swing over to The Conscience of a Liberal by Paul Krugman at the NY Times. He's a better writer anyway. Just glad to say we saw part of it coming...

~LH

A former life

This is too great not to re-post!

{there is some NSFW language}

I think I've had this exact conversation...more than once!


UPDATE: Here's the QE2 version with some choice words for the Fed and "the Ber-nack"
~LH

Silence wasn't golden

In some respects, I find it very difficult to write after getting pounded. At other times, it's actually a stress-relieving endorphin that allows me to refocus my thinking.

To be blunt, some of our assumptions of the QE2 announcement and the subsequent market follow-through were just wrong.

I do want to update some of our larger trades now that we've had a rally, a pull-back, and rolled plenty of our inventory.

----------------------

In the 30 yr bonds:

We sold out of our longs in the 137 calls prior to the QE announcement.

In the March Euro Dollar:

We rolled our March 9925-9950 put spread out to the June 9925-9950 put spread. We executed near the highs of the move for a cost of 1 tick. This will provide us with 3 more months to catch the credit event we still believe is looming.

In the March and May trees:

We have covered the March and we're in the process of covering the May. We originally put the on for a credit to the 1 leg and we're now selling them for even money. This helped us finance our ED put spreads and we are actively looking for ways to get some more premium shipped in, ideally in the FFs.

The NOB is still at 25 year highs. The range on Wednesday was almost 2 points. {that's 64 ticks at a price of $156 per one lot} Though it settled off the highs, it was up over a point. At this point, we have no position on as we attempt to reload and find a position that will allow us the capture what we think is the impending flattening.

~LH