6/30/10 Midday Report: Technical levels blown, now they just want to cuddle

The market was flattish for most of the day until the last hour as some of the fears about Europe abated in the morning thanks to their banking system remaining open for at least another three months (so long enough for depositors to carve out space in their mattresses and pull their funds before the next bank run).  The big news is that european banks didn't seek as much capital from the ECB as people feared they would with the ECB's 442B Euro line about to expire like the late great Diaperman.  Banks only needed an additional 131B Euro 3 month loan which was below the 210B Euro estimate and only 131B Euro above being healthy.  In other international news, German unemployment was down for the 12th straight month as German workers have to put in overtime to make sure their Spanish counterparts can take their proper siestas.  Ahhh, to be young and in the Euro.

In US macro news, private employers added 13k jobs in the US in June according to ADP which makes a huge dent in the 20MM unemployed/underemployed/already given up people in the US (and by huge dent, Money McBags means the opposite of that).  Really, 13k out of 20MM is as significant as a null hypothesis with a p-value of 1 trillion or as likely to change the current atmosphere as a stink bug crawling in to Lady Gaga's underwear changes her cuntosis.  Analysts had guessed that 60k jobs would be added in June so they were only ~250% too high which for them is good enough to win Institutional Investor's golden shovel as analysts of the year which can then be used clear out all the crap they have been spewing.  One has to remember that analysts have confidence intervals wider than the divergent opinions on global warming or Taylor Rain's rectum.  The report should quell hopes of Friday's Labor Department jobs number release being positive so the government may need to hire Melissa Archer to deliver the release in order to keep investors from paying attention to the actual numbers.  In other US news, the FCIC is beginning their two day hearings on AIG and Goldman's relationship to understand how those firms exacerbated the financial meltdown through their selling of derivatives and then how Goldman profited when AIG was bailed out as AIG used the bail out money to repay their mortgage partners of which Goldman was one (Goldman was repaid to the tune of $12B and Money McBags is told that tune is a mash up of Flight of the Bumblebees and Don't Worry Be Happy).  While Money McBags doesn't believe anything will come from this inquiry, if it just puts the FCIC's Heather Murren in the spotlight for a few minutes, he will at least be moderately titillated (and yes, that is Heather on the left).

In market news, S&P is cutting their ratings of Moody's which is a bit like Jeffrey Skilling calling Dennis Kozlowski a fraud, Attila the Hun calling Ivan the Terrible a bit mean-spirited, or Lindsay Lohan calling Paris Hilton a whore.  S&P cited that with new financial regulation investors now may be able to sue (and rightfully so Money McBags will vociferously add) rating agencies for sucking at their jobs (and as a reminder, their only job is to recognize when bad debt exists, and they missed the entire subprime/Alt-A fiasco like an anorexic misses dinner), there could be reduced demand for ratings if regulation removes the need for companies to be rated by nationally recognized organizations (here here), and Moody's sucks at their job.  It is only a matter of time before Moody's lowers their ratings of S&P on the same concerns and we get a tit-for-tat ratings agency cock-off.  In other news, Playboy announced a restructuring where they will become even thinner by eliminating low level workers but will keep senior executives to remain properly top heavy and Ford was rising after paying down $4B of debt and telling people they changed their name to Tesla.

In small cap news, ISLE continues to get shellacked and was doing so even when the market was slightly up today.  Two day ago Money McBags told you all shorting ISLE would be a good trade and now you should be up 8% to 15% on it depending at what price you were able to short.  A healthy company with a ton of debt doesn't just dilute shareholders by ~23% unless bad shit is happening.  That said, this was purely a trade so if you want to lock in your profits and go home, Money McBags would applaud that move like he applauds charitable donations, rags to riches stories, and rainbow parties.  Also, old friend COOL has dropped below $.70 and remember Money McBags broke them down after their last Q and said the $1 they were trading at was much too high and he would be short if the stock were more liquid.  Well if you were able to short it, congratulations but you might want to start covering because the easy money has been made.  The point is, Money McBags has been hitting some good names for you all and providing you with enough dick jokes to make even Bob Saget shudder so tell a friend, tell an enemy, and follow WGP on twitter and facebook because the revolution has begun.