Themis Thoughts June 24th 2010

Yesterday was a day for gargantuan feats of strength and fortitude. Ben Bernanke, despite mountains of debt in the US and abroad, managed to extend his record for holding a giant cork under water. Said Ben, “If you think this easy I dare you to give it a whirl. Check out my triceps. I am ripped man. Friggin’ ripped!” Tim Geithner chimed in, “Yes he is ripped. Feel his arm! And by the way so am I! So am I!” Then Tim peeled away his tear away oxford to reveal 12-pack abs as he flexed. (grunt…groan… hmph) “See?” he continued, “and I got this way from catching bul$%*t in congressional meetings and hurling it right back at ‘em!”

While not a soccer fan, I found myself screaming, as we watched the USA-Algeria world cup match that, I will concede, actually did rival the intensity of late June major league baseball. The shrieks you heard around the states did not come from the tens of millions watching the Rays-Padres; no it came from the USA-Algeria match, where with time running out, USA “put it in the hole”. Said Landon Donavan, “I feel like an institutional equity order that just beat HFT to the offer! It is truly a rush!!!” (He actually didn’t; the offer was stale and actually 8 cents lower than where he got filled).

While the first two events mentioned above are gargantuan, and sports fans would have been given a treat even had the day stopped there, it didn’t. On Court 18 John Isner and Nicolas Mahut battled courageously. Amazingly, today (third day) they will continue their 10-hour record-book Wimbledon match, where their playing was stopped for a second day due to darkness. Their 5th set is tied at 59-59. Their play is a lesson in courage, persistence, and quality, and we at Themis were lucky to watch the end of yesterday’s play from Charlie’s Aunt, at their weekly Wednesday HFT Happy Hour. We asked several other patrons how they felt about what they were witnessing:

“This match is epic!!! Did you see the speed on the serves? I mean you can tune out the rest and just watch the fast serves!”

“Good match? Please. It is taking too much time.”

“The game could be improved if they narrowed the spread between the baselines; I know that’s what I would do.”

“Well, Monsieur, my country paid ze French line judge ten million franc…wait…damn I mean euro, so zat our Nic can see ze green ball 6 milliseconds faster zen ze other boy. It will end soon don’t you worry…”

June Sports Carry On!

Where we left off 4:00pm EST:

INDU                      10,298.44                                              +4.92

SPX                        1,092.04                                                -3.27

CCMP                    2,254.23                                                -7.57

Futures now at 7:30am EST:

DJA                         -48

SPA                        -7.5

NDA                        -16.75

Key Data out today:

08:30:                                     Durable Goods (-1.4%)

08:30:                                     Initial Jobless Claims (463k)

08:30:                                     Continuing Claims (4,550,000)

News in a word:

–          Resignations (Feinberg, Aussie’s Rudd, McChrystal).

–          Housing.

–          Job-approval

–          Grease.

–          Greece.

–          Unchanged.

–          Marathon.

–          Goal!

–          TCU-Turtle.

–          iPhone

–          Quiet.

–          TV.

Significant Movers This Morning:

MIPI +12.5% (Azedra data); MLHR -6.9% (earnings), BBBY -5.7% (earnings), PAYX -3.3% (earnings), CYS -2.9% (8M share secondary), NKE -2.3% (earnings).