White Rabbit Cult says:
hat tip FT’s Alphaville
>
If anyone knows how to reach White Rabbit Cult, please let me know — i would love to get permission to use this in the book . . .
"My formula for success is rise early, work late and strike oil." —John Paul Getty
Consumer Credit outstanding fell $14.8b in Sept seasonally adjusted, almost $5b more than expected and marks the 11th month in the past 12 of declines. At $2.456T outstanding, it is 4.9% below the record high in July '08. After a flat reading in Aug, (didn't fall b/c of the CARS program), non revolving debt outstanding fell by $4.9B. Revolving (mostly credit cards) balances outstanding fell by $9.9B. To fully put into perspective today's data, look at the current level of consumer credit (doesn't include mortgages, the biggest chunk of consumer credit) relative to GDP. As of Q3, it totaled 17.2%...
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November 21st, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Barry – Sense of humor has been lacking from the assembly lately. Just follow the market down the rabbit hole. And what ever happened to Friday night Jazz?
November 21st, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Just for grins, you might want to make sure the bar codes don’t hold an Easter egg. There are only 3 distinct patterns. It’s probably ok. (Sorry, it’s just the way my brain works.)
November 21st, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Maybe 4. My monitor is a little fuzzy on a couple that look pretty close.
November 21st, 2008 at 4:20 pm
got this in my emails recently:
Letter to my bank:
Dear Sirs:
In view of current developments in the banking
market, if one of my checks is returned marked
‘insufficient funds’, does that refer to me or to you?
Yours Faithfully,
xxxx
November 21st, 2008 at 4:36 pm
letter to my bank is funny…
November 21st, 2008 at 4:37 pm
This is obviously one of Bernanke’s out-of-the-box schemes to support GE.
November 21st, 2008 at 4:43 pm
You don’t want to pick up any Washington Mutual even if it’s a good toaster. Here’s a couple of great pieces of found humor:
Washington Mutual’s Last Television Ad Before Bankruptcy”
Washington Mutual’s Last Press Release
Yes, they’re real. They belong on the highlight reel of 21st century fraud and incompetence, but they’re funny.
November 21st, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Arrggghh. Screwed up that first link. One more time:
Washington Mutual’s Last TV Ad
November 21st, 2008 at 5:14 pm
yeah, also, MER was running their unintentionally funny, running bull ad nonstop a few weeks before ken lewis made the second worst trade in history (2nd only to his CFC trade a few months prior).
and at present, citi never sleeps adverts on loop at cnbc.
when goldman starts running ads, then we can call another bottom.
cheers all. have a great weekend.
November 21st, 2008 at 5:29 pm
BLOOMBERG REPORTS:
JAMIE DIMON SEEN LEAVING HIS MIDTOWN OFFICE-
TOASTER AND CITI COUPON IN HAND!!!
Have a good weekend to all
November 21st, 2008 at 6:20 pm
catman Says:
November 21st, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Barry – Sense of humor has been lacking from the assembly lately. Just follow the market down the rabbit hole. And what ever happened to Friday night Jazz?
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
forgive Barry, the new bull, for the past week has been hard.
November 21st, 2008 at 6:38 pm
AND then there is Globe and Mail –
Pirate humour rules Wall Street
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081121.WBstreetwise20081121112035/WBStory/WBstreetwise/
Andrew Willis, today at 11:20 AM EST
Argggg, Maties! Here’s what shell-shocked financiers are laughing at on Wall Street Friday morning in a phony Bloomberg story:
Somali Pirates in Discussions to Acquire Citigroup
By Andreas Hippin
November 20 (Bloomberg) — The Somali pirates, renegade Somalis known for hijacking ships for ransom in the Gulf of Aden, are negotiating a purchase of Citigroup.
The pirates would buy Citigroup with new debt and their existing cash stockpiles, earned most recently from hijacking numerous ships, including most recently a $200 million Saudi Arabian oil tanker. The Somali pirates are offering up to $0.10 per share for Citigroup, pirate spokesman Sugule Ali said earlier today. The negotiations have entered the final stage, Ali said.
“You may not like our price, but we are not in the business of paying for things. Be happy we are in the mood to
offer the shareholders anything,” said Ali.
The pirates will finance part of the purchase by selling new Pirate Ransom Backed Securities. The PRBS’s are backed by the cash flows from future ransom payments from hijackings in the Gulf of Aden. Moody’s and S&P have already issued their top investment grade ratings for the PRBS’s.
Head pirate, Ubu Kalid Shandu, said: “We need a bank so that we have a place to keep all of our ransom money. Thankfully, the dislocations in the capital markets has allowed us to purchase Citigroup
at an attractive valuation and to take advantage of TARP capital to grow the business even faster.”
Shandu added, “We don’t call ourselves pirates. We are coastguards and this will just allow us to guard our coasts better.”
*CITI IN TALKS WITH SOMALI PIRATES FOR POSSIBLE CAPITAL INFUSION
*WILL REQUIRE ALL CITI EMPLOYEES TO WEAR PATCH OVER ONE EYE
*SOMALIAN PIRATES APPLY TO BECOME BANK TO ACCESS TARP
*PAULSON: TARP PIRATE EQUITY IS AN `INVESTMENT,’ WILL PAY OFF
*KASHKARI SAYS `SOMALI PIRATES ARE ‘FUNDAMENTALLY SOUND’ ‘
*Moody’s upgrade Somali Pirates to AAA
*HUD SAYS SOMALI DHOW FORECLOSURE PROGRAM HAD `VERY LOW’ PARTICPATION
*SOMALI PIRATES IN DISCUSSION TO ACQUIRE CITIBANK
*FED OFFICIALS: AGGRESSIVE EASING WOULD CUT SOMALI PIRATE RISK
* FED AGREED OCT. 29 TO TAKE `WHATEVER STEPS’ NEEDED FOR SOMALI PIRATES
November 21st, 2008 at 7:07 pm
When the toaster goes bad I can just throw it away. The bank needs constant “fixing”.
November 21st, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Sold me gold and me golden options. Wow a 2 bagger in a few days for the options side. Not giving that back. I flipped during the mid day but couldn’t write because I had no idea what the heck the Wordpad password was at work. Theory says if commodities are inflating back up this is good if it continues. I would have kept me gold if only gold and silver were going up.
Bought some C $7.50 calls expr Dec 40 cents each – $200 worth. Small spec play. Somehow I don’t think the gov’t will let C stock go to $0. If the gov’t let’s C stock go to $0 I think the market has an excellent chance of a terrible crash and a huge amount of confidence will be lost. I look for the gov’t to come in and actually support the common stock this time. At last count Morgan owns C stock and UBS owns Morgan. The circle of love goes around. If one falls it takes all the others with. This is provided the banks haven’t sold each other stocks yet.
Back into GLW and GRMN also.
November 21st, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Oh, another attempt at liberal-tinged humor from Barry Ritholtz, I see. As a registered Republican (my God, there he goes again! ARRRRGGH), I frown upon people who use irony and sarcasm to prove a point.
On a more serious note, the market responded very positively to Geithner this afternoon. Is the selection of Geithner a sort of political anal lube for the rich people of this country? Because Obama’s vision and plan for this country will NEVER work without maximizing tax revenues and jacking up marginal tax rates on the highest income brackets. I didn’t support Obama for this nation to borrow more. Without cracking the “piggybank”, then my fellow Republicans would be right about there not being enough money for Obama’s programs. I sure hope Geithner is a “lube” because business as usual for Larry Kudlow’s tax bill ain’t gonna cut it.
November 21st, 2008 at 10:45 pm
I have the suspicion that some kind of “bottom violation” might be in store for the shorts. With a lot of naked shorting going on and a ton of money in SKF it might only take a reinstatement of the uptick rule or some other procedural modification to set a match to the pile. Nothing grows to the sky, not even SKF.
November 21st, 2008 at 10:52 pm
@ JM: That $200 worth of calls is definitely going to scare the crap out of the short funds… I thought about selling my GDX/PAAS but I held. If the market is up Monday it will be rising tide lifts all boats and I can hop off into one of the ultra funds (UYM might be due for a run -if a squeeze develops there is also URE and UYG or FAS).If the market is down then gold will probably hold its value well.
Methinks we are at or very near the $ turn and all the commodity plays that have been beaten down are in the process of bottoming. The banks? Not so much.
November 21st, 2008 at 11:59 pm
philipat Says:
November 20th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
OK, but hasn’t “Long Treasuries, Short every index” become the equivalent to “Long commodities, short Financials”?
Is this possibly the final bubble to burst?
No responses. Which made even more confident and, wow, what a day!!
November 22nd, 2008 at 12:39 am
Today I became a day trader. Into QLD late in the morning out at the end of the day.
Can someone explain to me why this predictable closing rally thing keeps happening? Is everybody convinced they are going to miss out on the great economic recovery (or at least a good bear market rally)?
Barry: What can you tell us about the currencies? We’re seeing such wild exchange rate swings and the dollar seems to be going the wrong direction, up. Did this happen during previous crashes?
November 22nd, 2008 at 10:48 am
Hey, no fair! The coupons explicitly say limit one per customer. How can BAC game the system and get CFC and MER? I think they are going to have to give MER back (if they get lucky). One the other hand, the taxpayers have had FNM and FRE put on us, we are too lucky I guess.
November 22nd, 2008 at 11:27 am
Barry….
YES! You have my permission to use this image in any way you like! Just would love a small credit to the website. I am glad you like it!!!
You have my email in my signup if you need to get a hold of me.
Best Regards…
The White Rabbit
http://www.whiterabbitcult.com
November 22nd, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Speaking of laughs:
Deep-fried secrets of the Credit Crunch.
http://www.slideshare.net/WynnQuon/deepfriedsecretsofthecreditcrunch-presentation/v1?src=embed
“Q: Will the US$850 billion bailout work? s A: First it is not a bailout. It is an investment, no lie. Every investment is measured by its return over a period of time. Time as we know is infinite. Therefore all investment returns tend to zero. So if we don’t get our money back that would be pretty much a success. “