Is Barbra Streisand’s Plea for Democrats a Stroke of Genius or Sign of Desperation?

For reasons that are known only to the Democratic Congressional
Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the National Security Agency, I
routinely get fundraising emails addressed to Gayle. This
latest pitch comes from Barbra Streisand via Rep. Nancy Pelosi
(D-Calif.), the former Speaker of the House who did such a bang-up
job that she and the Democratic majority were sent packing after
just four years in the driver’s seat.

Over the past few months, but especially over the few weeks, the
amount of DCCC spam I’ve—I mean Gayle—has been getting is through
the roof. I don’t know if that’s a sign of brilliant persistence or
flop-sweat desperation.

Most indications are that voters have largely tuned out the
midterms but that GOP candidates have an
“enthusiasm edge” among the few of us not paralyzed by Ebola
hysteria who still plan on voting. That’s despite Democratic orgs
such as the DCCC and its Senate counterpart
handily outraising Republicans.

Or maybe it’s because of letters such as the one signed
by Babs below. If the Dems are raising beaucoup bucks via such
efforts, they’re obviously doing something right. Then again, it’s
hard to quantify the costs of emails sent to the wrong targets
(such as me-as-Gayle). Do such misfires actually cause
non-committed people to actively turn against the sender and her
cause? Maybe.

Then again, it might just be the Dems are struggling only
because of the generally awful performance by President Obama
across a wide array of issues. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is
also terrible. None of that takes away from the intense
unlikeability of congressional Republicans, but it does heavily
mitigate the GOP’s negatives.

Here’s La Streisand’s case for supporting Democrats in two
weeks:

From: Barbra Streisand


Dear Gayle

Have you seen Congress lately? It’s a mess. And it’s only going
to get worse if people like Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers
continue to treat corporations better than people.

That’s why I wanted to make sure you saw President Obama’s
call-to-action. Just this week in Texas, voting rights were
dismantled, essentially blocking minorities and many students and
seniors from voting.

Whether you know it or not, in the past 6-years we have seen
huge progress under President Obama. Unemployment is at the lowest
level since before President Obama took office, before the Great
Recession started. The deficit is rapidly dropping and is just 2.8%
of GDP — the lowest since 2007.

And thank God for President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which
has helped millions of people around the country gain access to
health care.

Additionally, he has championed equal pay for women while
Republicans try to take away long-term
unemployment insurance and kill a minimum wage
increase.


There is still so much more we can do. And that can only be
achieved with an active Congress, not an obstructive one. That is
why it is so important to support Democratic
candidates.

I’m asking for your help. We have to act now. There’s only a few
days left. We’re running out of time and money.

DCCC page.

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Shootout or Police Shooting? Kentucky TV Station Asks

Jesse GibbonsLast month, police in Lexington, Kentucky, say
Jesse Gibbons assaulted an officer responding to a domestic
disturbance in a convenience store, stole his Taser, and sped off
in a Jeep before cops caught up with him and shot and killed him
after he fired at them. Sounds open and shut, but, as a Lex 18 News
investigation
reports:

Kentucky State Police won’t answer whether or not Jesse Gibbons,
29, was armed with a gun when police fired a hail of bullets at
him. They also haven’t said which officers, from which departments,
fired their weapons…

A brief video clip of the incident provided to LEX 18 showed
what sounded like a dozen shots fired. A longer version online
depicted what sounded like more than 30 shots fired in the span of
about 30 seconds.

Gibbons’ father says his son didn’t even own a gun:

Gibbons talked exclusively with LEX 18 Investigates Thursday. He
said his son was a good man who suffered from bipolar disorder and
anger management problems. He acknowledged his son “crossed a line”
when he allegedly hit the Lexington police officer.

However, Jesse Gibbons knew that his mental illnesses could
cause problems, his father said. That’s why he refused to own
firearms.

“That was the first question anybody that knew him asked, was
‘when did Jesse get it gun, how did Jesse get a gun, where did
Jesse get a gun?'” Stan Gibbons said. “And the fact is he did not
have a gun.”

WKYT
previously reported eight officers involved in the shooting:
from either the sheriff’s office, the state police, and/or
Lexington police

Kentucky State Police won’t talk about the investigation because
it’s open: officers from the Lexington Division of Police, the
Kentucky State Police, Madison County Sheriff’s Office, and the
Richmond Police Department were involved in the entire
incident.

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Guess Who Wasn’t Shorting Treasurys

After America’s commercial/investment banks crushed all momentum chasers hedge funds in 2014, with one after another after a third recommendation to go long stocks and short bonds starting in late of 2013 and repeating the broken record every single month because, you know, “the recovery”, ignoring the massive outperformance of bonds over stocks in 2014 as Treasury shorts have been forced to cover at ever higher prices now that the global economic emperor was finally was revealed to be completely and utterly naked (thanks Goldman)…

 

… one would think that banks would have eaten at least a little of their own cooking, and partaken in what has become a ridiculously crowded 10 Year TSY short, which according to the latest CFTC COT report saw another 131K net shorts added, the most since May 2014.

 

Well, one would be wrong. As in very wrong. Because as the following H.8-sourced chart shows, not only have commercial banks not added to Treasury shorts, but their long exposure of Treasurys (page 2, line 5) is now the highest in… ever! 

So as banks were urging their clients to short, short, short bonds, they bought, bought, bought every single CUSIP they could find.

Which should not come as a surprise to anyone.

Source




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Stocks, Bond Yields Drop After Rosengren-IBM-Oil Triple-Whammy

As futures opened last night, it was all looking so bright as the ‘rebound’ extended and every knife-catching “in it for the long-run” manager was proved ‘right’. Then Eric Rosengren pissed in the punchbowl – explaining QE will end in October “unless somethinh dramatic happens” – somewhat taunting the market to crash to ensure the Fed keeps the party going. Markets leaked lower and then came Big Blue which slammed futures lower. Oil prices are falling once again this morning, ECB’s bond-buying was a disappointment, and USDJPY’s fundamentals hit an air-pocket. Having retraced perfectly 50% of last week’s losses, the S&P 500 is fading at the open…

Rosengren started it… IBM didn’t help…

 

and Oil weakness is not helping…

 

Of course its all about fun-durr-mentals….

 

Charts: Bloomberg




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Hedge Funds Have Worst Week Since 2011: Here Are The Best And Worst Performers In October And 2014

First, the bad news: Last week was the worst week for hedge funds since 2011.

Then the good: hedge funds dropped by less than half what the decline in the broader market was, largely because many hedge funds still haven’t been fully shaken out of their shorts, despite 6 years of relentless central planning seeking to crush all bears

Specifically, as BofA reveals, the diversified hedge fund index was down 2.4% for the week ending Oct 15, while S&P500 was down 5.4% on a price returns basis. CTA advisors were at the top, up 0.85% while Event Driven funds were down 4.2%.

The full breakdown below:

The breakdown by strategy:

 

Here are the Top 20 best and worst performing hedge funds in 2014:

 

And finally, here is a performance summary of a selection of the most prominent hedge funds in the US, first sorted by October performance, worst to best:

 

And here is the same universe, but with a YTD performance sort:

Source: BofA, HSBC




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ATTN D.C. Reasonoids: Damon Root Discusses His New Book on the Supreme Court at Cato on Nov. 3

On November 3, Reason Senior Editor Damon Root will
speak at the Cato Institute about his new book Overruled: The
Long War for Control of the U.S. Supreme Court (pre-order
your copy now). Here’s the event description followed by

registration details:

Overruled: The Long War for
Control of the U.S. Supreme Court

Featuring the author Damon Root, Senior Editor,
Reason magazine and Reason.com; with comments by Jeffrey
Rosen, Professor of Law, George Washington University, and
President & CEO, National Constitution Center; and
Roger Pilon, Vice President for Legal Affairs,
Cato Institute, and Director, Cato Center for Constitutional
Studies; moderated by Walter Olson, Senior Fellow,
Cato Institute.

What is the proper role of the Supreme Court under the
Constitution? Should the Court be “active” or “restrained”? Or is
that even the proper way to look at the question, however much
we’ve heard it put that way for several decades now? In his new
book, Damon Root traces this debate from the Constitution’s
conception to the present. His central focus, however, is on the
emergence of the modern libertarian approach, which cuts through
the often sterile debate between liberals and conservatives and
points to the Constitution itself by way of determining the proper
role of the Court under it. Please join us for a refreshing account
of this recent history.

Luncheon to Follow


Click here to register to attend this event.

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Technical Glitch Downs Bank Of England’s $110 Trillion Payments System

The Bank of England’s “Real Time Gross Settlement Payment System” (RTGS) – the UK’s equivalent of the US FedWire – has gone offline this morning due to a technical glitch, according to The Telegraph. RTGS, which processes large payments in real-time (including home purchases) between British banks – and processed GBP70 trillion in payments across 5000 entities last year – has been down since 6am London time (the fault was disclosed over 5 hours later at 1130 London Time). For now the largest payments are being processed manually and smaller payments are on hold.

 

 

As The Telegraph reports,

The infrastructure that processes large payments including house purchases between British banks has gone offline, the Bank of England has said.

 

The central bank said the “Real Time Gross Settlement Payment System” (RTGS), which settles large transfers between banks, had gone offline, and remained so on Monday morning.

 

It said that the biggest payments were being processed manually and reassured the public that all payments would be on Monday.

 

…

 

The RTGS is set up to settle large payments in real time, rather than at the end of the day, reducing risk.

 

The system – which processes payments such as house purchases – has been down since 6am on Monday morning. The large banks were contacted early in the day, and the Bank disclosed the fault at around 11.30am.

 

…

 

The RTGS routes payments made through CHAPS (the Clearing House Automated Payments System), which settles important and time-sensitive payments, including house purchases.

 

According to the CHAPS website, it processed £70 trillion of payments last year and is used by 5,000 financial institutions.

Why is this serious?

The system helps keep the day-to-day running of banks going by acting as an intermediary between banks. If a payment is going to be made between banks, RTGS credits the bank receiving the funds quickly, and takes funds from the bank sending money, removing the risk for the receiving bank.

 

In effect, RTGS sits at the top of the payment structure for banks, as shown by this Bank of England document:

 

*  *  *
Nothing to see here, move along…




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Exiled Nazis Get Social Security Checks, Jay Leno Gets Humor Prize, Millennials Love Nashville & Baltimore: A.M. Links

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ECB Unleashes (Covered) Bond Buying Program, Sovereigns Sell Off

Draghi, we have a problem. Just as Coeure ‘promised’ the ECB, according to The FT, began its bond-buying program this morning. However, peripheral sovereign bond-buying front-runners banking on the ECB greater fool to offload to are disappointed as they are go no easy money love. The initial program is covered-bond-buying (similar to US MBS, but a considerably smaller market) and the ECB will reveal how much it has bought each Monday afternoon (starting next week). Greek bonds are suffering the most with 5Y yields at cycle highs once again and prices at lows (vanquishing all of Friday’s gains).

 

As The FT reports,

The European Central Bank has started to buy covered bonds, launching its latest attempt to stave off a vicious bout of economic stagnation in the eurozone.

 

The purchases are the first in a bond-buying programme that is expected to see the ECB place billions of euros of covered bonds and asset-backed securities on its balance sheet over the next two years in an attempt to revive lending and growth across the region.

 

The ECB confirmed that the central bank had begun purchasing the assets on Monday. The purchases of asset-backed securities are expected to start later this year.

 

The central bank will reveal how much it has bought every Monday afternoon, starting next week.

And the disappointed sovereign front-runners continue to sell…

 

As Greece implodes back to higher yields and lower bond prices…

 

*  *  *

Of course, do not forget that the ECB has already changed its mind and changed it back on exactly which bonds are eligible for its buying program – as we detailed here.

*  *  *

None of this should be a surprise – remember what happened the last time the ECB bought sovereign bonds…

Spanish and Italian bond yields (upper pane) blew wider as the volume of ECB bond buying (lower pane) picked up…

 

Charts: Bloomberg




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