Mixed results for retailers in January

By msnbc.com news services

January is an important cleanup month for retailers, according to Adrianne Shapira, Goldman Sachs’ senior retail analyst, who appeared on CNBC Thursday to take a look at how retailers fared this month.

She identified the retailers that lagged and the pent up demand for cold-weather goods.

Here’s the video of her appearance this morning:

Discuss this post

Hello folks, Why isn't the media covering what may be the biggest financial story in our history? Notice that their is a media blackout in the comments section in stock market or anythign to do with Europe stories. There is a reason why!

The ISDA (International Swaps and Derivative Association) is expected to make a decision as early as this week on whether five major US banks will go insolvent. The ISDA organization is more powerful than governments, they determine how world financial events are categorized. These are the people who are going to determine if Greece is a credit event that constitutes a default. If so, the 5 largest banks in America who hold 97% of the over the counter derivatives will have to pay up and will collapse because they don’t have the resources to pay off the credit default swaps they are liable for. The derivative market liability is estimated to be 1.4 quadrillion dollars.

The saving grace for the banks is that they heavily influence the ISDA and can even be called the ISDA. I know that sounds like double speak but we are coming to the end of the road when the banks are going to have a coming to meet Jesus meeting regarding their actual liquidity.

In other words the markets call taking a loss and in this case on Greek bonds a haircut (loss on expected return of bond investment). They have already taken a 50% loss on Greek bonds but the ISDA didn’t call that credit event a default. If you or I invested our life savings on Greek bonds and we were told we would have to take a 50% loss on our expected return, I think we would call that a default.

Now, the European Union is telling the Greek bond holders that they will have to take a 70% haircut. The predicament that is clearly becoming evident is at what point does the ISDA consider bond losses a default. You see where this is headed? Even if the ISDA doesn’t declare a 70% loss as a default, which they probably won’t since the banks have a big say in the default declaration, it is getting dangerously close to the 100% loss. At the 100% loss how can they not call that a default and then the USA’s 5 largest banks are forced to pay and can’t which would cause them to collapse. Greek bondholders who thought they had principal insurance are now screwed and left holding the bag. Greek bondholders (big euro banks, big Euro governments, big hedge funds) will now be insolvent.

Greece is bankrupt and the bulk of the austerity measures haven’t even been implemented yet which will seriously impede their productivity.

In order to stave off the inevitable later rather than sooner, being that it is an election year and all, the powers that be will try not to allow this to happen. We will see global QE3 (printing and devaluing currency) on steroids until Greece succumbs to their ordained default status. The Federal Reserve Currency Swaps going on right now in my estimation were the beginning of QE3.

Don’t expect the media presstitutes to cover the climax of this obscene financial abortion called the derivatives market. Once this starts to occur in earnest, listen for the beating of the one world currency drums.

To see for yourself how much power the ISDA wields, Google the International Swaps and Derivative Association.

    Reply#1 - Thu Feb 2, 2012 11:13 AM EST
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