Here's the by line from the article in Barron's: "Could a Japanese debt crisis help spur a rally? Perhaps, if it fuels the yen carry trade."
But rather than precipitating a panic, a decline in the overvalued yen would serve as a tonic in two ways.
The most obvious would be to give a lift to Japanese exporters, which have been hampered by the yen's strength, not only against the dollar but even more so against other currencies.
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Tags: Currency, euo, Euro, gdx. slv, gld, gold, muni, municipal, municipal bonds, PALL, PPLT, TBT, treasuries, USD, ycs
Commodities/Futures, Connect The Dots, Currency, Fixed Income/Bonds, Strategy/Allocation | | 
February 18, 2010 1:36 pm | 
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While Bernanke & Co. continue to fear pulling liquidity to early, we might be learning that the Fed is not as in control as we would like to believe. Today’s story about China increasing reserve requirements and nudging up interest rates provides an interesting canary for our coal mine. As readers are aware, I don’t believe any numbers coming out of China, but that being said, the reported growth is truly astounding:
Data released over the weekend showed mainland China’s exports rose 17.7% in December from the year-earlier month, trouncing the 4% rise expected by economists in a Reuters survey and marking a sharp rebound from the 1.2% fall in November.
At the same time, imports vaulted 55.9% during the month, also comfortably beating the 31% jump estimated by economists. The surge helped narrow China’s December trade surplus to $18.43 billion from $19.1 billion in November.
For full story, click here.
While we can argue about fake growth, or inefficient growth, or government stimulus making the bulk of this fake demand, the real issue becomes forward-looking. If China takes liquidity out of their own market, might it cause liquidity to be lower in the US? I believe it will. It might happen through higher rates, it might happen through decreased international trade, it might happen as our exports (already lagging where you’d expect given the dollar) continue to disappoint. The truth is that I’m not really sure of how this will play out, but I think the Chinese might be realizing they are in serious trouble and can’t sustain the absurd numbers they’ve conjured up, and like any ponzi scheme they will crumble under the pressure…eventually. I think they are trying to ward that off, but if I were a Chinese national with money in the bank, I’d be looking for ways to get it out, and this might have incredibly bad ripples for the US monetary authorities as our most valuable buyer of Treasuries faces serious problems that it was able to hide for the past decade.
If I were Bernanke, I’d be very worried about the Chinese monetary and banking games being played out right now – more so than any currency manipulation of the past.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/analysts-divided-on-pboc-tightening-2010-01-12
A national government that willingly gives up its sovereignty is not going to last, which is exactly what a common currency requires. In the US, States did it only after a lot of turmoil and war. Will the Euro-zone be able to pull it off long-term? I highly doubt it. It’s another soon-to-fail experiment. http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/12/eh-tu-germany-finance-minister-says-no.html
What’s interesting is that I’ve been hearing rumors that some Middle East countries are considering a common currency (Dubai is upset because the Saudis hope to be at the center of this movement). This comes about every few years as oil producing countries get tired of accepting dollars. The only thing worse than the dollar for them is their neighbors currency, which they know for sure they won’t be able to trust, so I doubt it will get anywhere, probably to the benefit of all players.
The financial news was sparse today. Abu Dhabi stepped into the breech and provided the cash necessary to prevent a “default” on the Sukkuk instruments; no great surprise as this buys DUBAI some breathing space to do a credible workout and the credit markets get a chance to bring some light onto the Islamic debt market. The Greek government came up short on a credible plan to curb the spiraling deficit so the German/Greek 10 year differential increased by 15 basis points to 225. Interestingly, the rest of Europe quieted down and even the GILT market was bid, helping to give the British POUND some support. Also in Britain it appears that the battle for CADBURY will heat up as the KRAFT offer has been deemed insufficient so we look for other “players” to enter the game. This could give a bid to the POUND as the bids for the confection company get sweetened. Also in the realm of more negative divergence, the Mexican DEBT market was downgraded by SP but the Mexican PESO barely budged. The PESO has shown some strength of late so the fact that the MEXICAN stayed strong makes it necessary to watch. Peso strength may well be a proxy for a positive outlook for North America.
As we noted in undertaking the writing of NOTES–we wanted to generate qualitative discourse in the realm of trading. Last night’s piece brought forth a need to expound on two separate issues. First, a thinker of the highest order inquired about the line…”When the U.S.truly starts on a growth path this issue will be brought to the fore.” We were discussing what could bring downward pressure on the EURO when we wrote that line. Up to now the U.S. has not been a destination for foreign investment as there has been too much uncertainty over U.S. policy, from the FED, Executive and Legislative. As the fog begins to clear foreign investors who are laden with DOLLARS are going to be in search of assets –hard assets besides precious metals. Sovereign Wealth Funds [SWF] will be scouring the U.S. investment landscape for industrial concerns and various types of real estate. Prior to the collapse of Lehman and Bear Stearns foreign funds had invested heavily in the U.S. financial markets. The fact that they have been so badly shaken by poor timing they will be more cautious this time around. They will avail themselves of using a depreciated asset [THE DOLLAR] in the only place its value has been sustained. In addition, they will be buying at depressed prices rather than a top. We believe that the private equity groups [Blackstone, Ochs-Ziff, Apollo] and others have been seeking out SWFs to help finance the purchases of large real estate portfolios. This is what we mean by the growth path–for up to now this equity rally has been basically a domestically based carry trade; the next leg up, if it occurs will be led by foreign investors believing they are missing out on a great opportunity.
Another response came in seeking more info on the misunderstood Maastricht accord. When you hear the talking heads on T.V., pay little attention when they pontificate on the European Union. If you need to polish up your knowledge the best book to read is Bernard Connolly’s The Rotten Heart of Europe. The original Maastricht accord was crafted to appease the demands of the Bundesbank. Strict guidelines of debt and deficits were to be adhered to so that the peripheral countries would not continue their profligate spending habits and expect to be bailed out by the more disciplined nations. There is no bailout clause as the spendthrifts were actually to be fined and forced back in line. Well as usual the guidelines were very rarely adhered too–especially when it suited the stalwarts of the EU, Germany and France. Therefore all the peripherals felt that in stressful times the Maastricht strictures should be tossed aside for all. Once the economy went into a major recession in 2007-2008 all rules were laid aside except that Germany was better positioned than the others and wanted the Maastricht rules adhered to and therein lies the problem. Germany has gotten wages under control over the last 6 years and is in the best competitive position—both in Europe and globally. The German economy is running the third largest trade surplus in the world and especially so within Europe. Will the good Bavarian burghers be willing to transfer their hard earned D-marks, sorry Euros, to pay for the profligate ways of her fellow European citizens? The wanton sinners are supposed to be fined not rewarded and therein lies the rub. Something is truly rotten in the state of Denmark! Oh well, neither a lender or borrower be.
Well we are happy to report that Sir Moral Hazard, aka Alan Greenspan, has come clean about the FED’s role as a serial bubble blower. Appearing on Meet The Press today he explained the important role the stock rally has played in turning the economy around. He said a major source of the recovery has been the increase in stock market wealth as it encourages people to spend and puts liquidity into the financial system. If this is not bubble blowing 101 then we don’t know what is! This unequivocably provides the impetus for the FED to maintain interest rates at low levels until they can be sure that there is traction in the growth story. Thus, maintain the global carry trade for it is maintaining the system at present. Jim Cramer was on the panel with Greenspan and we criticize him for not challenging the former fed chief. Greenspan previously has acknowledged that he missed the collapse on Wall Street because most of what he had thought previously proved to be wrong—and yet Cramer sat quietly and just nodded in agreement. In fact Cramer’s comments were so full of adulation that he made Larry King look like he was Bob Gibson. We say loud and clear that it is the bubble mindset that got us into this mess and for it to go unchallenged as a bonafide policy is madness of the first order. Even Greenspan talked about the need for interest rates to head higher and wouldn’t that in fact end the stock market rally? Greenspan thought that rates would need to head higher as businesses rebuilt inventories and had to finance that rebuilding. This thinking flies in the face of what has been taking place in the real world. Interest rates are extremely low across the board and yet corporations and households are not borrowing but rather paying down debt which is contrary to all conventional models. The amount of wealth destruction has caused the entire economy to reverse the debt picture which makes Sir Alan’s views all that much more suspect. For further analysis see Richard Koo’s work on a balance sheet recession.
Friday saw a continuation of the DOLLAR rally and the further correction in the GOLD market. What diverged though was that the SPS stayed bid and wound up unchanged on the week even as the DOLLAR closed firmer. This is the divergence that we have been watching and it gained some further credibility as the correlative trades begin to break down. This is a good thing, as markets will return to fundamentals and technicals as the algorithms get readjusted. The EURO was under the stress of fundamentals as the DEBT picture of the European Union was called into question. However, some of the weak sisters of European DEBT did stage a rally on Friday; the German/Greek 10 year differential wound up at 210 basis points on the close after being out to over 250 points. Some market participants believe that the European commission will come to the aid of the Greek government but we are very leery of that. It was intersting that as the DEBT differntials narrowed the EURO still could not find a rally so further weakness is to be expected. An important news story was passed over by most of the media. Daimler came to an agreement with its unions to secure 37,000 jobs in Germany for the next 10 years. After Mercedes announced they were moving some C Class production to Tuscaloosa, Alabama the unions wanted to secure jobs in Germany so they agreed to wage moderation and even gave Daimler management an opt out clause on this deal if the economy were to deteriorate further. This is Europe’s problem because the Germans have adjusted to globalization in a much more forthright way than the rest of Europe. German industry operates at a much more efficient level because they have gotten wages under control making the other European nations far less competitive. It used to be that the PIIGS could devalue their way out but not anymore. At some point, wages in the less competitive economies are going to have to adjust downward causing great economic pain or Germany will have to basically transfer huge amounts of money to shore up their finances—this is the dilemma they face. When the U.S. truly starts on a growth path this issue will be brought to the fore.
Also out of Europe this weekend was a story from Germany and the head of the DEUTSCHE BANK, Josef Ackermann. He said that Germany would not go the way of Britain and France on the “banker bonus tax” and would thus have a “comparative advantage” over the other financial hubs. Germany has no plans to tax bonuses and this is after the geniuses in London and Paris announced that for political expediency this was the path they were going down. Should they have all agreed to the same plan so as not to beggar thy neighbor before they signed on to this punitive tax? If 3 leaders in Europe cannot synchronize, exactly what chance does the G20 really have? The imbecility of the governing classes makes our eyes roll in our heads.
We will be watching the DEBT markets this week as the long end of the Treasuries came under pressure and the 2/10 steepened further. The overnight /30 year went out further and this is getting a great deal of attention as it calls the question as to why the banks are in no hurry to lend. As we have talked about ad nauseam —surf’s up and the free money is riding the crest of the wave. We will wait to see if the Fed speaks about this in their FOMC statement. It would surprise us if it did but there is a great deal of heat on the banks for not lending so we await further discussion. As previously stated—we believe that is the balance sheets that have been the greatest impediment and the curve surfing is just the easiest and cheapest way to rebuild balances. It will take the FED doing mass reverse repos and whatever other tools they have to curtail this action. With the DOLLAR finding some traction we don’t think they will be in any hurry. And remember Bernanke has not been reconfirmed yet.
Tags: banks, Bernanke, Currency, dollar, Euro, Fed, germany, Greece, interest rates, net interest margin, treasuries
Commodities/Futures, Currency, Fixed Income/Bonds, Strategy/Allocation | yharris | December 14, 2009 9:20 am | Comments (0)
This article is making its round now, so if you haven’t see it, it’s definitely worth a look. For the full article click here. In it, the guys at Tocqueville go through the difficult argument of being a contrarian and believing in gold. I agree. We’ve been holding gold in one way or the other for a few years, but not comfortably and especially not recently as every value investors conference is mentioning it, with big players taking big positions, staking big claims, etc.
The back and forth continue, but on a different note, this weekend will hopefully be uneventful.
Gold – still hasn’t found its footing.
USD – definitely found some footing. Who wants to go short the dollar long risk into this weekend? No one.
Sovereigns – I heard one analyst talk about where there’s one roach (Dubai, Greece) there are probably others (Ukraine?, Ireland?, Spain?, Latvia?, Some country in South America?).
China – Industrial numbers came in about 1% better than expected, but I don’t thing the market cares. Currencies are the order of the day.
Banks – After their massive, Fed induced rally, I still can’t stand them. It’s all accounting games, Bernanke (and now Geithner) puts, and I don’t see how they’ll make money without transactions and the coming reigning in of leverage. Their business models now depend on NIM, which I think will soon be threatened. Also, we noted last week that there might be somewhat good news for CME as it stands to benefit from moving the CDS market onto exchanges. Turns out it’s also another negative for the banks as they stand to lose a few billion dollars in revenue (http://www.ifre.com/story.asp?sectioncode=730&storycode=318015). I have no position either way as of this writing, but I’m definitely not going long here. Good luck to John Paulson with the Citi offering on tap.
Stay tuned for an interesting weekend.
Tags: banks, cds, CME, Currency, dollar, gold, NIM, Paulson
Commodities/Futures, Currency, Fixed Income/Bonds, Strategy/Allocation | Yaron Sadan | 12:05 pm | Comments (0)
That’s where you need to keep your eye on as we come into year-end. Tonight, there’s a lot of data coming out of China:
Producer Price Index: cons -2.4% y/y
Purchasing Price Index: cons -4.0% y/y
Consumer Price Index: cons +0.4% y/y
Retail Sales: cons +16.5% y/y
Industrial Production: cons +18.2% y/y (some are saying this might disappoint, but I’m not sure what impact it will have given the other numbers.)
Trade Balance (not sure when): it is expected to show a surplus of $24.30 billion, up slightly from the October reading of +$23.99 billion.
We’ll review some of these tomorrow after they are released. Will one set of data make the difference? No. But right now we are looking to see if there are more threats on the horizon for the Treasury market. It could be very dicey for Bernanke and the Obama administration if Treasuries sell off (remember, the Fed has more impact on short term rates than long, but a lot of liabilities, such as mortgages are priced of the longer-end).
From a monetary perspective this could be another “new” development in the field. Before the 1970’s, there was a consensus that inflation came with reduced unemployment, so in order to stimulate employment, all government had to do was stimulate inflation. The 1970’s brought us “stagflation”, namely, higher inflation but no jobs. Now, we might have a new term, let’s call it: CONTRAFLATION. In a CONTRAFLATION world, everything economists think is exactly the opposite. For example, you CAN have a strong dollar with rising long term rates. We’ll continue to explore these themes later, but we maintain our short Treasury, long dollar positions. The new Bizarro world, has one thing in common with all other environments, you don’t want to be in the same trade as everyone else, and the marginal money is still short dollar long risky assets.
In a famous exchange between Chou En Lai and Henry Kissinger, the U.S. Secretary of State asked Chou what he thought of the French revolution. It being 1972, Chou answered it was too early to tell yet. The reason we bring this up is as the Greek tradegy unfolds it will take a German led bailout to keep the Greek government from defaulting. Today the German/Greek ten year note spread widened to 245 basis points and the German/Irish spread of like duration widened out 20 basis points to 200 basis points. Being that the European Union has no statute for a bailout, it will take a massive amount of transfers to shore up the Greek economy, let alone the rest of the PIIGS. Several pundits have imagined that the Greeks will get their debt situation under control by cutting public sector wages, but they seem to forget that this is a democratically elected socialist government. The chances of squeezing the unions has as much chance as going a day without seeing Obama on television making a speech. From a trading perspective the only way to play in this arena is to use the bund futures and the recently relisted Italian bond futures, both at the Eurex and denominated in EUROs. Check your system provider for the appropriate symbols—and no this is not a paid advertisement but a public service message. The question facing Europe is what political price the Germans will exact for any aid they may provide. So maybe it is too soon to determine who in fact was victorious in World War 2.
The calendar is heavy tomorrow with three central bank meetings. The Kiwi bank has already announced and they stayed at 2.5% but changed some language to suggest that they may move earlier to tighten than previously thought. The KIWI went bid against all the crosses but we think that this is an overreaction. The BANK of ENGLAND and The SWISS NATIONAL BANK both meet in the early morning but no change is expected from either. The Brits presented the pre-budget plan and it had to do with raising taxes and very few budget cuts. The middle class in Britain will carry the brunt of the hike but some red meat was tossed to the torch and ax crowd by placing a supertax on bank bonuses over 25,000 pounds. We will never defend the pay of bankers but this tax will go a long way towards subverting the role of London as a financial center. Sarkozy and Merkle [French and German leaders] are laughing in their Reisling. Europe is a mess and not getting out of this predictament anytime soon, yet the EURO held up fairly well today. It really makes one wonder where the safe havens are–we know the DOLLAR for lack of anywhere else, but the news from the U.S. today was not helpful. The Obama administration moved to extend TARP until October 3, 2010. This cannot be a positive event as this program was meant to be for the insurance of systemic financial solvency. But with the banks rushing to repay TARP funds what can the real purpose be–this is Paulson’s ghost as he jammed this through with little thought and much malice. Remeber his 3 page missive demanded that there could be no judicial review of Treasury’s actions. Oh, Expediency what has thou wrought! So risk may be declining but where does one go for wealth and capital preservation–oh well the gold/currency crosses seem to be the last bastion of financial rectitude. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
Tomorrow morning brings us the jobless claim number[463,000] is the guesstimate and that is followed with the trade number. The trade report was always a center piece for the currency world but because markets are dynamic this data has little relevance presently. If something way out of the ordinary is reported it could have a minor impact but most probably a yawner–negative 36 billion is projected just to prepare you. Tonight the aussie employment report came out and it was much stronger than estimated putting a bid to the AUSSIE DOLLAR. Also we wish to point out that Spain was given a negative outlook by S&P, presenting Europe with one more problem—something more to think about.
Tags: Aussie, britain, Currency, Euro, gold, Greece, kiwi, Spain
Commodities/Futures, Currency, Fixed Income/Bonds, Strategy/Allocation | yharris | 6:42 am | Comments (0)
Readers of our newsletter won’t be surprised to learn that the world cares about Greece (and Dubai) – still.
From The Big Picture: Yesterday no one cared about Greece, today they do
From the FT: Fitch strips Greece of A-grade credit rating
As I mentioned, my view is that this is a big net negative for the Euro, and may thwart Bernanke’s reinflation plans as USD gets squeezed up. I also have a feeling that Dubai and Greece aren’t the only ones. Smaller countries in the eurozone may also be in trouble, which will place added pressure on Austria (which has built it’s recent economy on lending to emerging Europe). In my mind, Austria and Spain are the big ones to watch. If they hold, the euro will have a fighting chance. If they go down like Greece and Germany needs to finance increasingly large neighbors, we’re going to see the euro crack.
Very little news and action after the wild ride on Friday’s unemployment. The DOLLAR stayed relatively strong after its significant rally on Friday. The YEN regained some ground on all the crosses as we have word of a stimulus package out of Japan. The DPJ finally approved a 80.6 billion dollar stimulus plan and this gave some immediate support to the YEN, but we don’t expect this to last as the Japanese are nervous about a strong currency while deflation is renewing its vigor. Now that a stimulus program has been approved we need to be watchful of some type of intervention to stem the recent YEN strength.
Tomorrow morning [8 a.m. CST] we will hear from the Bank of Canada. We expect no change in their current interest rate as the CANADIAN DOLLAR remains relatively firm and this has been a concern of the Bank. If the currency weakens after the no change we would look for the LOONIE to regain its strength as its fundamentals remain the most attractive. Wednesday will bring the PBR from Britain. Chancellor Darling will deliver his outlook for the British economy and we are waiting to see if the budget will reign in the massive amount of stimulus that has run the current deficit to over 12% of GDP. The question is curtail spending or raise taxes. If the budgetary stance is for cuts in spending we don’t anticipate much movement in the STERLING but we believe that higher taxes would have a negative effect. Britain has to be careful to not tax the financial jobs out of LONDON as some hedge funds and private equity groups have already announced their intentions to move to more favorable business environs. This coupled with the anti anglo-american sentiment emanating from Brussels the British need to keep their financial markets globally competitive or risk losing the golden goose. The euro/sterling cross will be very directional for this sentiment —as always check the technicals to ascertain the real story. If Euro/sterling holds support we will see continued weakness in the British currency.
Well we certainly got a better unemployment number than the “street” was looking for and the market responded in the fashion we were hoping to see. We were corrected in our view on the White House misspeak but the more we thought about it the more our hunch seemed correct. We think the WH press secretary had to recant his views because he purportedly heard the numbers would be better but got it backwards and then had to to a mea culpa and basically just call the whole thing off. Whatever did or did not occur we thank those who brought it to our attention [Hat tip to Phillipa]. The markets reaction was very much in line with our thoughts and now the trading arena is going to become even more interesting. Gold and other currencies had large sell offs as the risk off became the clarion call for the day. Even the equities sold off for a time, but they bounced back at the close as we believe they should have. The FED is still in a holding pattern, even if we see some robust growth over the next quarter, for the “37ers ” are holding sway over the FED thought processes. This ought to be music to the ears of the equity markets as growth will fulfill the PE values that the SPS currently entertain. We caution to watch volume on the stock market for it has been the missing ingredient from the present rally, but if fund managers really think they are going to miss the next leg due to improved data they will have to jump full force into the rally. If volume fails to grow we would be very leery of the next move up.
Treasuries were under pressure all Friday as the selling off continued following upon Thursday’s weak action—-the BOND market certainly got the unemployment right. We usually believe that steepening curves are bullish equities but we are beginning to think differently at this juncture. The curve could use some flattening as to free up bank lending—for all they do now is surf the curve and pick up a nice free and safe return. Our eyes turn to the FED to see if they are thinking the same thoughts and we would love to see some aggressive reverse repos to test the hypothesis – but we await their actions before getting too deeply involved in this as a trade. If the FED were to jump into an aggressive reverse repo mode it would also put a rally to the DOLLAR and we know the administration does not want that as of yet.
Why could the DOLLAR rally though in the short term? Foreign money has been absent from this rally and if they thought that there was a possibility of any growth outpacing other developed economies then you could get an inflow, for they are afraid of not partaking in the equity game. Sovereign wealth funds [SWF] will also be searching for some ways to put their depreciated dollars to work in the best place they hold any value. We will be listening and reading to be alert for any noise about foreign funds in search of large investments in high quality U.S. assets. Barron’s cover story was about how some high dividend plays were far better investment opportunities the sovereign bonds and even corporates. This should get some of the carry crowd looking at this forgotten part of the EQUITY arena. Gold and most commodities sold off as the DOLLAR rallied but the break while painful was not that great compared to others we have seen over our 32 years. As we pointed out on Thursday, the Chinese put a little uncertainty into the long march of GOLD by citing it to be a possible bubble. In our very humble opinion the Chinese would like to take some of the froth off the GOLD price so that they can build their reserves at more advantageous prices. In a passing note: read Jim Grant’s piece in the weekend Wall Street Journal as it is a concise overview of the global currency market [Hat tip to many for sending it on].
Not much else news wise this weekend as the better unemployment numbers have dominated the wires. The only item that caught our eyes was that Peter Mandelson a major domo of the British political hierarchy cautiones Kraft on its bid for Cadbury. He warned the folks at Kraft not to just try to make a quick buck at the expense of British jobs—-this is the newest shot fired in the realm of protectionism. We will continue to monitor this and report out the news and its possible effect on global capital flows as we learn more.
Will this week mark the cyclical top of the recent rally? I have been writing that there is a disconnect between the fundamentals of the equity market (unemployment, historically high margins that will compress, high P/E, etc.) and the performance we’re seeing. Meaning that the market was being driven by speculative positions which were probably based on flows, carry trade, global quantitative easing measures, etc. and NOT by an increased world GDP nor productivity gains.
So we’re left asking whether Japan’s signal of increased QE will market the top. I have a feeling it might. Maybe we’ll make another run, but the dislocations will have to come into balance. The interesting market will end up being the Treasury market. With flows coming into the USD, were will they sit if not in Treasuries? Not sure yet, but again, just food for thought as we position into year end and adjust medium term allocation.
Tags: allcoatioin, Currency, currency trading, equity, Japan, quantitative easing, USD, yen
Currency, Fixed Income/Bonds, Strategy/Allocation | Yaron Sadan | December 4, 2009 2:18 pm | Comments (0)
Over the past several weeks, a big focus for me, my clients, and our community has been currency, and especially the relationships of gold and the equity markets to different currency pairs. As I’ve mentioned, I initiated a position in long USD vs yen and long USD vs. Euro a couple of weeks ago, and am facing a slight loss so far, but I’m holding on for now. I now also initiated a short Treasuries position, via TBT. Using levered ETF’s is not my favorite because of the daily compounding effects which we’ve spoken about before. However, they also often provide a cheap, easy implementation tool, which is how I view them here. All these positions are relatively small (less than 3%). This is not a recommendation in any way, but just wanted to keep you posted. For the record, my position was initiated late in the day (purchased TBT at 46.03).
We are also working with our tech group on constantly offering new improvements to the site. We are working with tech people and our compliance group to see how to show a portfolio, tracking trades, ideas, etc. so be on the lookout in the next couple of weeks.