Corepuncher
Well-known member
From a Minyanville article...
It hasn’t been an easy few weeks for anyone. Days morphed together, Sunday’s have been sacrificed and the financial industry witnessed a seismic shift.
In a desperate attempt at balance, I joined my brother at the NYC Cowboy Mouth show last night. Live music was the last thing on my mind but I have one brother and life is short.
I arrived at the venue with my best attempt at a fresh face when my phone rang.
The SEC was banning short sales of financial [COLOR=blue! important][COLOR=blue! important]stocks[/COLOR][/COLOR].
As the band stepped on stage and the crowd jumped to their feet, I sat in my chair dumbfounded. The implications for the capital market structure are profound.
To be clear, I appreciate the need for market stability. Time, if you will, to sort out this mess. Nobody wants to see the market crash. It’s not good for anyone.
We warned of this possibility in front of the September corporate [COLOR=blue! important][COLOR=blue! important]debt[/COLOR][/COLOR] issuance.
The leaks were springing in the dike faster than folks in Washington could invent fingers.
The day of comeuppance arrived and something had to be done.
This, however, was a last gasp of desperation I never thought I would see.
Many on Main Street will turn on the tube and see the Dow 1000 points higher than it was yesterday. They will naturally assume that this is a good thing.
They will point to the short-sellers as modern day evil doers and offer that they got what they deserved.
While there are surely some that abused the system, they are not to blame for the structural deficiencies.
There is a difference between short-sellers and short sales.
The former makes a living on finding flawed companies, which in and of itself is a natural and healthy balance in the marketplace.
The latter is a structural process, a necessary element of how free markets work.
It’s human nature to place blame, particularly when we don’t understand something.
Most people in the world don’t understand derivatives.
They don’t understand this has been percolating for years.
They don’t understand that there are two sides to every trade and a risk to each [COLOR=blue! important][COLOR=blue! important]reward[/COLOR][/COLOR].
We’ve monitored this for years in Minyanville as the cumulative imbalances built.
We watched as the markets were engineered.
We wondered aloud when the wheels would fall off the wagon.
The irony of the current conundrum is that many of the institutions in peril are the same companies that repackaged risk, engineered exotic products and built the derivative structure.
Hank Paulson knows this all too well for he was part of that establishment before selling his stock on a tax-free basis.
This comeuppance is, in many ways, why a new world order was being established on Wall Street. As painful as it was, it was a healthy progression towards the eventual recovery.
A bitter pill, if you will.
This unprecedented step by the government is the dawn of a new—and dare I say unfortunate—era. While it will flush a few abusive folks out of the system, it will forever alter the integrity of the free market system.
There will be many consequences.
Option markets will cease to function as [COLOR=blue! important][COLOR=blue! important]market [COLOR=blue! important]makers[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] can’t short stock against their order flow.
Many hedge funds have effectively been put out of business.
An integral layer of demand will be removed from the marketplace, creating a downside vacuum once these curbs are removed.
As Phil Erlanger said on this morning’s Buzz, it is martial law for the markets.
Kevin Depew posted a chart earlier this week drawing attention to the similarities between current day and the 1971-1976 period. I thought that was worth revisiting as we attempt to make sense of this surreal environment.
Price discovery works both ways and just as the market wrestled with risk gone awry, it must now digest the unintended consequences of this latest government action.
This is a new world, folks. Day one. The dawn of a new era and something none of us have ever seen.
The system was broken and rather than let it fix itself through time and price, history has forever been artificially altered.
It is, in many ways, uniquely sad.
Be that as it may, we must remain lucid and play the hand we’ve been dealt. To that end, I would urge Minyans to take a good, hard look at their risk and use price to their advantage.
The rising tide will lift all boats in front of a perfect storm that awaits. It may have been pushed out on the horizon but it's there.
And now it’s really mad.
R.P.
It hasn’t been an easy few weeks for anyone. Days morphed together, Sunday’s have been sacrificed and the financial industry witnessed a seismic shift.
In a desperate attempt at balance, I joined my brother at the NYC Cowboy Mouth show last night. Live music was the last thing on my mind but I have one brother and life is short.
I arrived at the venue with my best attempt at a fresh face when my phone rang.
The SEC was banning short sales of financial [COLOR=blue! important][COLOR=blue! important]stocks[/COLOR][/COLOR].
As the band stepped on stage and the crowd jumped to their feet, I sat in my chair dumbfounded. The implications for the capital market structure are profound.
To be clear, I appreciate the need for market stability. Time, if you will, to sort out this mess. Nobody wants to see the market crash. It’s not good for anyone.
We warned of this possibility in front of the September corporate [COLOR=blue! important][COLOR=blue! important]debt[/COLOR][/COLOR] issuance.
The leaks were springing in the dike faster than folks in Washington could invent fingers.
The day of comeuppance arrived and something had to be done.
This, however, was a last gasp of desperation I never thought I would see.
Many on Main Street will turn on the tube and see the Dow 1000 points higher than it was yesterday. They will naturally assume that this is a good thing.
They will point to the short-sellers as modern day evil doers and offer that they got what they deserved.
While there are surely some that abused the system, they are not to blame for the structural deficiencies.
There is a difference between short-sellers and short sales.
The former makes a living on finding flawed companies, which in and of itself is a natural and healthy balance in the marketplace.
The latter is a structural process, a necessary element of how free markets work.
It’s human nature to place blame, particularly when we don’t understand something.
Most people in the world don’t understand derivatives.
They don’t understand this has been percolating for years.
They don’t understand that there are two sides to every trade and a risk to each [COLOR=blue! important][COLOR=blue! important]reward[/COLOR][/COLOR].
We’ve monitored this for years in Minyanville as the cumulative imbalances built.
We watched as the markets were engineered.
We wondered aloud when the wheels would fall off the wagon.
The irony of the current conundrum is that many of the institutions in peril are the same companies that repackaged risk, engineered exotic products and built the derivative structure.
Hank Paulson knows this all too well for he was part of that establishment before selling his stock on a tax-free basis.
This comeuppance is, in many ways, why a new world order was being established on Wall Street. As painful as it was, it was a healthy progression towards the eventual recovery.
A bitter pill, if you will.
This unprecedented step by the government is the dawn of a new—and dare I say unfortunate—era. While it will flush a few abusive folks out of the system, it will forever alter the integrity of the free market system.
There will be many consequences.
Option markets will cease to function as [COLOR=blue! important][COLOR=blue! important]market [COLOR=blue! important]makers[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] can’t short stock against their order flow.
Many hedge funds have effectively been put out of business.
An integral layer of demand will be removed from the marketplace, creating a downside vacuum once these curbs are removed.
As Phil Erlanger said on this morning’s Buzz, it is martial law for the markets.
Kevin Depew posted a chart earlier this week drawing attention to the similarities between current day and the 1971-1976 period. I thought that was worth revisiting as we attempt to make sense of this surreal environment.
Price discovery works both ways and just as the market wrestled with risk gone awry, it must now digest the unintended consequences of this latest government action.
This is a new world, folks. Day one. The dawn of a new era and something none of us have ever seen.
The system was broken and rather than let it fix itself through time and price, history has forever been artificially altered.
It is, in many ways, uniquely sad.
Be that as it may, we must remain lucid and play the hand we’ve been dealt. To that end, I would urge Minyans to take a good, hard look at their risk and use price to their advantage.
The rising tide will lift all boats in front of a perfect storm that awaits. It may have been pushed out on the horizon but it's there.
And now it’s really mad.
R.P.
Wish I was able to
Awesome! 
