Archive - Nov 2012

With everyone throwing the kitchen sink into creating the illusion that this time housing has bottomed, seriously, this morning's report on housing starts and permits was set to be quite awkward: on one hand, realistic data accounting for weakness due to Sandy would have broken the housing momentum - many were expecting a far weaker than expected print precisely due to the Hurricane. On the other, the Census Bureau could have gone hog wild and completely ignored the same reality that apparently is impacting all other data points, and said housing starts soared to their highest number in 4 years, or a seasonally adjusted 894,000 in October, up 3.6% from a downward revised 863,000 in September, and well above expectations of a Sandy-driven decline of 3.7% to 840K. The CB opted for the latter, while adding a solid pinch of seasonal adjustment to the data, which not annualized and not seasonally adjusted rose from 77.8K to 77.9K sales. In this number was the drop in Northeast housing starts from 4K to 3.5K, the lowest since February. The mystery boost came in the West, where annualized starts rose from 198K to 232K, even as they dropped in the South and Northeast. Finally, and more irrelevant, housing permits dropped from 890K to 866K seasonally adjusted, even as the NSA number rose from 71.4K to 75.0K.

For your Arthur Andersen nostaglia pleasure, we present Deloitte's February 2011 sign off on the firm's 2011 full year results. And to avoid the Twinkie Tsunami and beat the rush, be sure to buy your soon to be collectible, pre-petition HP-12C now before the imminent price surge occurs.

That Hewlett Packard would miss results (it did, with revenues coming at $30.0 billion on expectations of $30.4 billion, guiding Q1 ESP $0.68-$0.71 on expectations of $0.85) is no surprise to anyone who had followed the stock, and/or seen the recent dump of half of Seth Klarman's stake in the name (as was pointed out here previously). What was not only surprising, but shocking is that as part of its earnings announcement, HPQ took a $8.8 billion impairment charge to intangibles and earnings, primarily as a result of what it said was "serious accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and outright misrepresentations at Autonomy Corporation plc that occurred prior to HP's acquisition of Autonomy and the associated impact of those improprieties, failures and misrepresentations on the expected future financial performance of the Autonomy business over the long-term." As a reminder, HPQ bought Autonomy plc for $10.3 billion in August 2011. We now learn that anywhere between 50% and 80% of this purchase price was based on meaningless numbers and fraud. $10.3 billion is also about 40% of what HPQ's market cap will be when the stock opens down at least 10%. And this is how one destroys shareholder value. One in this case being the company's former CEO Leo Apotheker, whose executive decisions and lack of diligence have left the company in a state of complete disaster. What was Leo's punishment for his brief tenure on top of HPQ and swath of absolute value destruction? $25,000,000 in all in comp.

• More QE could distort rather than deliver (FT)
• Soros Buying Gold as Record Prices Seen on Stimulus (BBG)
• EU Leaders Face Greek Aid Gap in Brinkmanship With IMF (BBG)
• Weak data point to bigger economic drag from Sandy (Reuters)
• Shirakawa Pushes Back With Criticism of Abe Unlimited Easing (BBG) But... but... Bernanke??
• French Downgrade Widens Gulf With Germany as Talks Loom (BBG)
• Japanese Poll Shows LDP Advantage Ahead of Election (WSJ)
• BOJ in the Balance as Next Government Picks Top Posts (BBG)
• Exchanges Get Closer Inspection (WSJ)
• Greece edges closer to €44bn bailout (FT)
• Japan Government to Spend 1 Trillion Yen on Next Stimulus (BBG)
• China’s Richest Woman Divorces Husband, Fortune Declines (BBG)

Another day, another melt up overnight wiping out all the post-Moody's weakness, this time coming courtesy of Europe, where following the French downgrade, the EURUSD filled its entire gap down and then some in the span of minutes following the European open, when it moved from 1.2775 to 1.2820 as if on command. And with the ES inextricably linked to the most active and levered pair in the world, it is is no surprise to see futures unchanged. It appears that the primary catalyst in the centrally planned market has become the opening of said "market" itself, as all other news flow is now largely irrelevant: after all the central planners have it all under control.

From buy French bonds and the EUR, to sell French bonds and the EUR, every possible opinion is included in the list below.

The French banking problem is woefully unrecognized, although I'm sure the rating agencies will pick up on it this time next year, after the collapse and/or bank run.

Unwilling to sacrifice their sovereignty at the altar of the ECB's contingent OMT (and unable to wrench 'help' from their previously colonized friends in Latin America; it seems Rajoy and friends are more than willing to sacrifice their actual land... and citizenship in order to maintain their 'independence'. Reuters reports that Spain is considering offering rich investors from countries such as Russia and China the right to settle in return for them buying up property in the stagnant housing sector. For buying property worth as little as $200,000, wealthy foreigners could be offered a residency permit, the country's commerce secretary said on Monday. This is the same nation with near 11% loan delinquencies, greater-than-50% youth unemployment, and a bad-bank loaded with heavily discounted real-estate assets that are still too expensive to encourage investors, and an ever-present devaluation risk hanging over its paralyzed economy. We wonder how the other nations of the EU will feel about Spain 'diluting' the citizen-asset pool with this new non-tax-paying, non-labor-utilizing 'wealth'. How long before Greece sells plots on Santorini (w/passport)?

The days just prior to the end of the third quarter now appear like a million years away, and a hundred S&P point away, but they were marked by one notable thing: the price of AAPL hit an all time high just days before the quarter ended. Which is why we read with great interest the quarterly Hedge Fund tracker update by David Kostin, which has been aggregating the popularity of the most prominent hedge fund-beloved names, and which as readers are well aware, has for the past two years been primarily one name: AAPL. And yet, even with the stock price hitting a lifetime high of over $700/share, which in turn would have assumed even more momentum chasers should have jumped in, June 30 saw the world's most popular hedge fund hotel in history rise by just one tenant for the entire quarter, as the number of Hedge Funds owning the stock, rose to a new record, but by the tiniest of increments: from 230, as of June 30, to 231, on September 30. It is thus safe to say that with barely any incremental holders jumping in when the stock was rising to its all time highs, the recent weakness is only and purely a function of the rising trajectory in hedge fund tenants at Hotel AAPL-fornia finally having been broken, as first one then more holders quietly slip out of the world's biggest hedge fund hotel in the quiet of the night while the receptionist is still taking a bathroom break. The only question is how many. That is an answer we will have in mid-February when the December 13Fs are released.

Certainly, don’t let the riffraff decide.

Over the past year there have been many articles published about the decoupling of the U.S. economy from the the Eurozone.  The belief was based on the simple fact that the Eurozone was facing a debt crisis, combined with austerity measures, which the U.S. would avoid. While there have been brief moments where the U.S. looked like it could stand on its own in the past - the drag from a global slowdown proved too strong to withstand.  This time, as expected, appears to be no different.

Today's market summary from Goldman about sums it up:

Though a convincing explanation might be hard to come by, equities posted a serious rally today. Tech leads as those stocks hardest hit of late also bounce the most. This means AAPL adds over 7% on the day. Here’s a fun fact: from Friday’s low to today’s high AAPL rallied over 12% – or about 58bn in market cap. A rally always feels good but that type of volatility is hard to reconcile with a healthy market.

One question for Goldman: what's a "healthy" "market"?

In 1936, the US government began circulating a series of pamphlets to explain its brand new Social Security program, plus the associated taxes. Initially, the Social Security tax was set at 2%. The government promised it would rise to 3% in 1949, with no additional increases EVER: "[F]inally, beginning in 1949. . . you and your employer will each pay 3 cents on each dollar you earn, up to $3,000 a year. That is the most you will ever pay." In 1949, the tax rose to 3% as scheduled. But it only took five years for the government to break its promise. Politicians routinely make bold promises about tax policy... and they almost always end up being lies. Perhaps most dangerously, politicians fail to understand that raising tax rates does NOT actually increase government tax revenue.

"With EUR now at 1.2773 versus 1.2816 just before the announcement there is probably more downside till the kneejerk reaction is out of the way. But on the whole it seems likely that this more reflects an already existing reality than new information for the market so the downside should be relatively limited, and nothing that could not be cured by an aggressive Fed indication on balance sheet expansion."