Wishlists for the FED

It was almost 80 degrees here today in Massachusetts! It was Bahama-like with high humidity and a nice breeze. This is an obvious tease for the nasty winter to come no doubt.

After a week hiatus the Friday Night Show will be in full effect tomorrow night! If anyone is still coming by get your requests in!

High Frequency Trading: How Big is It?
Today there was some coverage of the HFT angle and it got a little crazy.

A quickly accepted number that has been passed around was that most stocks are held for less than 11 seconds. Barry Ritholtz does not agree and cites some great material. At Zero Hedge George Washington offers that it may be hard to even know for sure without serious disclosures how large a share HFT makes up.

What do I think? I have seen enough quote stuffing and computer algo stuff reported to make me think at least 50% of all trades are silicon chip based and holding periods are very short, under a day. What can I offer for data? Nothing, but neither can anyone that says otherwise. My solution:
Turn off the algos for one week, measure the volume and churn levels versus the previous week
There, easy enough, when do we do it? Market stuff can be a science experiment after all. Who is with me?

Wishlists for the FED
At some points in time things can move from the crazy all the way to crack up insane and when that happens it is hard to do much more than get snarky and sacrcastic because treating the issue as serious when nothing and no one will care makes no sense. We have that kind of time today.

After leaking to the WSJ that the QE 2.0 move may be a little bit smaller than many had thought, the FED must have had serious pushback because in about a minute they went with a fill in the blank questionnaire on just how big the primary dealers (TBTF banks) would like to see QE 2.0 and what they felt would be accomplished by the policy. I am not making this up, it is a Bloomberg piece!:
Fed Asks Dealers to Estimate Size, Impact of Debt Purchases
This fits perfect with my piece from last night. I said that the supportive FED will now be boxed in by the banks "expectations" for support until the end of time. The FED almost admits as much by this move. Consider:

-The FED has decided that a 500 Billion buy spread over 3 months will be enough
-They get the returns from this survey back and the "ask" is for 2 trillion over a year or 16 months
-What the F$uck can the FED do? If they say "no way" the markets melt down and rates go higher nixing any effect of their purchase

This is an unreal situation.

Zero Hedge has some info on what has gone back to the FED already on this:

Exclusive: 4 Dealers Respond With "$1+ Trillion" To Fed Reverse Inquiry Into How Much QE2 Is Necessary
Yesterday we made a big stink over the Fed's reverse inquiry into the PD community over how much QE2 it should launch. Today, we find out what the distribution is: as Merrill's Harley Bassman points out: "Four dealers are predicting a $1+ Trillion buy program." It is good to finally know what the bogey is....

...Keep in mind this is a number most likely over a 6 month period. Double for full year impact.

At this point, if the Fed does something so stupid as demonstrating independence (whether from D.C. or the primary dealers), and does not announce $1 bn in QE2, well... welcome back gravity.

Who is shocked?

Well, I guess I am. This is disgusting.

Thus here are my wishlists for the FED by select banks.

JP Morgan
-4 Trillion in QE total
-2 Trillion allocated to silver short positions to crush those annoying hoarders
-1.5 Trillion in more silver shorts
-500 Billion in bonus pools for JPM employees (we earned it)

Bank of America
-5 Trillion in QE total
-1 Trillion in mortgage buybacks from Countrywide originations (indeed it was COUNTRYwide fraud!)
-2 Trillion in special bonds to pay off expected checking account charges that BAC used to get but those savvy f#ing savers figured it out!
-2 trillion to re-float Merril Lynch, hey it was your idea anyway to merge!

Citigroup
-6 Trillion in QE total
-6 Trillion in pay-offs to sovereign wealth funds that keep buying our stock, many of which have known terror cells they could use for retribution for losses; combines nicely with the war on terror, thanks!

PIMCO
-Why are you asking in public, we already positioned to front run what we talked about! Wise up goof balls!

Funny until you cry about the sadness I guess. Here is where we are.

Sick and Tired of Feeling Sick and Tired
My man over at The Housing Time Bomb has a nice list of things he is tired of. Well worth a look but I will excerpt a segment:

I'm tired of turning on the TV and being lied to about the recovery by the media on a daily basis.

I'm tired of the mortgage fraud and everyone that's involved.

I'm tired of worrying about whether or not I will have a job a year from now.

I'm tired of of the way Wall St continues to hide their losses.

I'm tired of Wall St paying themselves huge bonuses based on fictitious profits.

I'm tired of listening to Jim Cramer telling me to buy stocks on a daily basis.

I'm tired of watching the stock market trade like a bipolar schizophrenic that hasn't taken their meds for 3 years.

I'm tired of Apple and Google. Don't ask me why I'm just sick of both of them.

I'm tired of watching every politician promising the world and then delivering nothing.

I'm tired of the Democrats and the Republicans. I don't know which side makes me more sick.

Hard to argue with that! Go read the rest.

What Graph is This Really?
Jake of EconomPic has graph up tonight showing how many seconds a host laughs during the various NFL pregame shows. Here it is (click for larger view):

Ok, but in the comments I said:

I think the graph stacks up nicely based on level of inebriation during a broadcast. I still watch though!

Now tell me I am wrong? You know Bradshaw is out there!

More Star Wars!
I know how excited you all are!

Via Geekologie, here is Boba Fett's invoice for delivery of Han Solo to Jabba the Hutt:

AWESOME!

Cooking Fix
Now that the Fall is upon us I will not be doing too many cooks outside as it gets colder. No worries! My man at No Excuses BBQ cooks year round and if you need to see some serious work, try out this post:

It is the End of October so it must be time for another 4-Ingredient Challenge. This month we have a new blogger (from The Netherlands!) and a list of ingredients that truly turned out to be a challenge:
Shrimp
Focaccia
Broccoli
Pomegranate

You will not believe the masterpiece that was made with those ingredients!

Have a good night.