Business

Back on February 10, when looking at Carl Icahn's darling Chesapeake, whose stock had plunged to effectively record lows on imminent bankruptcy concerns, we said that for anyone brave enough to take the plunge, the "Trade of the Year" would be to go long a specific bond, the $500 million in 3.25s of March 2016 which were maturing in just over a month, and which on February 10 were yielding 300% at a price of 80.5 cents on the dollar.

Via ConvergEx's Nick Colas,

Warm up the choppers and put some Wagner on the loudspeakers – “Helicopter money” is a hot economic topic.

 

That’s where central banks print money and either hand it to the government for things like infrastructure investment or just send it out to consumers to spend. While that may sound like an extreme measure, advocates of this novel approach argue that it is a valid response to an extreme problem: slowing global growth and central banks with no “Standard” tools left in the shed. 

 

Yesterday, in an odd attempt to criticize the "financial media for highlighting bearish stories but ignoring bullish ones" and to pidgeonhole "Zero Hedge and friends" as addicted to "permabear newsflow", Citi's Brent Donnelly said the following:

Give the people what they want

 

As gold prices "Golden Cross," the precious metal is set for its best month in 4 years, and best 2-month rise since 2011. The entire precious metals complex is active with the largest fund inflows since 2009 and the biggest February COMEX trading volume in history.

2016 has seen the best start to a year since 1980 for gold...

The best 2 months in gold since 2011...

Pushed prices to a "Golden Cross"...

If it feels like just two weeks ago when Jeffrey Gundlach was spewing almost daily fire and brimstone about the future of the market is because that's precisely when he was doing just that.

Recall on February 8 when we wrote that in an email exchange with Reuters, the DoubleLine chief said "credit fund bankruptcies are coming," adding that "it's not a market to be flopping around in. The trends are relentless and powerful."