The New Colossus

"The New Colossus" is a sonnet by Emma Lazarus, written in 1883 and, in 1903, engraved on a bronze plaque and mounted inside the lower level of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. However "TMM/Yellowbeetle Collaborations" would like to give you the sonnet they found on a plaque at a different location in New York-

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering GGBs astride from Euro land;
Here at our debt-washed, subgrade shores shall stand
A mighty man with a speech, whose flame
Is the liberated easing, and his name
Father of printing. From his QE-hands
Glow world-wide bids; his mild beard commands
The air-head policy that twin mandates frame.
"Keep, Asian lands, your new found wealth!" cries he
With silent lips. "Give me tired bonds, your poor-performing loans,
Your huddled assets yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming book
Send these, the homeless, rating-lost to me,
I lift my balance sheet, behold the golden floor!
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Anonymous
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September 14, 2012 at 2:32 PM ×

Meanwhile screw the savers, teach a lesson or two!

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Anonymous
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September 14, 2012 at 2:53 PM ×

Can we start to omit the word "risk" from the concept of "risk premium" yet? #newnormal

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Leftback
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September 14, 2012 at 2:55 PM ×

Breathtaking.....

LB has had some thoughts of his own regarding the FOMC's open-ended QE policy, and will post at length on this topic later.

The FOMC has finally and firmly solidified one bizarre yet fundamental tenet of ZIRP/QE markets: from now on, good economic data will be bad for Spoos (earlier cessation of QE), and weak economic data will be good (QE to infinity). There are a wide range of market consequences that flow from this decision, and we will discuss these in detail in time.

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Dee Dee Humberside
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September 14, 2012 at 2:58 PM ×

don't fight the Fed, or so we have been taught in Junior Trader 101

but soothsayer signals are not fantastically encouraging here

what's one to do? ride China a little bit longer (on a very short leash) and sit the rest of it out, that's what

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Dee Dee Humberside
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September 14, 2012 at 3:03 PM ×

Also, long bond getting SMOKED.

Can't wait for the cyclical round of "it's the big one", "the low is in for rates", "secular bull is over" from our favorite pundits.

A long way from here still, but TLT 110-112 anyone?

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Leftback
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September 14, 2012 at 3:28 PM ×

DD. Good eye...

LB has been looking longingly at the 3.40-3.50% long bond (TLT 110-112) support for the longest time. I am sure that Mr Gross and Mr El-Erian (among others) know where that level is too.

We can definitely expect the punditocracy to scare the public out of their bond funds and into US equities at exactly the wrong moment. After all, it is their job. In the mean time, happiness today is zero exposure to US, UK or German govvies.

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Dee Dee Humberside
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September 14, 2012 at 5:58 PM ×

I really havent been this puzzled in a long while.

I have been on the TWINE side of things most of spring/summer (albeit less aggressively so than others), I want to stay long, I dont want to fight the Fed, I think some stuff is still cheap (not only EM themes but US structured comes to mind, and it's a direct beneficiary of the Fed crowding out too), I realize 'open-ended' is potentially a game changer etc etc

But ... I don't know ... Despite all that, pants are getting a bit itchy, and I am actually very afraid

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Leftback
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September 14, 2012 at 6:57 PM ×

Perhaps the pants are too tight, DD? It could be due to the weather in Grimsby.

We can all watch the charts and pay attention to sentiment polls and noise in the media, as we'll no doubt hear a crescendo of bullishness, more to the point we will definitely get warnings from credit markets before the breakdown, so I will keep an eye on US credit spreads and Tsy yields while being very happy not to be involved in US markets at all.

As for Europe, I think the TWINErs have done rather well, wouldn't you say? LB even had a small Greek equity punt, which was very cheeky indeed.

I forgot what soothsayer signals are, TMM, is it De Mark? He has been very good this year.

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Leftback
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September 14, 2012 at 10:43 PM ×

A postscript here to one of TMM's greatest hits of 2012, the wonderful post on the demise of the sovereign CDS, Dead Parrot sketch and all. To quote the late Bruce Forsyth, "Well, let's look at the old scoreboard...."

Sovereign Debt Default Risk Plummets

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Kerpal
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September 17, 2012 at 11:42 AM ×

I am intrigued to know if you can strip out "growth" in popularity of your blog and plot the readership against GDP. Do more people read your blog in times of austerity or boom?

And do you put this down to people being out of work and having more time to read, people having nothing to do at work and looking for inspiration to add value...or is it the opposite way around?

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Leftback
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September 17, 2012 at 7:06 PM ×

Not a lot happening out there. Performance chasing, d*ck measuring, truth bending and bullsh*tting period is formally underway:

("I wasn't under-invested for months, I was balls out long while you were under the table crying for your mummy"
"You were not. You bought Schatz at negative yields, you f**kwit."
"Nonsense. I was early into Greek and Spanish assets"
"Buying a doner kebab and a bottle of cheap Rioja outside Liverpool Street before catching the 4,36 to East Croydon doesn't really count..."

etc..)

A good time to sit and do nothing and enjoy the results of a highly entertaining year of knife-catching while planning future moves and noting the positions of all of the exits.....

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Polemic
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September 18, 2012 at 9:10 PM ×

Kerpal .. Good question and yes we have made this observation in the past. previously linked to what we called a "commentometer" where lack of comments was normally linked to bullish posts vs bearish posts getting more feedback ( and agreement). Basically yes, there is a link we have noticed. Times of stress, which are always linked to falls see the highest readership spikes and gently up trending markets see a gradual fall. We guess that is all to do with the psych of why you read around a subject anyway. If its boring and you don't need to participate in the markets you stop reading as you wander off to go fishing, mend your car or just go out on the piss with your mates. When things boot off into unknown-land with all the associated excitement then reading to either find nuggets to give you greater insight into that unknown, or I'm afraid in blogosphere , just to collect extra ammo to back your own views (often based on "see toldjaso" motives) really does pick up. Its like reading a paper. Disaster sells copy. I know that if we wrote equally well argued posts but one extreme bullish and the other bearish, the bear one would get much wider circulation.. WHY YOU MUST BUY EVERYTHING NOW just doesn't have the same allure as "WHY YOU MUST SELL EVERYTHING NOW". There is some strange asymmetry in the psychology involved in the difference between buying and selling.

Finally... keep up the blogging Kerpal .. It's going well, even if some of us do think that one day you'll get sacked for some of the stuff you say! (He's at "Big Shot Trader's Blog" folks)

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