5 February 2010

The Japanese do know how to accept responsibility. And they do not have golden parachutes.

Toyota Chief Expresses Regrets

‘We Are in a Crisis’ Over Loss of Trust
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Asian and European markets were down 2% and more overnight. The Employment Report for January discovered 20,000 net job losses. U.S. markets are lower but..... The media and market bears are comparing the debt problems of the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) to the Lehman/ Bear Stearns etc fiasco of autumn 2008. We don’t agree. After calamitous events those events are in the consciousness for many years and every difficult event then is projected as a repeat of that crisis. The debt crisis are serious yes, but not on a par with the possible collapse of the U.S. financial system.

California, Illinois, New York and other states have financial problems and are running serious deficits. Portugal, Ireland and Greece all have populations similar or less than those states. Spain is on par with California and Italy has been having financial and political problems since the end of the World War I. Serious yes, earth moving, no.

But in the markets, perception is reality and corrections unlike rallies need reasons. In fact after the run the markets have experienced since March 2009 a correction is certainly warranted. We don’t see the total collapse that occurred last year at this time but we are prepared for the worst. Corrections are never orderly and if they are to be effective corrections need to induce fear and a touch of panic to mitigate the greed a rally creates.
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Gold is down another $5 after dropping $50 yesterday. Gold dropping in a financial panic is counterintuitive- except that Gold is not longer a storehouse of value. It is merely a trading vehicle. Oil is flat with a $73 handle.
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Hain met expectations last night. Unfortunately the company picked the wrong day to report earnings. Fortunately the drop of yesterday allowed us to buy more shares at an attractive price.
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Stocks are going to open higher as traders have decided the Employment Repot was OK for the first few minutes of trading at least.
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(WSJ) Deutsche Telekom is preparing for a possible initial public offering or spin-off of its U.S. T-Mobile arm, in an effort to assuage shareholders disenchanted with the company's share performance, according to people familiar with the matter.  The German telecommunications giant has recently held discussions with a number of banks including Deutsche Bank and UBS about underwriting an IPO, which could help fund the unit's network build out, or a spin-off, the people said. The company expects to make a final decision in the coming months. A spokesman for Deutsche Telekom declined to comment.
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Caveat Emptor leads to easy come easy go.

(WSJ) By RANDALL SMITH

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703357104575045681893001928.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTWhatsNews

Wall Street needs an army of arbitrators to clean up the mess left by the headline-grabbing collapse of three mutual funds stuffed with collateralized debt obligations and other subprime-related securities.

About 400 complaints have been filed against the Morgan Keegan & Co. investment-banking unit of Regions Financial Corp. by customers claiming they were burned by the funds, which plunged in value by as much as 82% after the housing meltdown hit.

So many investors have filed arbitration claims that the industry-funded machine for handling such disputes is overloaded. To decide all the disputes, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has been forced to call in hundreds of extra arbitrators.

We've never done this on this kind of scale," said Linda Fienberg, Finra's president of dispute resolution.

Finra recently cast a dragnet for arbitrators as far away as Chicago, New York and Florida, imploring them to come to Atlanta, Birmingham, Ala., New Orleans, Orlando, Fla., and four other cities where arbitration hearings on the mutual funds are clustered.

As a result, Finra boosted the size of the pool of available arbitrators in each city to an average of 721 from the previous 87. And it looks like the securities industry overseer will need every body it can get.

According to Regions, based in Birmingham, just 79 arbitration cases have been heard so far, with 39 of them dismissed. Out of the $35 million sought by investors in the mutual funds, arbitrators have awarded $7.6 million. The company said an additional 114 claims seeking $24 million were dropped before any decision was reached.

At the end of 2005, the five-year average annual gain by one of those funds beat all U.S. high-yield funds and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. But the funds were hammered by their investments in mortgage-backed securities, including low-quality mortgages, and complex securities like CDOs. Collateralized debt obligations are pools of bonds tied to mortgages.

Morgan Keegan has said investors were told bluntly in required disclosures that the funds were risky and could lose some or all of their value. And it says the extra arbitrators will help prevent arbitrators from hearing multiple similar cases, reducing the risk they might be influenced by the facts from a previous hearing.

(our emphasis) The firm is fighting hard against the complaints, trying to remove arbitrators who ruled against the firm in previous hearings, challenging awards in court and bringing in costly experts to testify in cases involving relatively small losses, according to lawyers for some investors.

"They've been fighting these hammer and tongs," says Brian Smiley, an Atlanta lawyer who has represented more than 100 investors trying to recover more than $50 million from Morgan Keegan.

Under the agreements signed by most brokerage customers, disputes must be decided by one or three arbitrators. Three-member panels include one arbitrator with ties to the securities industry.

In a dispute over $125,095 in losses, the securities firm called as a witness Sharon Brown-Hruska, a former acting chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Regions also pressed the arbitration panel to award the company more than $200,000 if it won.

"They were trying to scare these people into just dropping their claims," said Peter Mougey, a lawyer in Pensacola, Fla., who represented the investors, Robert and Helen Perkins and Billy and Sharon Powell, who live near Birmingham.

A spokesman for Ms. Brown-Hruska's firm declined to comment.

In October, the investors were awarded the full amount of their losses and nearly $97,000 in legal fees and other expenses, Mr. Mougey said. A Regions spokeswoman said it is only fair for the firm to try to recover its costs, since investors may be awarded compensation for their own costs if they win.
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The S&P 500 is down over 10% from its January high and we are going to do a bit of buying in favorite trading/holding stocks. We don’t dismiss the Sovereign Debt crisis out of hand but as we mentioned above there are many states in the U.S. with populations and budgets the sizes of the PIIGS that have financial problems and the world is not quaking about them. The countries of Europe are like states in the U.S. and have about as much importance except for the biggies like France, Germany and England.

We added shares of Ann Taylor and repurchased American Eagle. Both are going to announce better than results. We also bought Intel to hold/trade with a 3.2% yield and BankAmerica for a trade. In many accounts to fund the purchases and not increase our exposure we sold Kraft, a less aggressive stock, for a small profit.
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$71.12 down $2.01

$1062 unchanged

European bourses closed 1% to 3% lower

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The big boys and girls had fun in the last hour of trading rallying the major measures from down 1% to back to even in about 10 minutes of trading only to pull back and let the measures drop 0.5% in the next ten minutes. But the buy bulls came back and at the close the major measures were higher. The conspiracy theorists, of which there are many, will see the Fed’s hand in this action. Our thought as mentioned above before the rally began is that down 10% from the high suggested a rally was in the cards. How long? is another matter.

The major measures closed higher. Breadth was flat and volume active.
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And tomorrow is another day but the gambling will have to be at the casinos or on the Super Bowl since the markets are closed till Monday.
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4 February 2010

It’s always something even when it isn’t’. The big boys and girls are having fun trading Spain and Portugal CDS (Credit Default Swaps are bets on debtors not paying their debts) as they try to make hope reality by creating panic in the sovereign debt of those two countries. Greece has been the problem for the last few weeks but the rumor mill has now spread to the Iberian Peninsula.

From the Financial Times: Sovereign debt fears rattle investors

“The latest catalyst was [Wednesday’s] bond auction in Portugal which was scaled back and which has re-ignited fears that the likes of Portugal and Greece will not be able to fund their deficits without a bail out,” said Gavan Nolan, credit analyst at Markit.

From Bloomberg: Portugal, Spain Lead Worldwide Decline in Stocks; Dollar Gains

Stocks and bonds fell in Spain, Portugal and eastern Europe on concern governments will struggle to fund their budget deficits as spending cuts in Greece trigger labor strikes. ... “The focus is shifting toward Spain and Portugal, where the deficit-reduction plans have been far less ambitious than Greece,” said Kornelius Purps, a fixed-income strategist in Munich at UniCredit Markets & Investment Banking.

More on Sovereign Debt Default here: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-15-countries-at-the-greatest-risk-of-default-2010-2

Stock markets around the world are lower as the reflex rally of Monday and Tuesday is now a distant memory and the ADD traders are back on the negative side. Yesterdays markets were mildly lower but today Asia and Europe are down and so will be U.S. market when trading begins. Gold is off $8 but remains above $1100 and Oil has a $76 handle. On the positive side the dollar is at a new several months high against the euro at $1.38.
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(WSJ)

Toyota said Thursday that it is investigating the computer-regulated braking systems of all other hybrid models, such as the Sai and the Lexus HS250h luxury hybrid sedan, following complaints about its Prius hybrid model

The U.K. central bank voted against extending its bond-buying program and left its key interest rate unchanged. The European Central Bank also kept its rate policy unchanged.

Verizon was downgraded to neutral from outperform at Credit Suisse, which said it no longer believes AT&T (T) will lose its exclusive deal over the iPhone in mid-2010. Credit Suisse said it had previously believed that Verizon could win a substantial number of subscriptions from AT&T once iPhone exclusivity ended.

Cisco reported a jump in fiscal second-quarter profit that beat Wall Street's estimates late Wednesday, with CEO John Chambers saying the company is "entering the second phase of the economic recovery." The networking-gear giant reported a profit of $1.85 billion, or 32 cents a share, compared with a profit of $1.5 billion, or 26 cents a share, for the year-earlier period. Revenue was $9.8 billion, up from $9.1 billion for the same quarter last year. Adjusted income was 40 cents a share, topping the 35 cent consensus forecast.

Productivity of the U.S. nonfarm business sector slowed a bit in the fourth quarter as hours worked increased for the first quarter since the second quarter of 2007, the Labor Department estimated. The productivity of the U.S. nonfarm business sector rose at an annual rate of 6.2% after a 7.2% gain in the third quarter. Economists were expecting productivity in the latest quarter to rise at an annual rate of 7.3%.

First-time claims for state unemployment benefits rose to the highest level since mid-December, the Labor Department reported. The number of initial claims in the week ending Jan. 30 rose 8,000 to 480,000. The consensus forecast of Wall Street economists was for claims to drop to 455,000. Claims in the previous week were revised to a decrease of 7,000 to 472,000 compared with the initial estimate of a decrease of 8,000 to 470,000.

Toyota posted a quarterly profit that beat analysts' estimates and said it'll post a profit for the full fiscal year, despite a massive auto recall in the current quarter. Toyota posted a net profit of 153.2 billion yen ($1.68 billion) in the three months through December. For the same quarter a year ago, it reported a net loss of 164.64 billion yen. Revenue for the third quarter climbed 10.2% to 5.3 trillion yen. Analysts had expected a net profit of 87.67 billion yen.

Two days before a similar report from the U.S. government, ADP said 22,000 private-sector jobs were lost in January -- close to what economists had anticipated. The decline was the smallest since employment began falling in February 2008, ADP said.
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Employment Still Elusive

Diane Swonk, Chief Economist at Mesirow Financial

Unemployment claims edged up to 480,000 in the most recent week, a slight deterioration from the previous week. Unemployment claims need to dip into the 350,000 range consistently before we see any major improvement in payroll employment.

This, coupled with the ADP report on employment earlier in the week, suggests that firing continued to outpace hiring in January. Nonetheless, the pace of job losses has clearly abated and we are on the verge of a tipping point. The temporary surge in hiring for the 2010 Census virtually ensures it.

However, any gains in employment that we do see in February and March are likely to be muted and not enough to contain unemployment. Indeed, the ranks of discouraged workers have risen quite substantially over the last year. This suggests that unemployment will continue to rise, as those workers throw their hats back into ring once we do see a pickup in hiring.

It will be a rocky year for those still looking for work, and an even tougher year for incumbents trying to get re-elected. Some unemployment in Washington, D.C. may be warranted given the cowardice they have shown in recent weeks. The attacks on the Fed and its independence are particularly disturbing.

P.S. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was quietly sworn back into office yesterday.
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 One half hour into the trading day and the major measures are down over 1.5% with 10/1 negative breadth.
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Bank of America has agreed to pay $150 million to settle a lawsuit by the Securities and Exchange Commission over its failure to disclose a then-$16 billion loss at Merrill Lynch before shareholders voted on the merger in December 2008, the regulator said in court papers filed Thursday. The settlement still needs approval from Judge Jed S. Rakoff, the federal judge overseeing the case. Judge Rakoff rejected a previous proposed settlement between Bank of America and the S.E.C. last year, deeming it too low.

These settlements confuse. The executives should have to cough up the settlement- or their insurance companies. As it stands the taxpayers are footing the bill and the dollars just go from one pocket to another. We know that BAC has repaid the TARP but they are still making billions from artificially low interest rates and Treasury guarantees.

Cuomo is going after the right targets: New York's attorney general filed civil securities fraud charges against former Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis and former Chief Financial Officer Joseph Price, who remains at the bank. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo alleged they decided not to disclose $16 billion in losses at Merrill Lynch before getting shareholder approval to acquire the Wall Street firm. In a statement, Bank of America called the charges "regrettable."
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Oil is down $3 with a $73 handle after two hours of trading.
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Markets crash, teeth gnash; DJIA down 200 at 11am.
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Krugman: Chinese Rumbles:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/chinese-rumbles/
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(WSJ)

European stock markets and the euro came under heavy pressure Thursday, as worries about debt in the euro zone's peripheral countries weighed on sentiment. The cost of insuring Greece, Spain and Portugal's debt against default rose, as the European Commission's endorsement Wednesday of Greece's deficit-cutting plan failed to assuage investors' fears. Lisbon stocks closed down 5% while the Greek ASE fell 3.3% amid mounting concerns over big budget deficits. All other major European exchanges lost more than 2.2%. The euro bore the brunt of investors' anxieties, hitting a new eight-month low. At the close of European trading, the euro was at $1.3756 from $1.3905 late Wednesday.
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$73.05 down $3.94. $1062 down $50.
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Stocks closed on their lows for the day with the DJIA down 270 points at 9999 and the S&P 500 down 35 points. Breadth was 10/1 negative and down volumes swamped up volume. Total volume was moderate. The Employment Report comes in the morning and the bulls are hoping it is super, the bears not so much.
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3 February 2010

2 February 2010

Here in the land of milk and honey we shoot groundhogs. Joke. Actually the groundhog didn’t see its shadow and so Spring is on the way, Hooray.

Also called woodchucks, groundhogs are members of the squirrel family. Although, unlike their tree-loving cousins, groundhogs hang out on the ground. People often see them munching grass along roads and highways. Most famous one of them all: Punxsutawney Phil First Groundhog Day: Celebrated in 1886 in Punxsutawney, Penn. Legend: The groundhogs' aptitude for prognostication is based on German folklore that goes back several hundred years. If the groundhog sees its shadow, it gets scared and runs back into home. So there will be at least six weeks of wintry weather. Should the day be cloudy, spring will come early. Prediction success rate: 39 percent. Hibernation: While lacking in meteorological skills, groundhogs are expert hibernators. Groundhogs dig a winter burrow and curl up into a ball on a bed of grasses. During hibernation, their metabolism slows down to conserve energy. They breathe only once every six minutes, and their heart beats only four times a minute. All the while, their body temperature drops to as low as 40 degrees. Groundhogs are expert diggers as well. They use the long claws on their large feet like spades while tunneling through soil. When complete, their burrows may be 12 feet deep and 50 feet long. Groundhogs build chambers for different purposes. There's one for giving birth, one for sleeping, and even a bathroom. Body length: 16 to 32 inches Tail length: 4 to 10 inches. Weight: 4 to 15 pounds. Distribution: From south-central Alaska south through central Canada to the Midwestern and eastern United States Habitat: Pastures, meadows, old fields and woods

Wild diet: Green vegetation, such as grasses, alfalfa and clover.

We are traveling tomorrow and so the next post will be Thursday February 4.

(WSJ)

European shares traded higher Tuesday as gains for miners offset losses for oil and gas companies and as worries about Greece's financial woes appeared to recede. Asian markets ended mixed, with Australian shares rising after the country's central bank surprised traders with its decision to keep rates on hold.

BP swung to a profit in the fourth quarter, helped by rising crude-oil prices, improved production and cost cutting. BP said it earned $4.3 billion in the quarter, compared to a loss of $3.34 billion a year earlier. Excluding the impact of price changes on unsold inventory and other one-off effects, profit rose to $4.38 billion from $2.57 billion, but was still below the consensus forecast of $4.66 billion.

United Parcel Service said its fourth-quarter net income was $757 million, or 76 cents a share, up from $254 million, or 25 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Sales edged down to $12.5 billion from $12.7 billion. The shipping giant said strength in its international segment helped drive growth.
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Hain’s earnings come tomorrow night and the share price is back under $16. We sold our last trade in the stock at $17.90 and we have begun repurchasing in accounts that owned it before. We are not taking a large position before earnings but our guess is that they won’t disappoint and so we want to own some shares for a flip if the share price pops with room to by more on any disappointment.
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http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/

From Dina ElBoghdady and Dan Keating at the WaPo: Rising FHA default rate foreshadows a crush of foreclosures

The share of borrowers who are falling seriously behind on loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration jumped by more than a third in the past year ... About 9.1 percent of FHA borrowers had missed at least three payments as of December, up from 6.5 percent a year ago, the agency's figures show. ... The problems are rooted in FHA mortgages made in 2007 and 2008. Those loans are now maturing into their worst years because failures most often occur two to three years after a mortgage is made. ... the FHA projects that it will pay out claims to lenders on one out of every four loans made in 2007 -- the worst rate in at least three decades. The claim rate should be nearly the same on the vastly larger volume of loans made in 2008.

Ouch
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For the present rally to succeed resistance at 1105 and then 1120 on the upside needs to be tested and pierced.
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We added a few shares of Ann Taylor to larger accounts (it is up 10% today and we would buy in more accounts on a pullback) as ANN announced better than sales results for the fourth quarter along with much better margins. We also added Chico’s to accounts and Coldwater to many. We think those two will benefit from Ann’s news and we have had better luck trading them.
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Ford said sales in the United States were 25 percent higher last month than a year ago. Ford said passenger car sales rose 43 percent from January 2009, when many consumers were postponing big purchases because of the economy and the industry was clouded by uncertainty. Ford estimated that its market share increased by 2 percentage points, to 16 percent, in January.

General Motors, sales rose 13.6% to 146,825 vehicles due to "continued strong growth of new GM crossovers and passenger cars," the Detroit giant said. GM also boosted its sales outlook in 2010 to 12 million vehicles from 11.5 million units.

Toyota reported a 15.8% drop.
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In case you forgot, or never knew: 2nd February is also Candlemas Day

This ancient festival marks the midpoint of winter, halfway between the shortest day and the spring equinox. Candlemas is a traditional Christian festival that commemorates the ritual purification of Mary forty days after the birth of her son Jesus. On this day, Christians remember the presentation of Jesus Christ in the Temple. Forty days after the birth of a Jewish boy, it was the custom to take him to the temple in Jerusalem to be presented to God by his thankful parents. In pre-Christian times, this day was known as the 'Feast of Lights' and celebrated the increase strength of the life-giving sun as winter gave way to spring. How did the 2nd February come to be called Candlemas? It was the day of the year when all the candles, that were used in the church during the coming year, were brought into church and a blessing was said over them - so it was the Festival Day (or 'mass') of the Candles.
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European stock markets reversed early losses, as upbeat economic data and gains in the basic-resource sector offset weakness in oil and gas stocks. Paris and London were both up over 1%.

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$77.22 up $2.80 $1115 up $10

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Many stocks closed on their highs for the day with the Major Measures up over 1%. The S&P closed at initial resistance (1103). Breadth was 3/1 to the good and volume was active.

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1 February 2010

Rabbit, Rabbit

Asian markets were mixed small overnight and European bourse indexes are the same at midday. Friday’s action of a higher opening and then reversal was not positive for the bullish case. But the negative action of the markets in January when they dropped 3.6% and 7% from their high a few weeks ago suggests that at least a relief rally may occur. Stocks are set to open higher. Gold is flat and Oil has a $73 handle as the trading day begins.
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President Barack Obama will propose on Monday a $3.8 trillion budget for fiscal 2011 that projects the deficit will shoot up to a record $1.6 trillion this year, but would push the red ink down to about $700 billion, or 4% of the gross domestic product, by 2013, according to congressional aides.

Why does the deficit projection always drop the year after the President’s term ends?
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The WSJ reports that thieves are swiping tractor-trailers filled with goods, triggering a spike in cargo theft on the nation's highways.
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(WSJ) Consumer spending was tepid in December, up just 0.2% despite rising income levels, the Commerce Department reported, suggesting consumers remained cautious at year end.

Exxon earnings fell 23% at the world's biggest private oil company. Lower profit margins for refining and fuels and lower natural-gas prices were partly offset by higher prices for crude oil, but the numbers beat and the shares are going to open higher.

Global semiconductor sales fell 1.2% in December from the previous month, but results were up 29% from the prior year's moribund levels, putting 2009 total sales down 9%.
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The Medicare drug plan is money in the bank for these folks.

Humana reported a 44% jump in fourth-quarter earnings after driving down costs as it also lifted its outlook for 2010 earnings. Humana said net income was $250.7 million, or $1.48 a share, compared with $174 million, or $1.30 a share, from the year-ago period. Revenue for the health insurer rose 2% to $7.37 billion.
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Toyota said it has figured out how to fix a problem with sticky accelerators in millions of its vehicles and will begin making repairs starting this week. The company said the fix involves reinforcing the pedal assembly to eliminate excess friction that has caused the pedals to stick. Toyota has recalled more than 4 million cars in North America and Europe that could be affected by the problem.
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We bought Kraft for the 4.2% dividend and the fact it is down 10% in the last few weeks on the Cadbury merger. Our guess is that the analysts will re-examine their ratings with a positive bias after the February 16 earnings report and dog and pony show that Kraft ahs schedule to explain how the merger is going to magically transform the company into an earnings’ powerhouse.

We repurchased Ford for a trade in the rally we see coming the next few days. We will hold if the rally doesn’t pan out
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Kraft Foods, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and markets packaged food products and grocery products worldwide. The company offers snacks, including cookies, crackers, salted snacks, and chocolate confectionary; beverages, including coffee, packaged juice drinks, and powdered beverages; cheese, including natural, process, and cream cheeses; and grocery, including spoonable and pourable dressings, condiments, and desserts. It also offers convenient meals, including primarily frozen pizza, packaged dinners, lunch combinations, and processed meats. Kraft Foods markets its products under various brand names, primarily including Kraft cheeses, dinners and dressings; Oscar Mayer meats; Philadelphia cream cheese; Maxwell House and Jacobs coffee; Nabisco cookies and crackers and its Oreo cookie brand; Milka chocolates; and LU biscuits. It sells its products to supermarket chains, wholesalers, super centers, club stores, mass merchandisers, distributors, convenience stores, gasoline stations, drug stores, value stores, and other retail food outlets. The company was founded in 2000 and is based in Northfield, Illinois.

Cadbury, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the confectionery business worldwide. It offers chocolate, gum/mints, and candy products under various brand names, including Bubbaloo, Cadbury Creme Egg, Cadbury Dairy Milk, Clorets, Dentyne, Eclairs, Flake, Green & Blacks, Halls, Hollywood, Stimorol, The Natural Confectionery Company, and Trident. The company was founded in 1783 and is based in Uxbridge, the United Kingdom.
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European markets recouped earlier losses to end higher, supported by gains on Wall Street.
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$74.75 up $1.86 $1106 plus $22
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The major measures closed on their highs for the day. Breadth was 3/1 to the good and volume was active.


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