Dick Bove Laughs Off Banks’ Exposure to Oil; Industry in ‘Great Shape’

Touching upon the pristine work done by Moody’s last night, Dick Bove from Raffle Capital, said the banks were in great shape and that their exposure to oil, aside from a few haggard regional banks, was laughable.

As a point in fact, it is rumored that Dick almost choked on a pork chop last night, while laughing at how small these losses were for the banks, as a pork chop bone descended into his throat.

By laugh, I mean Bove looked stoned face into the camera, like a miserable Santa Claus, and slightly curved his lips, obviously bemused by the whole ordeal.

Michael J. Cavanagh made $40.6 million in his first year at Comcast, making him the highest paid CFO in the country. The CEO of Comcast, Brian Roberts, made a mere $36.2 million, hardly enough to buy a halfway decent sized apartment in NYC.

It was Cavanagh’s first year at the slimeball cable giant, after coming from JP Morgan–where he toiled away with Jamie Dimon for over two decades.

Cavanagh’s compensation included a $1.8 million salary, $16.5 million in stock awards, $4 million in option awards, a $6 million cash bonus and $11.8 million in deferred compensation, Comcast reported in the summary compensation table in a Friday proxy statement.

Why do these fine gentlemen get paid such generous portions of U.S. dollars?

They create shareholder value, of course.

Over the past year, Comcast’s share price has appreciated by 5.7%

The U.S. rig count has now fallen in 15 of the past 16 weeks. As U.S. oil production gets cut to ribbons, middle eastern and OPEC oil production remain robust. While U.S. rig counts have dropped by a staggering 57% from last year, Middle Eastern rig counts remain at record highs. How is this possible?

The House of Saud has a lower cost of production and the state is actively supporting its sole industry, while America is more than comfortable to see its crown jewels wither away–without trying to protect this vital industry.

That being said, crude is higher by 5.5% and oil stocks are surging.

Nothing unfair about this. If you’re a driller in N. Dakota, simply move your family to the middled east and slap a hajib onto your wife and daugter’s and find good work over there.

Given the pin action in retarded retailer, The Gap, I’d say the sloths over at BAC are on to something here.

“Given difficult annual comparisons, this leaves sales down 0.1 percent year-over-year,” writes Deputy Head of U.S. Economics Michelle Meyer.
Lower-income households, which spend a disproportionately higher amount of their take-home pay on fuel, have been registering better annual retail sales growth excluding autos and gas than richer households as oil prices started falling in 2014.

Disconcertingly, this gasoline dividend might have been fully paid.

“In the past few months, spending for the low-end consumer has slowed, falling back below the growth rate of the high-end cohort,” notes Meyer.

Does it even matter anymore? I mean, really, these stocks dive lower upon horrid earnings–only to come springboarding back again when the season is over. We’ve been living in a Peter Pan’d world for over half a decade now. The consumer has been dead for years. But, now, the sages at BAC are onto something, eh?

Fuck off.

One of the robe wearing psychotics at the Vatican called Sanders’ move to invite himself to a catholic conference, 4 days ahead of the NY primaries, “monumental discourtesy.”

Politicians are an incorrigible lot and this small event in time and space make me smile, ear to ear. Imagine the frown B. Sanders has on his face right now, after reading the response from the Vatican. This is a man who couldn’t care less about religion, who is assuredly an atheist, getting rebuked by leaders of a religion that he doesn’t even belong to. The only reason why he’s attempting to go in the first place is because of some asshole staffer, who cited some poll data, and thought it’d make a neat press clipping to curry the favor of idiot catholic fence sitting voters.

“Sanders made the first move, for the obvious reasons,” Margaret Archer, president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, which is hosting the conference Sanders will attend, said in a telephone interview. “I think in a sense he may be going for the Catholic vote but this is not the Catholic vote and he should remember that and act accordingly — not that he will.”

Clearly, the Pope isn’t feeling The Bern.

Morons.

Never shy to declare wanton doom, Nouriel Roubini suggested that if England left the EU, the Scotts would leave England, the Catalonians would leave Spain and Norway and Greece would leave the EU too. I am sure if given the chance to discuss this further, Nouriel would’ve predicted Texas secession and a fucking break-off of the state of California, which would then drift and ram itself (homo) into N. Korea–at which point the former American state would become a prison torture camp for all inhabitants.

What the hell is going on here? According to Charlie’s Twitter account, Valeant was rumored to be putting its Bausch Lomb division for sale.

Maybe these bankers were simply playing a hypothetical game at one of Charlie’s favorite watering holes? At ant rate, the man, the myth, the Legend of Montauk, Bill Ackman, shot down these rumors, saying “It’s a core asset. “We’re only considering selling non-core assets.”

Since Pershing basically runs Valeant now, I’ll take him at his word.

Bankers are likely combing over all of Valeant’s assets, looking for parts to sell. Naturally, the Bausch division would be of supreme interest to any banker, as it would be easy to sell and fetch a high premium.

Shares of VRX are slightly lower today, off by 3%.

Oil stocks are crushing to the upside this morning, off an astounding 5.5% move in WTI. Some will tell you that the 4/17 OPEC meeting, which might impose a production freeze, is the catalyst. Truth is, there are no real reasons for these moves. It’s simply a matter of liquidity, sloshing in and out of assets.

Traders are making bets, just like with horses or Pete Rose baseball games, that XYZ will be able to restructure its debt and survive at $39 WTI.

This is silly poppycock. Hardly any small, marginal, players will thrive at $39 WTI. Then again, maybe WTI will trade back to $60 soon?

Right or wrong, that’s the bet now.

People remember the gains enjoyed the last time crude bottomed in the $30s–back in 2009. They want to repeat that glory.

You can’t blame people for dreaming.

Crude trades like a penny stock now.

WTI is higher by 5% now and a sundry of small, piece of shit, oil stocks are surging higher. Names like OAS and LEI will beat bears senseless with the buckle end of the belt today–mainly because it’s Friday.

NASDAQ futures are indicating unmitigated joy at the open.

The fact that we are to monitor every Fed speech, even assholes from Kansas, has me sick to my stomach. These people are incorrigible and beyond reproach. The audacity and self aggrandizement of the Federa Reserve is at a level that has never been seen before. It’d as if they had total control of the U.S. economy and our legislators were on permanent vacation.

When was the last time we heard anything from the fiscal side? It’s financial engineering all day, every day.

At any rate, the most important Fed head, next to Yellen, gave a speech at the University of Bridgeport (really?) today, citing disinflationary pressures and the need to chill the fuck out on the rate hike, or ‘normalization’, rhetoric.

Futures extended their gains on this news.

“I judge that a cautious and gradual approach to policy normalization is appropriate,” said Dudley, a close ally of Fed Chair Janet Yellen and a permanent voter on policy.

Caution, he added in a dovish tone, is needed “because of our limited ability to reduce the policy rate to respond to adverse developments, recognizing that we could also use forward guidance and balance sheet policies to provide additional accommodation if that proved warranted.”

“Although the downside risks have diminished since earlier in the year, I still judge the balance of risks to my inflation and growth outlooks to be tilted slightly to the downside,” he said at University of Bridgeport.

Low oil and commodity prices “may signal more persistent disinflationary pressures than I currently anticipate, while renewed tightening of financial market conditions could have a greater negative impact,” Dudley said, while “there is significant uncertainty about economic growth prospects abroad.”

Happy Friday.