Good Morning.  Futures are pointing to a moderately positive opening.  We may be getting a Santa Clause rally both before and after Christmas.

• The TED spread indicator on Bloomberg.com: Investment Tools again appears to be improving.  Remember that a ratio of 1.40 to 1.60 indicates loan activity. If the ratio is to be trusted it appears to be in the sweet spot.  Banks may really, really be lending again.  Re-fi’s are way up.
• With much of the nation in an ice-grip am wondering just how badly retailers fared over this critical weekend. Not great is my guess.  I strolled our local mall yesterday in 65 degree weather and the parking lots were full but the lines at registers were short.  Interestingly, on-line purchases are down only 1% YOY.  Free shipping and untaxed merchandise for most is proving a powerful motivator.  Plug-in awful weather and I would bet on-line retailers like Amazon had a gang-buster weekend.  The shares are up over 20% since December 1st but with recent analyst upgrades and awful winter weather they could have continued strength.
• Milk.  Sean Penn IS Harvey Milk.  An astounding performance where Penn becomes the man.  It is beyond acting, its something else.  Of course, the subject matter suites the left, left leaning Penn to a T.  Other noteworthy performances: Josh Brolin, Emile Hirsch, Alison Pill and James Franco who I predict will be the next Heath Ledger.  Hand held cameras for street work combined with studio work and archival footage makes this one helluva movie. And if they give Oscars for casting this director of gets it. Everyone in the audience knew how the movie ends yet there was a lot of dabbing of eyes and blowing of noses.
• More on Maduff.  In prior posts I explained how Maduff operated with brokerages.  We would sell big pieces to him and he would cross them internally or lay them off on the Cincinnati Exchange.  He could make juice on the bid/asked spread.  One piece I forgot; he would pay us a penny a share for the merchandise.  So, we would get, maybe, five to seven cents from the institutional seller and then another penny from Bernie.  And, importantly, we got rid of the merchandise and didn’t have to hold it overnight.  At the height of NASDAQ volume Bernie’s share of the volume would be almost 10%.  Oh, and don’t forget he would front-run his own orders and put those trades in his money managed accounts.  Its somewhat hard to understand how the rest of the street didn’t understand this.  Or, did we just look the other way?  And this from today’s NYTs regarding Fairfield Greenwich money finders for Maduff:  “Internal documents from Fairfield show that the firm has taken more than $500 million in fees since 2003 alone from the money it placed with Mr. Madoff. Nearly all those fees went to a handful of Fairfield executives, including Walter M. Noel, Fairfield’s founder, who used the money to build a glamorous life, splitting his time between homes in New York, Connecticut, Florida and the Caribbean.”

Have a great Monday!