Happy Thanksgiving Rally!

I hope you’re using this opportunity to shed those pesky long positions. This rally was sparked on a rumor of IMF intervention. This feeds into the line about the U.S. economy (and the good Dr. Ben) raining paper products on Europe and saving the planet by throwing ourselves on the global debt landmine.

Fat chance, folks.

Upon hearing word of this announcement, I leapt up from my office and ran out of the 9th floor, searching for the source. What I didn’t find was any sort of big pronouncement from the IMF itself.

News of this seems to have come from somewhere close to the Wallstreet Journal as they are the only publication I found, thus far, that mentioned it. But let’s roll with it and say the WSJ did its due diligence, even though I have no idea which IMF official announced the program.

The lines themselves are uninspiring. 500% or even 1,000% of quota is impressive sounding, until you define “quota”.

This lifeline is worth barely more than $60 billion to Italy. It’s worth about $30 billion to Spain. Funding wise, that’s probably enough to keep those two countries on their feet for 6 weeks, according to Zerohedge’s envelope math.

The amount of funding in time that this provides to the European debt problem is within the margin of error I’d associate with guessing how long Europe has before a meltdown to begin with.