Archive - Nov 2012

Forget Chuck Schumer's cat-out-of-the-bag 'get back to work' comments to Bernanke, now it is union-leaders who are advising the world's central bankers. "There is a not a single reason not to lower rates" exclaims Sweden's trade union confederation to the central bank as he begins negotiations with employers on wage deals for next year. His demands (for lower rates) are "far from excessive" and he adds "should not cause inflation" as Swedish organized labor have "never called for levels that ... could not be supported economically." It seems that everyone, from NYTimes bloggers & NY politicians to Swedish Hoffas know best what the central planners must do - and furthermore, it is becoming clear to an increasing mob who is really in charge (sadly).

Judging from the market's reaction (which after all is the only thing that counts apparently), we have little to fear but fear itself - especially when it comes to real fundamental earnings. However, for those with depth perception issues (two data points, a trend do make), color blindness (red is always green as it's 'off-the-lows'), and ADHD (10-second soundbites only), the following chart should help clarify just how bad Q3 revenues were - and how weak the recent trend is (hint - from the upper left to the lower right is not good).

Remarkably prescient given our discsussion yesterday, it seems the leading Canadian junior oil companies are doing whatever they can to create value for their shareholders. Three of the top junior oil companies in Canada are turning away from high growth and into dividend plays this morning. These are all well-respected, leading junior management teams. What we’ve seen in the markets lately is the generalist institutional money—especially in the US but also Canada—leave the junior oil sector. Growth and good management is not getting rewarded. So maybe income and good management will. Is this a sustainable business model now? Other dividend payers like Petrobakken, Pennwest, Enerplus, etc. are down in share price this year. Time will tell.

As we highlighted a few months back for Spain, the word 'austerity' appears to mean something different than we thought. Portugal just announced:

• *PORTUGAL SAYS JAN.-OCT. SPENDING RISES 0.7%           :1174Z PL

and to help cover that anti-austerity 'rise' in spending:

• *PORTUGAL SAYS REVENUE FROM INDIRECT TAXES DROPS 4.5%  :1174Z PL
• *PORTUGAL SAYS REVENUE FROM DIRECT TAXES FALLS 3.7%    :1174Z PL

Hhhhmm, well at least the deficit reduced modestly thanks to some chicanery transferring pension benefits. We are sure this 'diligent austerity' is why the bonds have rallied 100bps this week and everyone is patting the Portuguese on their back for 'following the Troika program'!

While the developed world's central banks may enjoy trading FX and stocks, either directly or indirectly, with each other in a demonstration of monetary policy "stability", the historically biggest source of capital inflows into stocks - the retail investor - has once again just said "nein", for the 17th consecutive week, and excluding tiny inflows of $95 million in the week of July 18 and $907 million in the week ended May 30, has pulled money from stocks for an unprecedented 39 consecutive weeks, with $6.6 billion pulled out in the last week, the most since the first week of October. In fact going back to the beginning of 2010, according to ICI, while $44.5 billion has been invested into domestic equity stock funds, $412 billion has been pulled out. Where has the money gone on an almost dollar for dollar basis: bonds, confirming that the New Normal mantra is all about return of capital.

Hope for a Greek deal (which solves what exactly?) and a better than expected German IFO are the excuses for today's circa 1% spurt in stocks capping a 5-percent-plus jump off Friday's over-short lows. The best 5-day run in four months for the S&P 500 occurred with the lowest average weekly volume of the year - and as we noted earlier, amid one of the biggest short-squeezes we have seen. Correlations across asset classes rose significantly but it seemed EURUSD (and Gold) was as responsible as anything for today's magical carpet ride - especially the little dose of magic into the close. Treasuries trod water - completely ignoring equity's excitement. Silver and Gold popped notably (playing catch up to USD and stocks), as did Oil, with the USD sliding (-1.25%) non-stop on EUR strength (+1.85% on the week!). Have no fear, retirement is back on - Dow 13,000 is back with us... (but it appears, for now, the squeeze-ability is over).

Government Spends Tens of Trillions On Unnecessary, Harmful Projects … But Won’t Spend $100 Million to Prevent the Greatest Threat

Western culture is presently defined by many things; one of which being an instilled sense of extreme jaundice toward wealth. Before the twentieth century and the ascendance of the all-intrusive state, sumptuous living was typically seen as something to aspire to. No doubt Karl Marx would beam with pleasure in seeing how the contemporary bourgeoisie is regarded with hateful suspicion. His plan of crippling class warfare is slowly taking hold. This isn’t for the reasons Marx envisioned however. The so-called “people” have been indoctrinated to see wealth as something to take by government force. A great deal of this can be attributed to the government granting of privilege to the well-connected. As long as the state exists, there will be a class of people who use political means to acquire vast swaths of riches. Coercive egalitarianism based on ill feelings of Schadenfreud is a cancer. There is no conceivable benefit in everyone being equal. There is only one moral social system and that is free, unadulterated capitalism which gives everyone the chance to improve their own standing. Anything less represents the triumph of the idiotic masses over good sense.

Confused at why the stock market has risen phoenix-like this week amid no-news on the fiscal cliff, a lack of closure on Greece and EU budgets, and a further collapse in Japan's trade balance? Wonder no longer; for the explanation is simple - a massive and dramatic short-squeeze has created a 200bps outperformance this week among the most-shorted Russell 3000 names. Impressive indeed; sustainable? One wonders if an "expert network" was used by various known and unknown CT-based hedge funds for "advice" to ramp stops in the highest beta, most shorted stocks in a market in which volume would be so abysmal any entity which already controls 10% of NYSE volume could do with the market as it saw fit?

With EURUSD hitting one-month highs, Greek and Spanish government bonds pushing higher day after day, and EU stocks up 5% this week, one could be forgiven for thinking all is well across the pond. Tail-risks removed, firewalls in place, and everything ticking along nicely. The reality, of course, is a rather different picture. As Credit Suisse notes, the apparent inability of the euro area to reach any sort of decision on how best to address Greece’s debtload is far more negative in our view than just its impact on Greece. It speaks, once again, in our view, of the inability for progress at the euro area level in the absence of market pressure. The ECB’s (unactivated) OMT backstop has worked extremely well until now, but the ability of it to continue to do so without progress on the political side is limited in our opinion. As we head into year-end, European storm clouds are building. Meanwhile, the private sector is voting with its feet: German exposure to the periphery continues to fall (down 56% from the peak to the end of September), with exposures to Italy and Spain in particular lower this year. As Santander’s CEO said this week: while the Treasury may not need the Spanish bailout, the Spanish economy and firms do.

It's one of those low-volume melt-up technical kinda days... so why is the should-be-correlated high-yield credit market selling off? (and Treasuries rallying as stocks push swing highs)

The borderline incomprehensible gibberish is highlighted by us.

Courtesy of Calibrated Confidence, here are the 50 charts that lull Marc Faber to a deep, peaceful slumber each night.

In what should be the least unexpected news of the day, Europe has failed for the second time in one week, after disappointing with no Greek resolution on Monday (and forcing the BIS into a EUR liftathon scramble to indicate that all is still well), this time announcing that an attempt to come to a deal on the EU budget has failed, with another budget summit scheduled now for January. This follows yesterday's misreported news that Cyprus, too, was fixed and the country had achieved a "hard-won" (as some sad Eurohack called it) bailout: turns out it wasn't in the end. And just how does one "hard-win" a bailout - crash their economy better than the rest? And speaking of Greece, nothing is fixed there either, but Germany, whose position was the reason for the first stalemate, demands optimism.