Archive - Nov 2012

We have just completed a series of videos detailing some of the risks posed to the financial system by the Federal Reserve as well as the European banking crisis. Every investor should see these. 

It's been a mere seven weeks since the CNBC'ers announced to the world that every widow, orphan, and pet-monkey should buy the market with both hands and feet as Bernanke just opened the gates. The exact phrase on the evening of QEternity was:

"Buy everything that's not nailed down... as bearish as I want to be, you cannot fight the Fed. You buy everything. Buy copper, which i did today, FCX which i mentioned last night. Anything else? Emerging markets! everything! Just buy it. Buy it all. You never have to short again. Buy it. I had a guy call me today trying to sell me research on the short side, and I said I'm sorry, I think you're going to go out of business. You shouldn't short anymore."

Things haven't quite gone as planned...

One of the great faults with paying attention to Europe is to take what they tell you as factual. The media trumpets what they are given by the various sources of information in Europe but a quite skeptical eye is what is needed. They claim that they do not have the “Final Troika Report” on Greece because they have not stamped it “Final” yet and so they blame their indecision on the magic trick that they are performing. Everyone on the Continent has the report but since they can agree on almost nothing they have blamed the lack of the rubber stamp as the culprit. They should just come out and say that, “It is the rubber stamp’s fault” and be done with it. Every easy trick has now been exhausted when it comes to Greece. You may feel worn out and tired by the length of time this process has taken but that is a remarkably short-sighted viewpoint. It is going to be either “debt forgiveness” or “more money” or “brute force” and there are quite serious consequences for many nations and many governments whichever path is chosen. Any of these three paths will lead to extensive pain and a lot of contagion and so I conclude that the Greeks will get forced out by increasing European demands.  “Blame it on the Greeks” will be the secret password while the Greeks will call Berlin every name in the book.

If you are going to call it a fiscal cliff, you had better have a picture to go with it...

Technical bounces off 200DMAs; Fed lifting constraints from next year's stress tests; Basel III implementation deadlines rumored to be extended; and now we get the 'compromise' chatter to ensure we do not plunge and close at the lows of the day/week/month/quarter during the President's first few days of re-election. We are sure the market will hear what the market needs to hear and a history of divisive political backstabbing will be thrown away in rounds of group-hugs and exchanges of ponies...

With the varied interests of constituents very much in mind, finding a compromise over taxation will be worse than Sisyphean in nature we suspect. CNBC's Rick Santelli offers a strawman, that gets around Norquist's 'pledge' and perhaps provides cover for both parties. The Chicagoan recognizes that what seems like a high-salary to some is very much not to others and suggests instead of focusing on the income, we should focus on the wealth. This is not the first time such a proposition was suggested (as we noted 14 months ago that 'muddle-through' was over and "we are confident, that one way or another, sooner or later, it will be implemented. Namely a one-time wealth tax: in other words, instead of stealth inflation, the government will be forced to proceed with over transfer of wealth") Strawman or not, the fact that Santelli is discussing it (and demurs on whether he has been contacted) means it is on the table...

The query in question? "Renounce Citizenship"

Europe had wanted a rebound, tried to hold on, panicked, sold off, triggered stops – and recovered as the US, although not rebounding fast and furious, at least held the line. EGB running a little out of steam, although August levels were traded again in Bunds. Periphery eventually tracking Risk, but with no own dynamic. Need to see how things close tonight. No More.
"No More" (Bunds 1,34% -2; Spain 5,81% -3; Stoxx 2481% +0,1%; EUR 1,271)

Most European equity and sovereign bond markets suffered their biggest loss this week in the last six. Thanks to a somewhat notable rally from the US open today into the European close (seemingly driven by AAPL's bounce off its 55-week average and S&P 500's bounce off 200DMA), things don't look like the 'worst week in six months' that we had been expecting. European credit markets moved tick for tick with stocks - though we note risk appetite does not seem to be following through in high-yield credit. Spanish bond spreads rose 27bps on the week (and Portugal 45bps) as Europe's VIX closed up 2 vols on the week at 22.35% (well off its highs of the day at 24.75% which are two-month highs). EURUSD slid below 1.2700 into the European close (down ~200pips from the highs) - its lowest in two months.

Does China have what it takes to get from here (industrialized export economy) to there (sustainable growth, widespread prosperity)? The same can be asked of every nation: do they have what it takes to move beyond their current limitations to the next level? Consider corruption. Corruption isn't just a "values" issue: corrupt societies have corrupt economies, and these economies are severely limited by that corruption. A deeply, pervasively corrupt economy cannot get from here to there. Corruption acts as a "tax" on the economy, siphoning money from the productive to the parasitic unproductive Elites skimming the bribes, payoffs, protection money, unofficial "fees," etc. By definition, the money skimmed by corruption reduces the disposable income of households and enterprises, reducing their consumption and investment... Pull aside the curtain and what you find is a China crippled by corruption and debt.

Now that I've released my early Apple research and the collapsing stock cat's out the bag, I hear very, very few Margin Compression theory bashers. Crickets anyone? Let's dissect the near 25% drop and how I made the call.

What's Obama going to say?

Shortly, Speaker John Boehner will provide some clarity to what was heralded by so many hope-mongering media types as an olive-branch in his previous speech. We suspect the fire and brimstone will pick up modestly while there will be just enough to offer hope that all our fears are misplaced. This apparent pre-buttal of Obama's 1pmET speech will set the tone for how these two 'colleagues' will play for the next few months... perhaps the "Don't Tax Me Bro'" t-shirts will raise enough taxes to cover the shortfall?

Last week we suggested a reason why the market was unable to hold on to the Bernanke bid. The relative plunge in Goldman Sachs 'bottom-up' Analysts Index (GSAI) suggested that the macro 'strength' that market-savants were so focused on, could perhaps be election-biased (blasphemy). It seems this macro 'strength' divergence (highest since 1996!) from micro 'weakness' reality was enough to get the Goldmanites thinking - and unfortunately for all the cautiously optimistic managers out there, they are not hopeful. As Jan Hatzius explains,  "the GSAI remains closely correlated with other bottom-up measures, including the S&P 500 sales guidance diffusion index; and while one possible explanation is that S&P 500 companies are more exposed to non-US demand than the US economy at large, and the US has been a relative outperformer. But it is unclear whether this accounts for all of the weakness, or whether the bottom-up weakness also holds some additional leading information for the macroeconomic data."