Archive - Nov 2012

In a brief four minutes this morning, CNBC's Gary Kaminsky summarized what many have suspected (and we have pointed to again and again) that investors should as the talking-heads are doing and NOT as they are saying (or writing). We have opined vociferously on this topic of the divergence between sentiment surveys and real money positioning, but the outspoken 'real money manager' is gravely concerned that what he is seeing now from the guests and newsletter writers is very similar to what took place in 2007: "Everyone saying they would stay fully invested, that they loved equities, that the housing boom was nothing to worry about (recovery now); while at the same time they were short-selling the market. People are saying one thing and doing another." Kaminsky nails it when he points to the obvious that everybody knows that the last four years have not been about the White House or 'recovery', but about Central Banks; and the last few weeks (post QE-Eternity) the realization of this fact has really sunk in along with a belief that the next four years are not positive for stocks. Not quite a Jeff Macke meltdown of truthiness but the veil has been lifted.

It was only a few short weeks ago when we noted the interesting analogs between AAPL's rise and the exponential exuberance of MSFT in the late 90s and NFLX this year. Sadly, for the long-suffering momentum-chasers, things have gone a little pear-shaped for Apple as it has followed, far too accurately, the same path from exuberance to realization. Where to next? MSFT says 'a bounce to be faded'; NFLX says 'dump it all'...either way $400 is in play for AAPL - back to the start of the year... cue fundamental defense of what is quite clearly a behavioral exuberance having played out.

Countless pages have been written about why Lehman caused the system to almost implode. However, the reality is that Lehman nearly took down the entire financial system for two reasons... and Spain will be far far worse.

When you hear Republican politicians pointing figures at Jon Corzine for his “alleged” acts of fraud in the MF Global collapse, ask them why they changed the bankruptcy code in 2005 to allow such acts of fraud to go unpunished.  

Update: the following tweet from Israel's ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, will hardly help: "ALERT: Tel Aviv area was just hit by a rocket attack from #Gaza"

Despite having lost its prominent headline position in the global media, the things in Gaza are going from bad to worse with news reports that Israeli ground forces are preparing to enter the Gaza Strip which will take the confrontation to an effective ground war level, even as a separate news report claims that Egypt has now closed its border with Israel, in yet another escalation. It is unclear how soon until Egypt also halts gas supplies to Israel as it did back in April - we assume not too long. So as the world awaits the next major step in a conflict that has a Katyusha rocket's chance in the Iron Dome of going away on its own, we present the latest clip provided by the handy, if oddly boastful, Israeli Defense Forces, this time showing how a rocket warehouse in Gaza just became one with the ether. Tangentially, and once again, we can't help but lament how a Plan X involving the US military would be an option here, if only the entire US military and intelligence hadn't become a gonzo reality TV show virtually overnight.

In the short run (and this is what is so insidious about the Fed’s artificially low interest rates), all we are seeing is an illusion of economic progress. The choice for the status quo made in last week’s presidential election was an uninformed one—at no fault of the voters—made in the fog of monetary distortion and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s continuous campaign of disinformation. Thus, investment in this illusory economy is malinvestment, or investment that always unravels with the intervention’s inevitable end, due to either untenable credit levels (such as today’s corporate debt-to-asset ratio, still at historic highs) or a resource crunch (rising commodity prices) that eliminates any advantage from printing money; and one or both of these scenarios is unavoidable. This is our grievous position in the United States today, trapped in the status quo by first consequences, by what we can see, due to a cause that we cannot even see. And so we are left to learn from experience, an eventual tragic unfolding of our collective malinvestment. As Bastiat said, “Experience teaches effectually, but brutally.”

A number of economists and economics writers have considered the possibility of allowing the Federal Reserve to drop interest rates below zero in order to make holding onto money costlier and encouraging individuals and firms to spend, spend, spend. This unwillingness to hold currency is supposed to stimulate the economy by encouraging productive economic activity and investment. But is that necessarily true? No — it will just drive people away from using the currency as a store of purchasing power. It will drive economic activity underground and banking would be turned upside down. Japan has spent almost twenty years at the zero bound, in spite of multiple rounds of quantitative easing and stimulus. Yet Japan remains mired in depression. A return to growth for a depressionary post-bubble economy requires a substantial chunk of the debt load (and thus future debt service costs) being either liquidated, forgiven or (very difficult and slow) paid down.

That the biggest government source of employment just posted a record $15.9 billion loss (bigger than the $15 billion expected previously), is no surprise to anyone: after all most are openly expecting the USPS to fold, the only outstanding question is whether it will transform into a company that is actually competitive with the private sector (unlikely), or liquidate (also unlikely in an era where government jobs are becoming the only form of employment available). Sadly, keeping this zombie alive costs all other taxpayers $250 million each day: money that could be used much more effectively in other areas of the economy, but won't. Because there are USPS votes that have to be purchased at cost. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that while the USPS had a total of 607,400 employees in October, this was the lowest number of total employees for the non-profit (but certainly loss-driven) government run organization since the 1960s! Perhaps most shocking is that the USPS peaked at over 900K employees in 1999 when it was still if not profitable (as it doesn't need to be by its charter) then certainly breakeven. Sadly those days are now gone, and the next thing to go will be all the promised benefits for the 600K or so employees.

While in the short-term the equity markets are falling, we are told again and again that if only we look just beyond the horizon, all will be unicorns and rainbows. The 'buy-and-hold'/invest-for-the-long-term mantra is what pays most of Wall Street's bills and keeps your wealth manager in his Hawaii vacation home. However, while the current jitteriness is ascribed (potentially wrongly as we noted yesterday) to the 'fiscal cliff', as Morgan Stanley notes, "A near-term fiscal cliff resolution won’t remove politics from the investing calculus, far from it. Developed-economy governments have significant negative net worth, which means that the public sector will ultimately impose a cost on the private sector. The political process will determine when and how the private sector bears the cost. This political uncertainty seems likely to remain a persistent and potentially critical factor for investors over the medium term. At a minimum, it will likely affect, detrimentally, the valuation of risky assets." Must read.

Let's see if Bush Sandy can be blamed for not only the Empire Fed, whose employment and expectations components plunged, for the Initial Claims, which soared and missed expectations by the second most in the past 13 years, but also for the Philly Fed, which just plunged from 5.7 to -10.7, far below consensus of 2.0, the 6th miss of the last 8 (except for last month of course), and returning to solidly negative territory after last month's "miraculous" pre-election surge. And while virtually all subcomponents plunged, the one that stood out to the upside was Prices Paid, as the margin collapse is set to ravage all companies not only in the greater Philadelphia region but everywhere else soon as reality, deferred for the duration of the Obama reelection campaign, slams everyone in the stomach.

For the third day in a row, gold and silver are being monkey-hammered at the open of the US equity market day session. Whether this is margin calls mounting or a dedicated 'hedger of client portfolios' is unclear, but fool me once - shame on you, fool me twice - shame on me, fool me thrice - ask Janet Yellen...

Until recently, the only question traders had to ask themselves was "how much more to buy?" The last week or so has left traders across the market now suddenly plagued by numerous questions. Will an Obama speech continue to be the catalyst for selling pressure to resume? Why is VIX 'low' when all around is asunder? When do the BTFD crowd step back in? Where's the 'wall of money' flowing now? From new issue demand to Italy's ratings agency trials and from bounce-buyers waiting for Godot to VIX's complacency, FBN's Michael Naso and Mint's Blain cover some of the conundra.

ith Israel having launched the biggest Gaza escalation in years, the waiting game now turns to the Gaza retaliation, which if the rhetoric is any indication, will be substantial. So what can Gaza do, and how far can its rockets penetrate, assuming they can bypass the Israeli "Iron Dome" defense shield? The following infographic from Stratfor explains it. The ranging is particularly relevant in the context of the Dimona nuclear power plant, which at least at first blush appears unreachable - after all, if Gaza really wanted to unleash the gates of hell on Israel, it would focus all of its firepower precisely on this one spot.

Hope - it appears - peaked at the start of the year in the US, following the global coordinated central bank pump which ramped it from lows to highs within a few months. All that hope - and then some - has now apparently faded. The General Business Conditions expected six months forward dropped to its lowest level since March 2009. What is perhaps worse, given the focus on jobs jobs jobs, is that for the first time since April 2009, the employment outlook for employment turned negative - suggesting firms are looking to reduce employees at the fastest rate in over three-and-a-half years. The hopium seems to have been depleted...