Video: Mark Fisher talks QE2 ~ ‘it will end badly’
Courtesy of CNBC
More~ Mark Fisher talks commodities~
Vodpod videos no longer available.Update: TOTUS throws Larry Summers unda da bus; will reappoint Ben Bernanke head of Fed manyana…
Update 2: Rally fizzled but we stayed positive, DOW closes up 30+…
Update: TOTUS just made the announcement. Ben thanked his colleagues at the FED and thanked TOTUS for backing a STRONG and INDEPENDENT FED.
BWAAAAHAAAA!!!!! Another TOTUS promise broken, Larry Summers must be eating his liver..you KNOW the ONLY reason he wasn’t named Sec of Trez was because head of the FED was promised to him….
…As the nation’s top financial authority, Geithner will inherit oversight of the Bush administration’s $700 billion bailout for Wall Street and a U.S. economy struggling with recession.
He will be flanked by former Treasury chief Lawrence Summers, who will head Obama’s National Economic Council. Analysts say this appointment puts Summers in line to succeed Ben S. Bernanke as chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve in 2010….
WSJ –Several options were on the table, including naming Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser, Lawrence Summers, as Fed chief. Mr. Summers, the gruff, brilliant economist, would likely have run up against resistance on Capitol Hill, too.
Privately, many economists including Fed officials worried that Mr. Summers’ sharp-tongued style could undermine the collegial halls of the Fed…
IMO TOTUS was informed that in light of the new deficit projections to be released tomorrow, the ONLY way China would feel comfortable continuing to purchase our ENDLESS debt issuance was under Bernanke going forward. Ben being seen as a non-political appointment, having gained his position under GWB, and having earned his chops these past 9 months…

Oct 2008 Economic Club: Tim and Ben (Reuters Photo / Lucas Jackson) Tim demonstrates Paper Beats Rock economic plan..
And that is because Bernanke WILL IMO take the steps necessary to tighten when recovery is imminent, thus avoiding the HYPERinflationary Carteresque scenario…
Thanks China! Are you having fava beans and a nice Chianti with that liver Larry?

Larry Summers was SHOCKED to learn of Bernanke's reappointment, as he had slept through the team meeting...
We should have a killer rally tomorrow! I may have to get out my DOW 10,000 hat if Gentle Ben will be in that chair for another term…it was the idea of Summers calling the shots at the Fed when we needed to tighten that really freaked me out….still a double dip IMO but one we can correct with Ben at the helm…
President Barack Obama will announce Tuesday that he is nominating Ben Bernanke for a second four-year term as chairman of the Federal Reserve, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said.
Mr. Emanuel said Mr. Obama will make the announcement from Martha’s Vineyard Tuesday. He said the president credits Mr. Bernanke for “pulling the economy back from the brink of depression.”…
The amazing Snowball (TM) courtesy of BirdLoversOnly rescue organization

Obama Economic Team 'Vogues' last November
Update: Issa says Fed in cover up, Bernanke to testify under subpoena..Market Mover: FOMC Decision and Statement…
Update 3: CNBC has the Issa story up here
Update 2: Dow as up 50 and now up 7 since FED announcement. I think the market is also scared shxt of what will happen as Congress goes after the Fed…that Issa announcement was simultaneous with the FED decision…
Update: Fed stands pat, rate unchanged, will maintain low rates for extended period (love you long time), removed the line about DE-flation, good finally! but NO EXIT STRATEGY. Bond rates up a bit as prices down a bit. Nothing in the stmt backed off quantitative easing at all, they reaffirmed it. If you are looking at it as a foreign holder of our debt, I see nothing here to reassure you, which to me suggests higher rates a comin’ from Bond Vigilantes…
Right before the announcement Darryl Issa R-CA came on CNBC backing a statement his office released saying Ben Bernanke and the FED had concealed concerns about the Merill BofA deal from OTHER REGULATORS, and Ben is appearing under subpoena to answer questions.
Not a good thing for market stability and as a shareholder I am biased on this. But if it is what I think it is, i think Bernanke and Paulson kept Sheila Bair and the FDIC in the dark on the potential losses for BofA if Merrill deal went thru..
if it helps FDIC get some of the power Team TOTUS is trying to give to the Fed (which will then promptly be given to Larry Summers in Jan) then I am all for it. the FDIC is the only regulator on the ball and Sheila Bair was warning about subprime exposure of broad market losses way ahead of everyone else…
anyway that is a WOW announcement that was buried in the FED release..Towns is trying to stop investigation into Countrywide VIP loans for Dodd and Conrad, but Issa is pushing as he can….
Best Market Lesson I ever Learned: DONT FIGHT THE FED*
Market Mover Tuesday: Housing Data and the Treasury Auctions begin….
The Mortgage Bankers Association slashed their estimates yesterday, more on that later….for the next two days, we are also waiting for language after the Fed meeting wraps up to see the exit strategy….
This morning we get sales data:
…At 10 a.m., the National Association of Realtors will report on May sales of existing homes and the Federal Housing Finance Agency will release home-price data for April.
The Treasury Department will auction $60 billion in two-year notes Tuesday. Ahead of the sale, Treasurys were falling, with the two-year note sliding 3/32 to yield 1.174%, and the 10-year note sliding 10/32 to yield 3.722%….
Ben on the Hill….
Poor Ben Bernanke will be back on the Hill today, 10:00am EST
CNBC LIVE streaming Video when it begins
The GOLD bugs are with me in rejecting the baseless rally yesterday, now at 913.5 up 11.3 today…
Update: Results will now be released Thursday…Market Mover Friday: Stress Test Results ‘delayed’ as Banks appeal findings…
Update: Results scheduled to be released Monday, now they say Thursday:
Results of the “stress tests” conducted on the nation’s 19 biggest financial institutions will be released late Thursday afternoon and include information on both the individual banks as well as aggregate data, CNBC has learned.
The results of the tests, which were conducted during April, will include estimated losses in certain loan categories as well as the banks’ resources to absorb potential losses, a source said. The source added that the information is not a solvency test….
The Federal Reserve will postpone the release of stress tests on the biggest U.S. banks while executives debate preliminary findings with examiners, according to government and industry officials.
The results, originally scheduled for publication on May 4, now may not be revealed until toward the end of next week, said the people, who declined to be identified. A new release date may be announced as soon as tomorrow, they said.
They really painted themselves into a corner on this:
At least six of the 19 largest U.S. banks require additional capital, according to preliminary results of government stress tests, people briefed on the matter said this week. While some of the lenders may need extra cash injections from the government, most of the capital is likely to come from converting preferred shares to common equity, the people said.
By pushing conversions, rather than federal assistance, the government would allow banks to shore themselves up without the political taint that has soured both Wall Street and Congress on the bailouts. The risk is that, along with diluting existing shareholders, the government action won’t seem strong enough.
Here is the best, most NO SHXT SHERLOCK line of the piece (and the process in fact):
Regulators and bank executives are concerned about how the disclosure is handled because weaker institutions could suffer a collapse in their stock prices.
You mean Uncle Sam is gonna tell us these guys cant survive a financial heart attack and investors might pull their money out? The hell you say! I AM SHOCKED! BWAAAAHAAAAAA frakkin maroons…..
Update: Stress Test White Paper lacks detail…
Update: From WSJ:
Fed White Paper on Stress Testing Procedure pdf here: FED Press Release here; Market averages back to their trend line of the day, Dow up 130 to 8086, S&P up 14 to 86 NAS up 39 to 1691
For release at 2:00 p.m. EDT
A white paper describing the process and methodologies employed by the federal banking supervisory agencies in their forward-looking capital assessment of large U.S. bank holding companies was published on Friday.
The white paper is intended to assist analysts and other interested members of the public in understanding the results of the Supervisory Capital Assessment Program, expected to be released in early May. All U.S. bank holding companies with year-end 2008 assets exceeding $100 billion were required to participate in the assessment, which began February 25. These institutions collectively hold two-thirds of the assets and more than half the loans in the U.S. banking system.
More than 150 examiners, supervisors and economists from the Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation participated in this supervisory process. Starting from two economic scenarios–a consensus estimate of private-sector forecasters and an economic situation more severe than is generally anticipated–they developed a range of loss estimates and conducted an in-depth review of the banks’ lending portfolios, investment portfolios and trading-related exposures, and revenue opportunities. In doing so, they examined bank data and loss projections, compared loss projections across firms, and developed independent benchmarks against which to evaluate the banks’ estimates. From this analysis, supervisors determined the capital buffer needed to ensure that the firms would remain appropriately capitalized at the end of 2010 if the economy proves weaker than expected.
The Supervisory Capital Assessment Program: Design Summary (287 KB PDF)
Released now, the parameters were apparently already out there, they used Case Shiller Housing Value Futures in their projections…CITI already tested itself against that same metric…
they are not giving the Tangible Common Equity number they want from the banks is it 3%? 4%? and they are also not giving out the specific projected losses or the size of the capital buffer the regulators want…..meanwhile the NY Post is reporting Vikram Pandit is out as CITI CEO shortly….
They gave the categories of loans they looked at and the counterparty risk but not the other parameters, reporters asked on the conference call…..
Will get up the CNBC clip as soon as it’s available
It’s managing expectations they say..a whole lotta nothin’ just came out…they Put on the Ritz for us…they don’t want anyone running the numbers before the banks shore up capital..
Next words will be the results of the stress tests on May 4th, I think the banks will begin to leak their own inner results before that..
The markets are turning down now, were up over 100 now up 50 on the Dow….