Archive - Dec 2012

As the world flipped its calendar from November to December - risk-assets decided to shift their funding currency and EURUSD lost its ramp-a-bility... (which also helps to explain the unusual 'strength' in EUR as carry-traders buy back their EUR-based funding and rotate to JPY)

The use of economic pain to expand governmental control of a nation is not a new concept.  It has been a tool successfully used many times in history. The reality that "taxing the wealthy" does not increase revenue or promote economic growth is lost on the 80% of Americans that are economically uninformed and are just struggling to maintain their current standard of living. The path over the "fiscal cliff" is bad for the economy, the average American family and the stock market.  However, for the White House, going over the "cliff" is the next move in this elaborate game of chess which will clear the path towards completing Obama's long term objectives of complete socialization of the American economy.

A weak Spanish bond auction and relatively weak macro data did not help but sentiment  - following an Asia-inspired gap-up opening - was dismal as stocks and bonds sold off all day long. Spanish bond spreads are 38bps wider than their Monday tights and saw their biggest single-day jump in over 10 weeks. Stocks (especially Spain and Italy) fell considerably off those early spike highs but remain mixed on the week. Credit in general caught up to equity's recent move with high beta Subordinated financials leading the way (and IG lagging). Swiss 2Y rates dropped to 3 month lows.

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies... That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on. Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America’s priorities."

As President Obama addresses a room full of small business 'patriots' we thought his 'confidence' about consumers and housing might have been tempered a little by this chart from Bloomberg Businessweek... We can't wait for the Q&A... Live audio below...

Wondering what Christmas gift to give that special someone in your life that has taken the Red Pill?

As the Fiscal Cliff discussions get progressively more acrimonious, more people are being reminded that the new and improved $16.4 trillion debt ceiling, which the US will breach in a few days, is just as important, and just as much at an impasse. Which is why the Treasury just opined on the issue, by openly supporting the "McConnell Provision" and in doing so may have made any future Cliff/Ceiling discussions more difficult as the US has effectively invoked the nuclear option, aka a Presidential Veto to effectively elimiante the debt ceiling, something which will antagonize the GOP to such an extent any potential Fiscal Cliff deal may become unfeasible. The market is hardly happy that the already record polarity in Congress is about to get even worse as a result of this hardline stance, and just took another big leg lower.

As an update to our comment last week on the three 'F's of US fiscal-policy-making; it seems we are following the path of last year's debt-ceiling debacle ever more closely. Once again - do we need a 20% drop in US equities to spur the politicians into action? As they try and wedge a square peg of higher taxes into a round peg or spending cuts, we suspect so...

While at first glance we assumed this was Wednesday Humor, but as Noonan tells us all that Ireland is "well on the road to recovery" amid the "total transformation" in Irish bond yields; he added some rather stunning additions to the tax code. To wit, an increase in excise duty by 10c on a pint of beer, 10c on a measure of spirits (shot of liquor), and EUR1 on a 75cl bottle of wine. These changes will take place at midnight tonight Ireland time - we suggest (responsibly) that in order to ensure averaging down in lifetime aggregate spend on alcohol that the Irish start drinking heavily. Forget austerity - the age of boozterity has begun (and with it come the revolution).

Recessionary media dynamics 101: "When in doubt, baffle with BS." As expected, Monday's collapse in the manufacturing ISM would need to be offset somewhere, and that somewhere was today's Services ISM which is where the rest of the world decided to dump the "good news."  Sure enough ISM just reported a headline number of 54.7, better than both the expected 53.5 and last month's 54.2. This was driven by a better than expected Business Activity/Production index which miraculously soared by 5.8 to 61.2, while New Orders increased to 58.1 from 55.3, and not to mention Imports which had the biggest jump in the month of +6.0 to 55.5 - nothing like reducing your GDP as an indicator of optimism. Where things get very ugly however, was the dump in Employment from 54.9 to 50.3, the lowest since July, and the collapse in prices from 65.5 to 57.0. So much for jobs and margins. But at least it wasn't "Sandy's fault." Overall: nothing to write home about especially in light of all the other recently adverse data.

We warned last night of the spike in average trade size yesterday in AAPL's trading - just as we also saw on 9/21 - and the fading VWAP ramps; and today we see AAPL -3% (-6.7% from its highs on Monday) as volume picks up and the renaissance appears to be ending. WWJTD?

In what is a modestly surprising development, Mirriam-Webster has reported that "socialism" and "capitalism" are the two most looked-up words of 2012, and thus, the words of the year. All we can say is, it is about time people learned the difference. And now that they know how the two differ on paper, they will get a front row seat to experience it in practice too.

Looking at Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index 2012, it's clear that corruption is a major threat facing humanity. Corruption destroys lives and communities, and undermines countries and institutions. It generates popular anger that threatens to further destabilise societies and exacerbate violent conflicts - and as is clear from the chart below, the red (more corrupt perceptions) are creeping across Europe. The Corruption Perceptions Index scores countries on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). While no country has a perfect score, two-thirds of countries score below 50, indicating a serious corruption problem in the world. The US ranks 19th - perceived as more corrupt than the UK, Japan, Barbados, and Hong Kong (but less corrupt that France). In Transparency's words: "Corruption amounts to a dirty tax, and the poor and most vulnerable are its primary victims."

It's around that time of day again - when precious metals are sold hard for whatever reason you care to come up with (collateral requirements, margin calls, alchemy perfected). However, today there is a more mundane reason: Goldman Sachs has suggested its clients sell Gold on the basis that the gold cycle will turn in 2013 thanks to improving US growth offsetting the need for further Fed easing. Of course, Goldman telling its clients to 'sell gold' means Goldman is...