Archive - Aug 27, 2011

One lawyer for every 254 Americans, and one new lawsuit every 2 seconds.

The stock market is wearing a T-shirt that reads, "I broke a downtrend and all I got was this lousy pennant." Having just returned from nine glorious days camping in Washington State, I have no idea what "news" has effected the markets ("news" in quotes because the news is managed for its PR effect--the real news is what has been suppressed lest it undermine the Status Quo's carefully cultivated propaganda campaign), and so I have marked up the chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) and the U.S. dollar without the "benefit" of the news flow. What pops out is a big fat pennant in both charts. Pennants can be continuation patterns--mere way points in a continuing up or down trend--or they can indicate points of trend reversals. The key feature of a pennant is the compression of price into a narrowing channel, as the relative indecision of buyers and sellers alike causes price to fluctuate less and less.

Wikileaks' threat to expose Bank of America came and went, and yet all it took for the bank to implode was reality, a little time, and an independent media. That said, Wikileaks has not yet been completely relegated to the compost heap of one time fads. In a blast submission of several thousand cables, Julian Assange tries to regain his one time star status. While we have to go through the bulk, one that caught our attention was a cable from the US delegation in Chengdu, China, where a counsel met with a local representative of the World Bank's International Finance Corporation, for some candid one on one. While the bulk of the exposition, which took place in December of 2009,  is not surprising, there are some frank admissions about the emergence of a Chinese bubble, long before the topic was mainstream (and only fringe investors would consider it), observation that urban housing prices are "here to stay for the coming few years as they are an unavoidable, long-term aspect of the nationwide, structural shift in the population from rural area to urban centers", the realization that the solar industry is plagued by overcapacity and due for a restructuring (many "solar" longs would have been delighted to know this well in advance of the recent decimation in the Chinese solar stock space), but most notable is the Chinese admission that "China will remain a "poor country" for years to come, and can expect to emerge as a "respectable mid-level" country only in another 10-20 years" in order to grow its service sector from the current 30-40% of the economy to a US-comparable 75%, many structural shifts will have to take place. And while such shifts "are already happening to some extent in places like the Pearl River Delta", and "Chinese companies increasingly setting up factories overseas" the biggest impediment is China's "terrible educational system" which "promotes copying and pasting over creative and independent thought." Explaining further, "the normal process undertaken by students when writing as essentially collecting sentences from various sources without any original thinking.  He compared the writing ability of a typical Chinese Phd as paling in comparison to his "unskilled" staff during his decade of work with the IFC in Africa." Well, if China's education system is worse than that of the US, we can probable stop worrying about the dollar relinquishing its reserve status. On the other hand, we would be the first to point out that China, which does not admit defeat, is probably in the early stages of the next bubble: that of importing teachers, educators, professors and generally Ivy League Ph.D.'s. Which is great: take as many as you want. The average tenured Ivy League (not to mention MIT and NYU) professor has already done enough damage to the US - it is only fair that they destroy China next.

The financial press has been inundated with articles comparing what is happening in global markets now to events in the latter part of 2008. Sure enough, the surge in Treasurys from 100 to 143 in the last two months of 2008 following the Lehman bankruptcy is most comparable to the move in the same security from 122 to 140 in the two months since the beginning of July 2011. What is disturbing is that the bulk of this move has happened after the August 2 debt deal, and after the announcement of QE2.5 or "ZIRP through mid-2013" by the Fed on August 9. Additionally, stocks have also traded in a pattern very reminiscent to what happened during the first round of the Great Financial Crisis, but the lock up in capital market liquidity, especially in Europe, may be the most obvious parallel between the two time periods. That said, there is one key difference between 2008 and 2011. Bill Buckler, in the latest edition of his Privateer, demonstrates what it is...

Over the past x months, one thing has become all too clear in FX land: the EURUSD must stay rangebound between 1.40 and 1.50, even though as Goldman's John Noyce presents in his latest "not-for-retail" packet, the fair value of the European currency continues to be higher than where it should be. Whether this is a simple case of the tail wagging the dog, whereby the ECB and China are terrified of the downstream effects should the European currency trade under the psychological barrier of 1.40, is unclear. What is clear is that every country in the world has skin in the game, and is forced to keep the EUR in Goldilock rangebound territory: not too low to spook European investors, and not too high to accelerate the German double dip. Some other risk assets correlations observed include the AUD vs 2 year swap spread basket, the VIX vs the S&P, and lastly, on the until recently massively overstretched CHF. Noyce tops it off with some technical perspectives on US govvies and the 2s10s, which is once again diving, although unclear if due to a bullish or bearish flattening.

This year's biggest winner from the botched DSK affair has been France's Christine Lagarde, who despite the dropping of all charges against the former head, is now in charge of the IMF. We admit that the ascension of Lagarde to the throne of the world's most irrelevant global bailout organization (what the IMF "does" is of not importance: the only thing that matters is who Beijing, and Chinabot, feels like rescuing today) happened even though we previously predicted that Germany would be very much against it. Well, Germany let it slide, and endorsed Lagarde. That may soon change though, after the former finance minister essentially threw the entire European (read French, Swiss and German whose assets as a % of host GDP are ridiculous... yes, a technical term) financial system under the bus at Jackson Hole, a day after Bernanke said to wait until September 20 for QE3 clarity. Per Bloomberg: "Bolstering banks’ balance sheets “is key to cutting the chains of contagion,” Lagarde said today in the text of remarks at the Federal Reserve’s annual forum in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Without an “urgent” recapitalization, “we could easily see the further spread of economic weakness to core countries, or even a debilitating liquidity crisis." Lagarde, a former French finance minister who took the helm at the Washington-based IMF in July, said recapitalization should be “substantial.” Banks should look for funds in the markets first and seek public funds if necessary. One way to provide capital could be through the European bailout fund, she said." And now, one can see why Germany is fuming: not only will Germany soon have no choice but to fund the EFSF's sovereign bailout ration all on its own, which as we, and other have speculated, could be as large as €3.5 trillion (or about $5 trillion), but it will be Germany's duty to also fund the rescue of all banks on a parallel track. What is the additional tally? Why at least $230 billion in Europe alone in the next several months. Then again, when you get to $5 trillion, what's a few hundred billions between friends?

Ron Paul has another illustrious supporter - Jim Rogers. The Quantum fund co-founder, who has been spot on about pretty much everything for the past 3 years (see Roubini Versus Rogers Is Right Debate for 2010: Investor Jim Rogers thinks gold will double to at least $2,000 an ounce. Economist Nouriel Roubini says that’s “utter nonsense.” As these well-known market personalities duke it out, they’re doing us a favor by highlighting a critical debate: Which is the bigger threat -- inflation or deflation?), not to mention gold (to the amusement of such Keynesian soundbites recorded for posterity as the following: "Maybe it will reach $1,100 or so but $1,500 or $2,000 is nonsense"), and especially inflation (perhaps the only thing that will prompt a chuckle out of Gadaffi and Mubarak these days is someone telling them that their multi-decade reigns are over due to hyperdeflation and plunging food prices), was caught on tape voicing his endorsement of the only sane person who can possibly do something for this country. "In this election if Ron Paul gets anywhere near the nomination I would certainly support him. He is the only one that I've seen in American politics that seems to have a clue about what's going on." Zero Hedge agrees on all counts.

Hey man, take a look out the window and see what's happening...Yeah, I see what you mean brother...

Some perspectives on the one event that has consumed everyone on the East Coast from CNN: "Hurricane Irene continues to crawl north after making landfall Saturday morning in North Carolina. The storm is expected to head up the East Coast from Virginia to Maine, bringing hurricane-force winds, heavy rain, flooding and widespread power outages. President Barack Obama warned that Irene could be a "hurricane of historic proportions."

Placing one’s chips on the “Don’t Pass” line when Warren Buffett holds the dice may seem ill-advised, but we’re not so sure about that $5 billion bet he just made on Bank of America.  The news media inferred with all its might that it was a vote of confidence — not only in B of A, but in the U.S. banking system. Yeah, well, maybe. 

More data on the big storm.