Its all Greek to me.....or is it?

The Greek soap opera continued today.  The potential for a Greek referendum on the bailout/austerity program seemed to drive the market down today.  From a common sense perspective, it seems hard to believe that whatever happens to the small Greek economy matters that much to the global market.  However, what is not hard to believe is that it does matter to the financial services firms. They seem to be in the same position as they were related to US mortgage debt. 

The next exhibit in financial services mismanagement is MF Global.  CCI has no real knowledge of the behind the scenes story at MF Global, but it is not too hard to believe the reports that

• they were leveraged 40:1 (sounds familiar)
• made big bets on government backed instruments (sounds familiar)
• perhaps were caught by the EU calling Greek 50% haircuts  "voluntary" vs. credit defaults and hence not triggering CDS insurance, (CDS at the core of the problem...sounds familiar.
• However, MF  may have even reached new heights by intermixing client money with their proprietary trades.   

Too bad this just can't be blamed on a rouge trader this time!

If you can't beat"em...join em.
CCI skimmed almost one percent off the double short etf today (SKF)

13-0-5 trading double shorts this year.