Goldman's Got Friends

"I've got friends, of course, but my business has always been the same - a one-man affair.  That is why I have always played a lone hand."
-Jesse Livermore, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
 
Next time Goldman's CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, does a touchy feely exclusive interview with National Public Radio (NPR), make sure you cover your shorts. Thank God I did (see my 4/7 note titled "GS: Some Love For Lloyd" at www.researchedgellc.com). As soon as this man knew his numbers, he got out of the GS dungeon and started giving the Street the looksy that he and his fellow traders had slayed the dragon.
 
No, Goldman's blockbuster quarter was not a surprise last night. No these guys don't want the TARP moneys anymore. From Washington to Wall Street, these guys have proven that they've "got friends" where they need them, and they continue to "play a lone hand."
 
Make no mistake here, Goldman's gusher didn't have anything to do with their Investment Banking or Asset Management Businesses. It had everything to do with what their clients can't touch - Trading and Prop. While most of the manic  media is too googly eyed to understand what just happened here, the guys and gals on the Goldman prop desks have to be snickering. Tapping the US government (or their ex-CEO, depending on how you look at it) for a lifeline, then running the tables with tax payer moneys has its privileges!
 
Guess what's next? Now we'll hear the cries of the wolves that all they really want to do is pay the moneys back...  If you don't know that this has always been their plan, you need to seriously wake up and smell the coffee here this morning - the plan has always been to start paying themselves again. My sincere congratulations to Goldman Sachs for taking advantage of some of the dumbest people the financial media and US government has ever empowered with responsibility.
Now that Goldman has set the bar way too high for virtually everyone else who HAD a prop desk, the risk embedded in the US market's expectations starts to go up. Don't forget how beared-up most of these other wanna be global macro bankers were who are still running TARP Moneys Inc - most of them (with a notable mention to Morgan Stanley) have been explicitly bearish on the prospects for a stock market recovery and my accountability checkpoint has the SP500 up +26.9% from that consensus Depressionista low.
 
While the bankers were all whining, "traders" as the ever so savant'esque "investors for the long run" call them, were winning. We've just had the largest short squeeze in the history of US stock market trading. Largest, that is, for anyone who wasn't trading in the 1800's at least - and last I checked, that included John Mack.
 
When he worked at Morgan Stanley, some of the senior guys on the trading floors used to call Vikram Pandit "Trader Vic" - they were being facetious. As equally obvious as Blankfein capitalized on the trading environment in the last 3 months, be rest assured that Trader Vic's TARP Moneys Inc desk was on the other side. There is a winner and a loser on every trade. Never forget that.
 
With their respective stock markets up again overnight, both the Russians and Chinese have to be watching this American circus with at least some level of suspicion. Inclusive of last night's gains, the Shanghai Composite Exchange is +38.9% and the Russian Trading System is +30.1%. Do we think leaders of these two countries are as dumb as some of ours?
 
I know, I know... calling people dumb (twice) in the same note is really a mean thing to do. Especially in a business whose memory is as good as her last trade. But you know what? At the end of the day, this isn't the government sponsored game of socialism that everyone getting "made whole" wants this to be.
 
At the end of the day, as Jesse Livermore said, "this game has always been the same"... "it's a one man affair"... and no matter where you go this morning, there it is. Deal with it and your own returns appropriately, using whatever resources that are legal and at your disposal. Goldman did.
 
The bullish intermediate TREND line in the SP500 remains intact. In a perverse way, as the US Dollar continues to lose integrity, stocks will REFLATE. My next line of resistance is 869. TREND line support is considerable at 821.
 
Best of luck out there today,
KM
 
 
LONG ETFS

XLK - SPDR Technology - Technology looks positive on a TRADE and TREND basis. Fundamentally, the sector has shown signs of stabilization over the last six+ weeks.   As the world demand environment becomes more predictable, M&A should pick up given cash rich balance sheets in this sector (despite recent doubts about an IBM/JAVA deal being done).  The other big near-term factors to watch will be 1Q09 earnings - which is typically the toughest for tech, along with 2Q09 guide.  There are also preliminary signs that technology spending could be an early beneficiary of the stimulus plan.

TIP - iShares TIPS- The iShares etf, TIP, which is 90% invested in the inflation protected sector of the US Treasury Market currently offers a compelling yield on TTM basis of 5.89%.  We believe that future inflation expectations are currently mispriced and that TIPS are a compelling way to own yield on an inflation protected basis, especially in the context of our re-flation thesis.

XLB - SPDR Materials -As the USD got pounded yesterday, XLB reflated. It's a bull on both a TREND and TRADE duration. The Materials sector is, obviously, a key beneficiary of our re-flation thesis.  Domestically, materials equities should also benefit as the stimulus plan begins to move into action.

USO - Oil Fund-We bought oil on Wednesday (3/25) for a TRADE and are positive on the commodity from a TREND perspective. With the uptick of volatility in the contango, we're buying the curve with USO rather than the front month contract.  

EWC - iShares Canada-We bought Canada on Friday (3/20) into the selloff. We want to own what THE client (China) needs, namely commodities, as China builds out its infrastructure. Canada will benefit from commodity reflation, especially as the USD breaks down. We're net positive Harper's leadership, which diverges from Canada's large government recent history, and believe next year's Olympics in resource rich Vancouver should provide a positive catalyst for investors to get long the country.   

DJP - iPath Dow Jones-AIG Commodity -With the USD breaking down we want to be long commodity re-flation. DJP broadens our asset class allocation beyond oil and gold.
 
GLD - SPDR Gold-We bought more gold on 4/02. We believe gold will re-assert its bullish TREND as the yellow metal continues to be a hedge against future inflation expectations.

DVY - Dow Jones Select Dividend -We like DVY's high dividend yield of 5.85%.


SHORT ETFS

LQD  - iShares Corporate Bonds- Corporate bonds have had a huge move off their 2008 lows and we expect with the eventual rising of interest rates in the back half of 2009 that bonds will give some of that move back. Moody's estimates US corporate bond default rates to climb to 15.1% in 2009, up from a previous 2009 estimate of 10.4%.

SHY - iShares 1-3 Year Treasury Bonds- If you pull up a three year chart of 2-Year Treasuries you'll see the massive macro Trend of interest rates starting to move in the opposite direction. We call this chart the "Queen Mary" and its new-found positive slope means that America's cost of capital will start to go up, implying that access to capital will tighten. Yield is inversely correlated to bond price, so the rising yield is bearish for Treasuries.

EWU - iShares UK - We shorted the UK yesterday (4/08). We're bearish on the country because of a number of macro factors. From a monetary standpoint we believe the Central Bank has done "too little too late" to manage the interest rate and now it is running out of room to cut. The benchmark currently stands at 0.50% after a 50bps reduction on 3/5. While the Central Bank is printing money and buying government Treasuries to help capitalize its increasingly nationalized banks, the country has a considerable ways to go to attain its 2% inflation target as inflation has slowed considerably. GDP declined 1.5% in Q1, unemployment  is on the rise, housing prices continue to fall, and the trade deficit continues to steepen month-over-month.

EWL - iShares Switzerland - We shorted Switzerland on 4/07 and believe the country offers a good opportunity to get in on the short side of Western Europe, and in particular European financials.  Switzerland has nearly run out of room to cut its interest rate and due to the country's reliance on the financial sector is in a favorable trading range. Increasingly Swiss banks are being forced by governments to reveal their customers, thereby reducing the incentive of Switzerland as a tax-free haven.

UUP - U.S. Dollar Index -We believe that the US Dollar is the leading indicator for the US stock market. In the immediate term, what is bad for the US Dollar should be good for the stock market. The Euro is down versus the USD at $1.3294. The USD is down versus the Yen at 99.6900 and down versus the Pound at $1.4891 as of 6am today.

EWJ - iShares Japan -We re-shorted the Japanese equity market rally via EWJ. This is a tactical short; we expect the market there to pull back when reality sinks in over the coming weeks. Japan has experienced major GDP contraction-it dropped 3.2% in Q4 '08 on a quarterly basis, and we see no catalyst for growth to return this year. We believe the BOJ's recent program to provide $10 Billion in loans to repair banks' capital ratios and a plan to combat rising yields by buying treasuries are at best a "band aid".

XLP - SPDR Consumer Staples- Consumer Staples continues to look negative as a TREND. This group is low beta and won't perform like Tech and Basic Materials do on market up days. There is a lot of currency and demand risk embedded in the P&L's of some of the large consumer staple multi-nationals; particularly in Latin America, Europe, and Japan