Archive - Oct 2010

The US population is starting to get restless: investors are beginning to sue, there are protests over HAMP, and foreclosure probes are happening.

Gonzalo Lira picks up on a topic much discussed on Zero Hedge, if not so much elsewhere: the religulousity (thank you Bill Maher) of the "science" of economics: "It’s no great insight to say that economics—the so-called “dismal science”—has had a dismal track-record in terms of predicting macro-economic events over the last forty-odd years. And as for the last couple of years? Sheesh—a monkey throwing darts would have done a better job of predicting how the macro-economic picture would play out. But I argue that economics is not and has never been a science—what's more, it's become a religion. And just like any religion, it has adepts, denominations, and orthodoxies. Which is why it will fail in its efforts to get out of this Global Depression." —Gonzalo Lira.

The Casey Report provides a useful glance at the real inflation currently ravaging items that are actually purchased by Americans, not those captured by the Fed's BLS statistics: "On average, our basic food costs have increased by an incredible 48% over the last year (measured by wheat, corn, oats, and canola prices). From the price at the pump to heating your stove, energy costs are up 23% on average (heating oil, gasoline, natural gas). A little protein at dinner is now 39% higher (beef and pork), and your morning cup of coffee with a little sugar has risen by 36% since last October." Of course, the ongoing deflation in items purchases requiring leverage will continue to skew the CPI so far south to make all those who bought 5 Year TIPS yesterday at negative yields end up losing money on the transaction.

EUR posted broad based losses on Tuesday amid a stronger USD and following news that Citigroup has advised its clients to take profits on long EUR/USD positions. As a result, the pair fell below the 10DMA (1.3935), the 21DMA (1.3862) and looks set to make a test on 1.3800 in the coming days. Elsewhere, despite a stronger USD, the GBPUSD rallied and posted gains of over 100pips on Tuesday after the UK's Q3 advanced GDP data beat expectations by a impressive margin and S&P revised the UK's sovereign rating outlook to stable from negative, affirming the country's 'AAA' rating, having been satisfied with the coalition governments performance and budget plans outlined thus far. Finally, the USDJPY pair rose towards the mid-81.00 levels on Tuesday amid a stronger greenback, which gained following renewed concerns over the Eurozone and on the back of much better than expected UK GDP data which lifted GBP across the board.

Jeremy Grantham launches into his most aggressive and succinct anti-Fed diatribe yet. He is a man who gets it. 'If I were a benevolent dictator, I would strip the Fed of its obligation to worry about the economy and ask it to limit its meddling to attempting to manage inflation. Better yet, I would limit its activities to making sure that the economy had a suitable amount of liquidity to function normally. Further, I would force it to swear off manipulating asset prices through artificially low rates and asymmetric promises of help in tough times – the Greenspan/Bernanke put. It would be a better, simpler, and less dangerous world, although one much less exciting for us students of bubbles. Only by hammering away at its giant past mistakes as well as its dangerous current policy can we hope to generate enough awareness by 2014: Bernanke’s next scheduled reappointment hearing." Pretty much all familiar topics to Zero Hedge readers.

Here is my latest article in the October issue of Institutional Investor. But first I want to bring to your attention two articles from the NY Times.

RANsquawk Market Wrap Up - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 26/10/10

Now is the time to own gold stocks. Most gold companies will report their Q3 earnings at the end of October. Due to a higher year-over-year average spot gold price (which has increased 27.8% to $1,228/oz in Q3 2010 vs. $961/oz in Q3 2009), virtually every precious metal company is forecast to exhibit substantial net income growth. These fantastic net income results will be augmented by higher by-product prices (average silver, copper, and zinc prices were up 28.7%, 24.2%, and 14.8% year-over-year), which should set the stage for banner year-over-year earnings increases. One of the best axioms for investing is painfully obvious, but so often forgotten by seasoned investors: it’s all about earnings. Earnings are what drive stock prices over the long term. Investors seek out earnings growth wherever they can find it, and we can’t think of a single equity sector that exhibits better year-over-year earnings growth potential than the gold producers. We expect that to change over the next two quarters as investors realize how much stronger gold producers’ earnings will be at $1,350 gold. As countries decide to burn their currencies in the devaluation race, gold has responded, and now it’s the producers turn to perform. We’ll gladly take the earnings. - Eric Sprott

S&P closes up 0.02; ES closes up 0.25. Both were the most blatant token green close merely to force demonstrate that POMO days will always and forever close green. The market has moved from tragicomedy and is now doing stand up alongside Coco. Ignore the fact that VIX is now up two days in a row despite positive stock closes. Shortly, we will update our POMO analysis shortly to see how many sequential green POMO closes today brings us to.

And following up on the previous post demonstrating the escalating war of words vis-a-vis the increasingly hostile stance on Sino-US monetary relations, is the following recently released letter by Paul Tudor Jones in which the legendary traders discusses the critical relationship (among many other things) of the USD-CNY: "As someone who has traded foreign exchange since 1980, I believe the
RMB/USD rate is currently the single most important of all exchange
rates. It not only drives the largest foreign trade relationship in the
world, it also drives virtually every other exchange rate globally.
Dozens of other emerging market countries suppress their exchange rate
against the US dollar because the RMB is effectively pegged to the
dollar. And what is remarkable is the lack of any concrete policy initiative in the US to change this." In other words, we are stuck in an impasse that will not change for a long, long time, as both countries are terrified to really "defect", and neither country has a material advantage in any one regard, plus are entwined, despite all the jawboning, in a symbiotic relationship whose status quo is more valuable than standalone existence. Sorry Schumer.

After taking heat from the White House for nearly a year for its currency peg, a fact that in itself will never get China to loosen its regime as it would be perceived as yielding to pressure from D.C., China has once again gone on the offensive, this time via its commerce minister who earlier today said that dollar issuance in the U.S. is "out of control" which in turn is leading to an inflation assault on China. Of course, one simple way to deal with said assault would be to revalue the currency, but why do so if the world's biggest export economy benefits from the stupidity of the Federal Reserve. After all, the Fed's China monetary policy allows the US to continue to export inflation and to provide cheap Chinese goods to America's great unwashed masses of Wal Mart shoppers who enjoy cheap (but increasingly more expensive) products. Plus it is not as if China is not printing trillion in money of its own, however in the form of what the US used to do in the past, and do so in the form of cheap, NINJA credit. All in all, this is just another instance of a pot calling a kettle black, even as nothing ever changes.Well, one thing may change: imminent bubbles in ever more rare earth minerals, and soon, rice and rubber, will soon add to pressure in all other already inflating commodities. How companies will be able to pass through these costs to consumers, nobody seems to have either any idea, or care. Certainly not the Fed, which is very myopically welcoming this price change.

With vacuum tubes expecting QE next Wednesday to come anywhere between $500 billion a $10 trillion, it falls upon Marc Faber to naturally take the other side of the bet, who, in this interview with Margaret Brennan (sadly without Mr. T by his side), tells the impeccably coiffed Bloomberg anchor that instead of inciting the mother of all flash dashes and hitting the BlackRock 12 month target of Dow 36,000, Faber instead anticipates that the Fed decision "could disappoint investors and may prompt a correction in US stocks." In response to Margaret's question if size does in fact matter, Faber responds that anything under a trillion will "disappoint." And with Goldman now throwing out bogeys as high as $2-4 trillion, it is almost inevitable that a sell the news type day will be virtual certainty on mid-term election day. "The markets are stretched: weak dollar, strong PMs and strong equities - I think a correction is overdue. But I wouldn't think that a bear market is around the corner." In fact the opposite: "Maybe we will have a crack up boom in stocks and commodities like between the end of 1999 and March 2000 when the markets went up very strongly."

The pension turmoil is not limited to France either. US pension funds are underfunded by nearly $3 trillion. Will US workers be as willing as their French counterparts to face the beatings (to defend "what's theirs") or will they throw up their hands and appeal to Obama for help?

After Zero Hedge earlier speculated that CAH may be subject to an LBO, the company appears to have taken matters into its own hands.

While it is our longstanding practice not to respond to market rumors and speculation, we are making an exception in this limited situation. Cardinal Health is not in discussions with any party regarding an acquisition of Cardinal Health. We do not expect to have further comment on this matter.

Zero Hedge: "forcing companies to make exceptions since 2010."

Bernanke's transfer of capital from savers to corporations, courtesy of now perpetual ZIRP and trillions in upcoming QE, has made corporate refinancing for high grade companies a no-brainer. With Goldman issuing 50 year bonds at just over 6%, one can be sure that many companies will take the inflation call option and continue to refi existing IG debt into ever lower yields, courtesy of schizophrenic investors who are betting on both inflation and deflation (why else would someone lock up capital for 50 years even as the S&P trades at 2010 highs?). However, in addition to merely refinancing, banks are now also also eagerly incurring new debt for shareholder friendly activities. So what does that mean for investors who are obviously much more comfortable with putting their capital into bonds than stocks (23 weekly outflows from mutual funds)? Well, there's an arb for that.