Archive - Oct 24, 2012

America has over 44 million people on Food Stamps. The food stamps program's real name is Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The Food Stamp program is "hidden" from view through Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) Cards that work just as credit cards. This article visualizes the size of the program and the vast amounts of people participating.

As we noted earlier, the Fed tweaked the language a little on the latest economic data but chnaged nothing on their plans for our 'great recovery':

• *FED SAYS HOUSING SECTOR SHOWS SOME FURTHER SIGNS OF IMPROVEMENT
• *FED SAYS U.S. HOUSEHOLD SPENDING ADVANCED `A BIT MORE QUICKLY'
• *FED REPEATS `EXCEPTIONALLY LOW' RATES AT LEAST THROUGH MID-2015
• *FED REPEATS IT WILL CONTINUE OPERATION TWIST THROUGH YEAR-END
• *FED TO KEEP BUYING $40B A MONTH OF MORTGAGE-BACKED SECURITIES
• *FED REITERATES `SIGNIFICANT DOWNSIDE RISKS' TO ECONOMY

Pre: 10Y 1.775, ES 1410.5, Gold 1701, EUR 1.2964

Legendary oilman T. Boone Pickens famously calls America’s oil imports ‘the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world.’ Pickens is referring to the money that is paid each year to oil exporting nations, particularly those in the Persian Gulf which raked in around $100 billion last year. No doubt, this is an enormous transfer of wealth. But it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the TRILLIONS that Ben Bernanke gives the world’s elite. It constitutes, by far, the greatest transfer of wealth in history, vastly exceeding America’s energy imports. It’s an unconscionable, immoral, ridiculous game. But there’s good news– we can stop playing whenever we want. We don’t HAVE to hold their worthless currency. We don’t HAVE to keep transferring our purchasing power to an elite group. We can “opt-out”. Trade as much of their paper as you can for something REAL, especially physical precious metals.

Sounds easier than it is.

There was a time when the announcement of lawsuits against Bank of America for the fraudulent mortgage practices of the worst M&A acquisition of all time - Countrywide Financial - sent the stock of BAC plunging. Now, it has become a daily thing and any incremental news barely cause a budget in the stock. One just needs to look at the surging Reps and Warranties claims against the bank (most recently in the latest Q3 earnings report) for improper mortgage conduct in the past to get a sense that very soon the firm's entire market cap will be less than the liability and litigation reserve it will need to establish against the avalanche of lawsuits we predicted back in October 2010. The litigation against the bank now is so large, that it will soon have to pull its TBTF get out of bankruptcy card just to avoid being sued to death in a 1000 legal paper cuts. This explains why the just announced latest lawsuit against BAC by the NY District Attorney, seeking $1 billion or so, for fraudulent loan-origination practices barely caused a stir in the stock.

Last month, hours after the announcement of QEternity, we said that in validation of the 'Flow' model taking over from the Fed's flawed 'Stock' model, the Fed will have no choice but to continue the long-end $85 billion in monetary flow addition to the market, if not economy (i.e. expand the QE program from $40bn per month to $85bn per month starting in January - in order to maintain the 'flow' post-Operation Twist). Last night, Goldman has officially agreed with us (as has Bloomberg's chief economist Joe Brusuelas). It appears that starting January 2013 Ben is really going to town. But don't expect this to be announced today. It will, as Goldman speculates, be disclosed at the Fed's December FOMC meeting. For now, two weeks ahead of the election, expect more "autopilot" from Bernanke as coming up with any surprises 'now' would be seen as beyond political.

How does Facebook's investor prospects look now, after a healthy dose of reality? Ha! Muppet Mania!!!!

While the infamous 'Gundlach' trade has done remarkably well since inception, our view on NatGas has become less vociferously bullish recently as the more constructive factors such as an under-appreciation of declining production and rising utility demand. While their remains upside potential to gas prices over the next 18 to 24 months, we tend to agree with Credit Suisse as they note five reasons why a near-term pause in pricing is likely. With unconventional supply more resilient than many had expected - covering the fall in conventional supply and absent an extremely cold winter (which NOAA is not expecting), a range-bound NatGas pricing market seems the new normal (for now).

Don't Read This ... It's Totally Irrelevant, Old News, Who Cares, Americans Are Above the Law, We're Exceptional (and Anyone Who Criticizes anything our Government Does is a Commie Fascist Turruristicalist Moooooslim)

By now everyone knows that as part of QEternity, Uncle Ben is currently monetizing $40 billion in MBS per month, a number which as we first forecast hours after its announcement and which everyone is now piling on to reaffirm, will rise to $85 billion in outright, unsterilized monetization beginning January 1, 2013 (as anything less would be seen as impllicit tightening in a market which now needs $85 billion in Fed Flow monthly simply not to collapse). This is fungible money which is going solely to benefit the banks, whose reserves with the Fed swell, and which proceeds can be used for virtually any purpose - from buying MBS (which they are doing) to 300x P/E stocks like AMZN - but not to be lent out to those desperately seeking loans? Why: one simple reason - the banks are already mired in legacy litigation from loans made during the last housing bubble (just see the hundreds of mortgage-related lawsuits Bank of Countrywide Lynch is a defendant in and you will get a sense of how bad it is) and the last thing they need is a repeat of that. And while the Fed has only one monetary easing pathway, which always goes through the banks, we wish to demonstrate to our readers what, in a thought experiment ignoring all the obvious practical considerations, the equivalent benefit to the general population would be if instead of being held by the banks and used to make the rich even richer, this money would bypass the banking syndicate and go straight to the US job seeker...

Might have missed something today .

The weakness after the US close and soft sentiment figures understood.

The mid-morning change in mind and subsequent rebound seems a bit puzzling here.

PMIs rather bad, the rest not good enough…

With Greece making headlines with extensions rumors (from the Greeks) and denials (from the Germans), we continue to hear of the resurgence in the Greek stock market. It must mean something after all - its up almost 90% in the last few months! The following two charts may give those who 'believe' a little pause for thought as the Athens Stock Index was down 91% from its 2007 highs before it rebounded and we remind those 'option' buyers that Eastman Kodak had fallen 93.5% from its highs before rebounding a remarkable 300% off the March 2009 lows, before giving up all of that into bankruptcy just a few short years later. Recency bias is a behavioral instinct that this market has become beholden to - but perhaps a step back might enable a little more perspective on just where we are.

I realize that the situation in Europe can be very confusing. Aside from the fact that we’re dealing with over 20 different countries all with their own respective economies and debt issues, we also have the European Central Bank and the numerous bailouts and bailout funds (the LTRO 1 and 2, the EFSF, the ESM and now the OMT) to keep track of.

Bernanke has fired his infinite bazooka and yet markets have done nothing but slide since and macro-economic data are showing further signs of weakness (New Orders and Capex) with the reality under the headlines of a housing 'recovery' hardly green-shoots. Draghi remains sidelined with his conditionally infinite bazooka as his region of the world slides deeper and deeper into the abyss of recession/depression with IFO expectations and New Orders slumping and deleveraging continuing. So, it seems, the hope for moar-money from central-bankers remains squarely on the shoulders of the PBoC. However, a glimmer of green shoots as a gentle acceleration PMI (and New Export Orders? to Japan?) suggest (as Goldman's Jim O'Neill would have us believe) that the Chinese have manufactured a slow landing (for now - given 'their' data). Hardly the driver for the next major round of stimulus that is so required to fill deleveraging shoes (leaving aside the question of food inflation concerns). So a 'blip' of a green shoot in China is in fact nothing to be celebrated as the world remains a closed-loop (no martians yet) and two of the world's three largest economies are lagging badly. Look at these three charts and decide which way the world is heading!

"The price action over the past few weeks in the wake of the markets getting more from the Fed than they could have ever expected heading into an election is a clue that the times indeed could be a changing. The 1987 paradigm underwent a similar period of choppy trade before melting down. Of course, crashes by their nature are a rare breed and the probability of one occurring is astronomically low. That said, should the S&P 500 fail to hold the 1400 level over the next few days (especially on a closing basis) we wouldn’t wait around too long in anticipation that the modern day version of LOR will save the day. The chart makes it clear that quantitative easing has diminishing returns. Soon they could be negative."