Archive - Jul 22, 2010

I'm NOT saying - and I never had said - that the well has been leaking since February. I AM asking - and government investigators are ALSO asking - whether containment problems starting months ago are related to the April blow out.

Now that the market is back to mirroring the melt up from last summer where bad news drove the market higher, and rare good news drove it to the moon, and every day's closing price is more or less predetermined in the prior premarket session, is it ok if those handful of people who still give a ratus gluteus about market structure understand just what happened last Thursday, July 15 (incidentally the day Goldman announced its settlement, and just pre the infamous OpEx), when the ES-SPY relationship blew up, as the chart below shows. Where futures and SPY have traditionally correlated to 0.999*, on July 15 something snapped.

ICI reports that the week ended July 14 saw another massive outflow from domestic equity mutual funds of $3.2 billion, bringing the July total to $7.3 billion, and year-to-date equity outflows to a stunning $37.5 billion. Yet neither liquidations, nor redemptions, nor mutual fund capitulation, nor lack of liquidity, nor lack of human traders, nor rumors that it is all one big scam, can tame the market's most recent bout of irrational exuberance: in a time when equity funds had to redeem over $7 billion in stocks, the stock market surged by 90 points! Just like last week, despite huge order blocks of selling pressure, the fact that volume is so light and liquidity so tight, the market succeeds in ramping ever higher, now that the few remaining carbon-based market participants have reverse engineered the key algo "predictive" frontrunning mechanisms, and manage to fool them that there is bid side interest, into which all domestic equity mutual funds manage to sell en masse. Soon enough there will be little left to sell, which will, paradoxically cause a much overdue market crash. (It is a bizarro market for a reason). And even as equity mutual funds are running on fumes (explains Bill Miller's call of desperation yesterday), all the money in the world continues to rush into credit funds: the past week saw inflows into every single bond category, with a total of $5.8 billion going into all taxable bond funds. We are gratified that behind the fake equity facade of "alliswellishness", everyone is pulling their money out of stocks with an increased sense of urgency. Retail has had it with this pathetic shitshow of a market: the computer can front run each other for all anyone cares. We are fairly confident that the Obama administration will not have a soft spot in its heart to bail out the quant community... unless, of course, Rahm Emanuel discovers some way to unionize algorithms and give them voting rights.

"I have not commented on the financial markets in a detailed way for quite some time now. This is not because I do not have strong opinions on them, rather it is because I see the current ongoing crisis as just as much a political and social crisis as an economic one and so I am compelled to address those concerns as I think it is in that arena that the greatest dangers exist. Additionally, the major macro investment themes that I outlined well over a year ago remain the same. Namely I think long investments in the United States stock market should be focused on precious metals miners, oil related energy shares and the agriculture theme. Anything related to the ponzi economy like financials, real estate (commercial and residential) and traditional retail with little international presence should be avoided. The final reason why I have not been more market focused is that with liquidity so bad and countless players seemingly exiting positions and taking risk down, sometimes I wonder who is really driving these markets. Are the moves expressions of investors and their views on the future or is most of the trading actually related to sovereign interests engaged in financial warfare? If it is indeed the later influence that is most profound then you can forget any possibility of rational moves on a day to day or even week to week basis. Nevertheless, the market always wins in the end and this happens at major inflection points. I think we are at one of those moments right now...The United States political and monetary authorities have lost ALL credibility in the eyes of the world ever since the crisis hit and for very good reason. The main reason we are still held on life support is so that China can go out and buy up all of the world’s resources while the dollar still has value (and they allow us to bury ourselves) and we have a strong military." - Michael Krieger

RANsquawk US Afternoon Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 22/07/10

Here in Paris, the stores on avenue Matignon and rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré are packed and long lines snake into the Louvre and other museums – the summer is wonderful. And in London and New York, as well as the Côte d'Azur and the Hamptons, it is just the same, as those with money and credit leave their worries behind. It’s hard to believe that the world isn’t in great shape. As a bear, sometimes I even feel guilty for harboring negative thoughts and raining on the triumphal parade of the ruling classes. The wealthy centers of the European and American capital cities do look better and better every year, but the business and editorial pages of the leading papers tell another story. The financial picture is deteriorating at an accelerating pace, and now even the major governments, bulwarks of the free market system, are threatening to slide into trouble. The latest phase of this has been the creation of large amounts of high powered money, issued to benefit and support crucial financial actors within the system. Finding a home for this excess liquidity has resulted in a continuing series of bubbles, large and small (one of which is the beautifully renovated monumental buildings in central Paris).

- John Taylor, FX Concepts

Another week has passed, and it is time for the US to issue another $100+ billion in coupons. The US Treasury has just announced next week's bond issuance calendar, this time 2s, 5s and 7s. This has nothing to do with the weekly issuance in hundreds of billions in Bills: already this month we have redeemed over $400 billion in short-term debt. (And, for purists, it is indeed not a monthly but a bi-weekly event: the US still continues to issue about $200 billion in coupon debt each month).

• July 27 - $38 Billion 2 Year Bonds
• July 28 - $37 Billion 5 Year Bonds
• Jul 29 - $27 Billion 7 Year Bonds

Luckily, Bernanke is on TV preaching hopeful signs, and a faith in the almighty printer, and he will make sure this latest indication of just how very much under control the US budget deficit is, proceeds without a glitch.

Actually, the quote was in the "unlikley" case of spillover from European debt crisis. Even the Chairmesiter has a sense of humor. But the meaning is clear. We are on the verge: a few more negative data points (guaranteed), and/or just a month before all of PIIGSy Europe gets back from vacation (around August 15), realizes it still has no pensions, bonuses and 14th monthly salary, and proceeds to storm various parliaments, and the Fed will be back, baby.

The debate over inflation and deflation has just hit a spread of almost 10%, with deflation (10 Year Yields) barely budging from near record lows, while inflation (stocks) are at a level last seen when the 10 Year was at 3.25%. In other words, one is right and one is wrong, with the convergence between the two now at almost record levels of around 9%. At this point the markets can continue diverging as 10 Year yields drop even as stocks do their irrelevant thing, or, at some point, the correlation desks can get their act together and realize that this spread makes no sense and unlike a Schrodinger Thought Experiment, you can't live in a world in which assets predict both inflation and deflation at the same time. Perhaps all it takes is for some person with a dose of common sense to "observe" this discrepancy and collapse the wave function of the insanity that our market has become. The snap back will be violent.

One of the most conveniently ignored data points from today's NAR report, is that the inventory of existing homes available for sale rose to 3.99 million, representing an 8.9 month supply at the current sales pace. This is up from 8.3 months in May, and is the worst number since August 2009, when it was at 9.2 months. Of course, if one adds the shadow housing inventory estimated by Morgan Stanely at around 5 million, and we get shadow inventory of just under two years. Obviously this is deflationary as it kills the pricing power of any household trying to sell their home. And in other news, the market now spikes on deflation concerns.

The Baltic Dry Index is shouting loud and clear for a double dip in the world economy. International container shipping rates point to a global economic recovery centered in Asia, and trickling down to the U.S. and Europe. Who to Believe? Open the envelope, please!

The acrobatics in the gold market resume, with ongoing jagged moves in spot indicative not of normal buying or selling but far more fundamentally wrong with the market itself. Gold just jumped $12 in the span of minutes, on what appears to be "reverse liquidation." This is happening as Bernanke notes he is sticking with Keynes and thinks a return to the gold standard would be a mistake. And a quick snapshot of the market where implied correlation is once again approaching unity, and everything is trading on the back of everything else. And a quick snapshot of the market where implied correlation is once again approaching unity, and everything is trading on the back of everything else. Apparently the catalyst was a "better than expected" existing home sales number, which came at 5.37MM on expectations of 5.1MM, still a material decline from the prior 5.66MM but the first piece of good news out of the past 18. Of course, the fact that ever more houses are being "sold" at distressed prices and that banks may finally be rotating the shadow inventory is completely lost on binary speculators. So the market thesis now is we may just have a slow down in the double dip based on accelerating job losses (see today's initial claims for the ignored data).

I don’t even think these guys bothered to read the results at all. They are comparing revenues pre-multi billion dollar acquisition with the post acquisition entity. Hey, I can double my revenues if I purchased a company that had 3x my revenues too! This is just sloppy! Yet, these euphoric headlines were all over the place as MS stock climbs nearly 10%. Yes, MS did relatively better than GS, but GS is a federally insured hedge fund (that’s right, I said it)...

Same prepared remarks, different audience, identical theater. Watch the full thing live and commercial free here (CSPAN).

As long as OI continues to decrease, look to fade rallies. When you see the market sell off and OI go up, then shorts are getting in, and that should put you on alert for a possible bottom coming, but not a buy signal. The buy signal comes when OI turns upward in a rally, then selling rallies is not advised, as weak hands are out and fresh longs are coming.