Brainstorming Friday

1. Latest Merrill Survey - Good news for the bears

a. Less than 10 % of all Fundmanagers expect a double dip recession - that means from a contrarian view it will almost definitely happen

b. They are overweight stocks - a big plus for bears again

2. Some ugly things may happen around the FED these days - that's what Astrology says some big mess is around the corner after Grayson's victory some ugly truth may be revealed

Excerpt

After Yesterday's Victory For Paul-Grayson, Is Bernanke's Confirmation Now In Jeopardy?

After yesterday's debacle for the Fed, could even more grey clouds be gathering for the Chairman? As readers will recall Alan Grayson recently presented several questions, the response to which would serve as a gating factor to Bernanke's reconfirmation. Alas, that initiative never appeared to get much traction. In fact upon questioning Chris Dodd said that Bernanke's confirmation was a done deal. Yet a recent interview by Mike Stark indicates that Mr. Dodd may have had a change of heart about the certainty of Mr. Bernanke's tenure, and is now voicing much less certainty about the continued tenure of the fiat money printer.

3. A possible Ukrainia default is spooking markets - at some points some eastern Europe states will default - Iceland is not the last one

Excerpt Zerohedge

Are the dominoes about to start falling? From Morgan Stanley's London desk:

Ukrainian Railway defaulted on a Barclays bond. They have another, government guaranteed obligation with DB. If DB accelerates the payment & IF it is then not paid, it will count as a government default.

We are closely following the releases out of S&P and Moody's analysts to see if they have gotten into the office after their leisurely orgy at the nearest Turkish bath insider info leak session. Potentially nothing actionable just yet, but that a government-backed bond can't make its payments, should prompt the IMF apparatchiks to promptly take the next Textron Cessna straight into Kiev (after they get 20 Goldman flu shots each) and spend a few more billions in US taxpayer money and/or sell more gold to quickly stuff even more corpses under the carpet.