Today, by yet another Obama executive order, overworked Federal workers get a day off. “All executive branch departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall be closed and their employees excused from duty on Friday, December 26, 2014, the day after Christmas Day,†the order says. Exceptions may be made “for reasons of national security, defense, or other public need.” Which means that the US crack anti-hacker teams will be busy working today, because weeks after the infamous Sony “hack” led to a surge in popularity of a badly made, C-grade movie, yesterday both the Xbox and Playstation (which is also owned by Sony) networks were taken offline with hackers once again taking credit. One would think in the aftermath of its shocking hack, Sony would take measures to prevent such events from occurring, but apparently not.
But one group of Federal workers that is definitely not taking the day off, is the trading desk located on the 9th floor of the New York Fed, responsible for such things as preserving the “fair” value of the bond and the stock market and avoiding any sharp downward moves. Because if there is one thing on the “national security” agenda that must be avoided at all costs, it is a drop in the S&P in today’s trading session – after all now is when the official Santa rally begins and judging by the futures, which after a steep selloff in the last minute of trading on Wednesday have restored all their losses and then some, we may finally hit Goldman’s year end target of 2100, for 2015.
Said Federal workers were aided overnight by the latest easing out of China where as reported yesterday, the PBOC lowered the non-bank deposit reserve rate to zero (making China just the latest country to join the rank of fractional-unreserved banking). And while Asia, which did not celebrate the day off, was largely flat, the Shanghai stock exchange soared for the second day in a row on the back of hope that even more easing policy is on deck, surging 2.77%, or 85.06 points, to 3,157.60. The close marked the highest since November 8, 2010 when the Shanghai index ended at 3,159.51 points.
