The humiliation of Old Europe will continue unabated. Bankrupt Greece will have to go, beggars bowl in hand, to Washington and the IMF - not Brussels or Frankfurt - to receive financial aid in order to avoid to foreclosure by its creditors.

DEATH to the Brussels Politburo!

they're going down!


HAT in hand

wrote:

The humiliation of Old Europe will continue unabated. Bankrupt Greece will have to go, beggars bowl in hand, to Washington and the IMF to receive financial aid to foreclosure by its creditors.

DEATH to the Brussels Politburo!

The Yurps begged Hussein for and got America to give $100 billion more to the IMF last year. Gosh! What a koinkidink!

America really really really needs to quite subsidizing the Yurps. We've bailed them out far too many times already.

Why should the EU save Greece when they can get the IMF to do it for them.

"The humiliation of Old Europe will continue unabated. Bankrupt Greece will have to go, beggars bowl in hand, to Washington and the IMF - not Brussels or Frankfurt - to receive financial aid in order to avoid to foreclosure by its creditors."


It is a German idea. The msg could be this one :

"You destroyed your country,it is not our problem".

But in practice,there will be also loans from EU states to Greece.

simplefrench wrote:

"The humiliation of Old Europe will continue unabated. Bankrupt Greece will have to go, beggars bowl in hand, to Washington and the IMF - not Brussels or Frankfurt - to receive financial aid in order to avoid to foreclosure by its creditors."


It is a German idea. The msg could be this one :

"You destroyed your country,it is not our problem".

But in practice,there will be also loans from EU states to Greece.

A la greve! NON!

TheContinental shows the mentality of most French fascists.

They don't care about their European brothers the Greeks.

While Greece spirals out of control, the French, with gallic aloofness, tell them to go eat cake.

Hadrian wrote:

TheContinental shows the mentality of most French fascists.

They don't care about their European brothers the Greeks.

While Greece spirals out of control, the French, with gallic aloofness, tell them to go eat cake.

Si, el bizcocho mas agrio.


Simple es mi bizcochito!

Market update -

Greek debt has been wild the past 48 hours.

- The Greek 10 year yield spiked over 7%, higher than the January / Feb Panic levels.

-The yield on the Greek 2 year note was up today as much as 210 basis points, bringing increases since the streak began to 447 basis points.

- The Greek 2's and 10's have now inverted. The market yield contango / yield curve inversion is rarely seen in credit markets.

- Angela will not finance Greece at lower than market rates, thus driving Greece into the hands of the IMF, who are offering finance at half the European and market rates.

- Greece has plans to float debt in the USA, as their fellow 'countrymen' in Europe aren't treating them too well.

- Credit Default Swaps on Greek debt have risen to all time highs. The 10 yr Greek CDS is now HIGHER than those in Iceland! Iceland, where they voted to stiff asset holders, and refused to pay. Greek is now seen as riskier than the Iceland mess.

- Gold has run strong the last 48 hours. The reason is Europeans selling their Euros and buying gold. Europeans are effectively shorting their own currency. When are those Euro pols going to notice this? Never, it's easier to blame America or Goldman for all their problems. This in the face of a strong Dixie (USD Index).

- US markets sold off on all this European mess this morning, but came back strong after US retail sales numbers were released. Of the IBD 100, the top gainers today have been retailer names like - Rue21, Netflix, Limited Brands, Gildan Activewear, Cheesecake Factory, Lumber Liquidators, LuluLemon Athletica.

- McDonalds (NYSE: MCD) hit a 52 week high today! Froggies and Greeks alike have been snarfing up the BigMacs in anticipation of even leaner times to come.

- News leaked last night that LCC (US Air) was in talks to buy UAUA (United Air). LCC jumped 27% in afterhours and borrows were available for a good short to the sell off this morning. The flatline price this afternoon is a less desirable short entry - but the basic long term thesis that all airline stocks (save for maybe LUV and RYAAY) are always shorts, especially with crude holding 85 and probably headed to 90.

- Boeing (NYSE: BA) is 7 days off a 52wk high, and gave a nice buy point this morning at one sigma above its 50DMA, with a 10 day target of about two sigmas above the 50DMA - or 7 bucks up, 2 bucks downside stop loss.

- On the theory there may be a dead cat bounce on the Greek panic, NBG, National Bank of Greece on the NYSE, was a buy this morning in the 3.40 to 3.50ish range, five day target of 4ish, stop loss at high 3.20's, or ~2 down ~6 up.

- Apple hit a new all time intra day high at 241.85 (with the highest target now at 310). 500,000 iPads have been sold since last Saturday. New iPhone OS released today, and AAPL will begin generating search revenue on iPhones. The most download app this past week has been Netflix. NFLX - you coulda bot all you wanted in the 17's in '08. Now 81.73. Stay with the Apple food chain. AAPL's market cap has now surpassed that of Walmart. Next comes Mr. Softie and Big Oiler Exxon.

Trichet Doesn’t Expect Greece to Default on Debt (Update3)


April 8 (Bloomberg) -- European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said he doesn’t expect Greece to default on its debts and he’s confident the country will solve its budget problems even as investors dump its assets.

“A default is not an issue for Greece,” Trichet told reporters in Frankfurt today. Referring to Greece’s budget program, he said: “I have no reason to consider that it is not implemented rigorously.” Trichet made the remarks after the ECB left its benchmark interest rate at a record low of 1 percent, as predicted by all 62 economists in a Bloomberg News survey.

DAMAGE CONTROL

Greek bonds plunged this week on renewed concern that the country won’t succeed in cutting the European Union’s largest budget deficit. Prime Minister George Papandreou’s government needs to sell 11.6 billion euros ($15.4 billion) of debt by the end of next month. The premium demanded by investors to hold Greek 10-year bonds over German counterparts rose today to the biggest since the euro’s debut in 1999.

Trichet “tried everything not to add fuel to the fire” on Greece, said Carsten Brzeski, an economist at ING Group in Brussels.

The euro rose half a cent after Trichet’s remarks to $1.3347 at 5:20 p.m. in Frankfurt. Greek government bonds pared their decline, leaving the yield on the two-year note 93 basis points higher at 7.90 percent. The yield earlier rose as much as 210 basis points to 9.06 percent.

‘Workable Framework’

Trichet declined to comment on market movements.

The higher interest rates make it more difficult for Greece to raise the funds it needs. The nation must borrow a total of 32 billion euros this year, Petros Christodoulou, director general of the Public Debt Management Agency in Athens, said on March 31.

Euro-region leaders last month endorsed a Franco-German proposal to help Greece with a mix of International Monetary Fund and bilateral loans at market interest rates that would be triggered only if Greece runs out of fund-raising options.

While Trichet said any loans would not be subsidized, he suggested their interest rates could be determined by the refinancing costs of those that issue them, not Greece’s current market rates.

IMF Role

EU deputy finance ministers and central bank officials meet today and tomorrow in Brussels and will discuss terms of possible loans as part of their preparation for a gathering next week in Madrid of the region’s finance ministers.

Trichet called the package “a workable framework” and denied he had opposed IMF involvement in the plan.

“We never said the IMF doesn’t have very good expertise,” he said, adding the position of the ECB “has always been to say that we wanted the governments of the euro area to be up to their responsibility.”

The Greek crisis is complicating the ECB’s withdrawal of the emergency measures it used to fight Europe’s worst recession since World War II. The ECB predicts the euro-region economy will expand 0.8 percent this year after contracting 4.1 percent in 2009.

Trichet confirmed today that the central bank will maintain looser collateral rules beyond the end of the year. He also said the ECB’s benchmark rate is “appropriate,” signaling it’s in no rush to raise borrowing costs.

Rate Cut

Economists have pushed back expectations for ECB rate increases and now don’t expect a move until the first quarter of 2011, a Bloomberg survey shows. A month ago, the median forecast was for the ECB to raise borrowing costs in the fourth quarter of this year.

The Bank of England kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at a record low of 0.5 percent earlier today and held its bond-purchase plan at 200 billion pounds. In the U.S., the Federal Reserve has maintained its pledge to keep rates at a record low for an “extended period.” By contrast, the Reserve Bank of Australia this week raised its key rate for a fifth time in six meetings to 4.25 percent.

To contact the reporters on this story: Gabi Thesing in London at gthesing@bloomberg.net; Frances Robinson in Frankfurt at frobinson6@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 8, 2010 14:17 EDT

Bundesbank attacks Greek rescue as a threat to stability

08 Apr 2010

Germany's Bundesbank has fired a warning shot at Chancellor Angela Merkel, attacking the joint EU-IMF rescue plan for Greece as a threat to economic stability and probably illegal.

www.telegraph.co.uk . . .

= = = = =

As Greek Bond Rates Soar, the Specter of Bankruptcy Looms

“Time is running out,” said a senior official in the Greek government"

www.nytimes.com . . .


= = = = =

Another day brings yet another slump in Greek bonds, as the yield on Greece's ten-years rose an additional 19 basis points, today, to 7.18 percent. The yield spread over the bund, meanwhile, has reached another post-euro record at 406 bps.

The credit default swaps market is indicating that a Greece default is becoming increasingly likely, an outcome that Stephen Jen of BlueGold Capital calls "unavoidable."

www.forexrazor.com . . .



= = = = =

Merkel CAN'T bail out the Greeks. Beside it being illegal to do so, per the Maastricht Treaty which created the euro, Germany also has elections coming up later this Spring and her party would get destroyed in those elections if she did try to bail out the Greeks...

My money, er Karma, is on the IMF stepping in (a delegation from the IMF arrived in Greece just today in fact...)

Bundesbank criticizes the IMF

"The report mocked the IMF as the "Inflation Maximising Fund", saying the body had gone soft under Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a French socialist and Keynesian. It has shifted focus from fiscal cleansing to "growth-oriented" financial policies. "Currency reserves from the Bundesbank cannot plausibly be made available for such purposes," it said. "



But they have not been so cool with Iceland..Interest rates are at 15%. Not something growth oriented. But Icelande collapsed totally.

Bombsawattheday did not bail out teh Madpoet guy.

Tresbien.

This is the capitalisme.


Perdonemoir simpel mon garcon

Greece Going Lehman On Us

By Duncan Davidson
Apr 7, 2010, 1:03 PM

Big news this morning is Commerzbank pulling its repos that are supporting the Greek banks. These are overnight facilities, and may lead to runs on Greek banks. [Which is EXACTLY what happened today. The four major Greek banks tapped the last of the money the Greek government had set aside as an emergency fund to aid in liqudity. There is no more left in the kitty...]

Unless someone steps in (IMF? IMF?) this should put the Greek banks into a liquidity meltdown. This chart from ZH shows the yield curve “pancaking” – going to flat – because the short term (3-6 month) rates have shot up, with spreads at an “all time record for a developed country.” This usually indicates a default coming.



wallstreetpit.com . . .

Greece is just the first. Yurpland is Le Fucked.

simplefrench wrote:



But they have not been so cool with Iceland..Interest rates are at 15%. Not something growth oriented. But Icelande collapsed totally.

Hi Simple,

Fair point, but Straus-Kahn (head of the IMF] doesn't want to run for President of Iceland. He wants Sarko's job; so Straus-Kahn can be as much as an asshole as he wants to be to any country...except France

04/09/2010 10:29 DJ PRESS RELEASE: Fitch Downgrades Greece to 'BBB-'; Outlook Negative





04/09/2010 11:02 Briefing.com - With some expecting intervention in Greece as soon as the weekend, Fitch downgrades the country to BBB- with a negative outlook. Analysts say it's "make or break" time for the euro; he favors IMF involvement and aid offered at concessionary rates rather than the market prices that Germany favors.



National Bank of Greece (NYSE: NBG) $3.78 up 5.00% at 11:06 ET, up 9.5% from yesterday's alert above.

Greece can no longer risk holding an auction for a new issue of bonds for fear that it fails.

www.economist.com . . .

Game, set and match.

Bring back the Drachma - before anarchy explodes!!

Gold reaches high of year as European buyers flee the Euro to safe haven of gold --

streetTRACKS Gold Shares seeing further upside as price is now bid up to new YTD highs above the resistance of the Jan. 12 closing high @ 112.85 & intraday high @ 113.59
11:59 AM ET 4/9/10 | Briefing.com
RELATED QUOTES

12:26 PM ET 4/9/10
Symbol Last % Chg
GLD
113.87 1.04%

Next technical level is the 114.00~114.2 zone as the new YTD high now stands @ 113.65



[12:29] DRYS @ nhod

DRYS spikes as rumored exploration of strategic alternatives including sale and/or relocation of company are pursued by Board.

About DryShips Inc. (DRYS):

DryShips Inc., based in Greece, is an owner and operator of drybulk carriers and offshore oil deep water drilling that operates worldwide. As of the day of this release, DryShips owns a fleet of 39 drybulk carriers (including newbuildings) comprising seven Capesize carriers, 30 Panamax carriers and two Supramax carriers, with a combined deadweight tonnage of over 3.5 million tons, two ultra deep water semisubmersible drilling rigs and four ultra deep water newbuilding drillships.

jagerdr wrote:

Gold reaches high of year as European buyers flee the Euro to safe haven of gold --

streetTRACKS Gold Shares seeing further upside as price is now bid up to new YTD highs above the resistance of the Jan. 12 closing high @ 112.85 & intraday high @ 113.59
11:59 AM ET 4/9/10 | Briefing.com
RELATED QUOTES

12:26 PM ET 4/9/10
Symbol Last % Chg
GLD
113.87 1.04%

Next technical level is the 114.00~114.2 zone as the new YTD high now stands @ 113.65



[12:29] DRYS @ nhod

DRYS spikes as rumored exploration of strategic alternatives including sale and/or relocation of company are pursued by Board.

About DryShips Inc. (DRYS):

DryShips Inc., based in Greece, is an owner and operator of drybulk carriers and offshore oil deep water drilling that operates worldwide. As of the day of this release, DryShips owns a fleet of 39 drybulk carriers (including newbuildings) comprising seven Capesize carriers, 30 Panamax carriers and two Supramax carriers, with a combined deadweight tonnage of over 3.5 million tons, two ultra deep water semisubmersible drilling rigs and four ultra deep water newbuilding drillships.

ROFLMAO! and K+

But wait! Isn't Germany being "anti-European" for not transferring all of its national wealth to Brussels in order for "social justice" to be implemented in Greece???

Bombs_Away_LeMay wrote:



ROFLMAO! and K+

But wait! Isn't Germany being "anti-European" for not transferring all of its national wealth to Brussels in order for "social justice" to be implemented in Greece???

Germany is working for Germany, better to go long than short Germany - here's your vehicle, up 1.14% today --


ISHARES INC MSCI GERMAN FUND EWG : NYSE Arca


Last Price Today’s Change Bid (Size) Ask (Size) Day’s Range Volume
22.12 +0.25 (+1.14%) 22.12 x3,400 22.13 x4,600 21.91 - 22.215 649,309

jagerdr wrote:

Bombs_Away_LeMay wrote:



ROFLMAO! and K+

But wait! Isn't Germany being "anti-European" for not transferring all of its national wealth to Brussels in order for "social justice" to be implemented in Greece???

Germany is working for Germany, better to go long than short Germany - here's your vehicle, up 1.14% today --


ISHARES INC MSCI GERMAN FUND EWG : NYSE Arca


Last Price Today’s Change Bid (Size) Ask (Size) Day’s Range Volume
22.12 +0.25 (+1.14%) 22.12 x3,400 22.13 x4,600 21.91 - 22.215 649,309

Cheers Jager

My Greek shorts are coming in today and next week, phew...;)

What fucking chaos in the euro markets, though...

Bombs_Away_LeMay wrote:



Cheers Jager

My Greek shorts are coming in today and next week, phew...;)

What fucking chaos in the euro markets, though...

Just closed out the long on National Bank of Greece @ 3.93. 12% on a dead cat bounce trade is good enough. They may run it higher into the close on short covering, but generally pigs make money, and hogs get slaughtered.

EWG looks toppy at 22.30 to 22.50 for swing trades.

Maybe you should consider a short on EWQ - the Ishares France Index fund. My reading of the chart is this --

Monday thru Thurs sell off, today a dead cat bounce. Assuming a pop on Monday - which has been running about a 83% probability this year - short it at 25.50ish. First support / cover level would be 24.40 for part of the position, then for a 40 to 50 day hold cover another third in the mid 23's and the final third in the high 22's. Not a big gain - ~7% - but it may be emotionally satisfying.

Fun crack trades of the week -
ABK - PT guys alerted at 65 cents last night, one hour later it hit a buck. Fifty per cent gains in 1 hour are kinda fun.

Options Monster altered on PALM in the money calls on Tuesday night. Rumors had it that HTC of Taiwan or Lenova of China would buy them for the smart phones. The Najarians (two ex NFL players who found a home in the CME pits) cleaned up on this one, getting 300% on some portion of their trade -- ride the Gamma train! Yeah!

Here's Dr J's post on it from this morning -

Palm jumps amid takeover rumors
April 9, 2010 Fri 8:08 AM CT

Beaten-Down Shares Spike 10 Percent

PALM ChartThe maker of the Pre smartphone is SURGING in the pre-market, and I hope you've got a ton of this very cheap shot because I sure do!

www.optionmonster.com


Longer term Whitney Tilson has a price target of ZERO on PALM. Tilson is a smart guy, so PALM could also be a nice short on Monday morning at 5.50ish if you can find a borrow, or buy some cheap puts.
www.tilsonfunds.com

There's a huge block on the offer on the PALM book at 5.48, the market maker is labeled SMFR, it might be simplefrench.

Just touched Dow 11,000.

Boom shakka lakka in the USA!

Maria getting giddy on CNBC. "Schtocks to buy!" Giving market on close volume updates... gawd, shut up!

Five under, four under, with two min. to go!