Archive - Mar 2012

A growing number of Americans are frustrated with the way in which their economy has been managed and are becoming increasingly concerned about future measures the government may take to keep its coffers full. A question that is arising with increasing frequency is: does expatriation offer a viable protection to those concerned about a more financially-intrusive US system? The short answer is 'yes' but while it does offer a solution to ending one's obligations to pay US taxes - it's important to understand that it's not suitable for everyone. Mark Nestmann gives a great nuts and bolts breakdown of what's involved and what the benefits and risks are

In a number of stories in China's top newspapers today, the US has been slammed for its moves to restrict Iran's oil trade which could see Chinese banks sanctioned. As The People's Daily noted, Hong Lei (a Foreign Ministry spokesperson) warned such unilateral action was not only wrong but could exacerbate the stand-off over Iran's nuclear program. Arguing that China 'imports oil based on its economic development needs' without violating relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council and undermining the third party's and international community's interests, he noted China will not accept the practice of saddling unilateral sanctions on the third country. Adding to this, China Daily notes the typical UN blah-dom of Wang Min's comments of the "more pragmatic importance to be firmly committed to dialogue and negotiations in order to properly solve the Iranian nuclear issue". While China is clearly 'disappointed' in the US efforts, Russia turns the dial to 11 with its comments that the US efforts are inflaming, as Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday, "Scientists in nearly all countries....are convinced that strikes may slow down the Iranian nuclear program. But they will never cancel it, close it down or eliminate it" warning that Iran will have no option but to develop nuclear weapons should the US strike. Well you can't please all the people all the time eh? Just ask Ben.

High-frequency traders have caused U.S. commodity futures prices to disconnect from market fundamentals of supply and demand since the 2008 financial crisis. An extensive and detailed analysis by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development just confirms what we have shown again and again (most recently here in Silver) that HFT's impact on the world is not all unicorn-tears and liquidity-providing. Markets are more exposed to 'sudden and sharp' corrections, and as Reuters notes "The strategy of those involved in high-frequency trading tends to reinforce the correlation between equities and commodities". In a somewhat stunning conclusion from an academic treatise, the authors find "We are not saying that it's all about speculators and (that) fundamentals don't matter. But we are saying that they tend to matter less, except in extreme cases,". Unlike other studies on the linkages, the UNCTAD study uses tick-data and finds correlations rising and trade size dropping as frequency increased dramatically since the crisis in 2008. Critically, one final consequence is that investors seeking to diversify or hedge against other investments in their portfolio are often disappointed as the increased HFT creates a destabilizing effect on commodities (increasing volatility) and can often create bubbles.

Quietly, and with little fanfare, President Obama signed a “National Defense Resources Preparedness” Executive Order on Friday. As the name suggests, the order intends to shore up the country’s national defense resources in advance of a national emergency. To be fair, this is not the first time that such an order has been written. President Obama’s order, however, takes things much, much further.This is all playing out with nearly perfect historical precision. Time and time again throughout history as once great empires accelerated their declines, governments have taken steps to protect their interests against the people. In the past, they have imposed curfews, disarmed the population, curtailed civil liberties, and declared national emergencies, usually against some great faceless enemy from abroad who threatens their way of life. As it turns out, though, our great faceless enemy is not some mythical boogeyman living in a cave, nor some angry brown person who hates us for our freedoms… but the very people within the system who’ve taken an oath to ‘support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.’ Have you hit your breaking point yet?

Bailed-out but un-restructured. And now Fiat-Chrysler CEO is crying for help as EU car sales crash.

While financial and sovereign spreads in the most optically sensitive entities has rallied magnificently for the last few months – helped and extended by LTRO 1 and LTRO 2 – the weakness of the last week or so in both of these critical systemic risk indicators (Sovereign spreads in Spain and Italy and the LTRO Stigma that we noted earlier) should be worrisome for many of the leaders who are using market action as a corollary for their actions. What is most worrisome however is the absolute and utter lack of impact to the ‘real economy’ of Europe as PMIs have continued to slip and sentiment stumbles – nowhere is this more evident than in charts of Corporate Credit Demand and Corporate Credit Availability, which as Morgan Stanley notes today, suggest the deleveraging balance sheet recessionary impacts felt in Japan and the US are now writ large in European minds as minimizing debt dominates maximizing profits (or living standards). Demand for credit is sliding for both large and small firms and bank lending standards continue to tighten aggressively for both large and small firms. As austerity continues and credit contracts, it seems apparent that the much-hoped for shallow recession in Europe will be deeper and longer than most currently believe.

I know many of you are thinking “the ECB or Fed could just print money.” That answer is wrong. If the ECB chooses to do this, Germany will walk. End of story. They’ve already seen how rampant monetization works out (Weimar). And if the Fed chooses to monetize everything to hold things up, then the US Dollar collapses, inflation erupts creating civil unrest, interest rates rise killing the banks, US corporations and the US economy… all during an election year.

A mere two days ago we were enlightened on the glory of the central banking system and the general denigration of sound money and the gold standard as Part 1 of Bernanke's re-education lecture series. Today we are treated to Part 2 - a historical perspective of how the Fed has saved the world since World War II. As we watch the stream below, we suspect the word 'inflation' will outpace 'deflation' and 'monetary policy' will dominate 'intervention' or 'picking-winners' as the Chairsatan presents his view of the world-according-to-central-planners. Some early headlines of note:

*BERNANKE: MOST EVIDENCE SHOWS FED DIDN'T CAUSE HOUSING BUBBLE

The March silver futures contract first entered backwardation on Mar 9 and with a few zigs and zags has not only remained there but has gone deeper and deeper in. The April gold future just entered backwardation today. We shall see what the coming days bring for the April gold future, but the fact that backwardation has occurred at all is significant. The fact that it is now a “normal” occurrence since fall 2008 indicates a deep pathology. Backwardation means that anyone who has gold or silver could simultaneously sell the metal and buy futures contracts to recover their position, and make a profit. The market is tight. The metal is out there, but obviously those who have it in an unencumbered form are not able (retail) or willing (others?) to take this backwardation bait.

An ugly day all around as European sovereign CDS jump the most in three weeks...

                    5Y                       10Y             5/10's
ITALY           374/382  +15      365/385         -10/0
SPAIN          432/440  +15      426/446          -5/5

Bernanke and Draghi in a snit? Fed and ECB at odds? US-German regulatory run-around? Has Draghi just enaged in an act of ill-advised hubris or does he have a secret plan to stimualte Europe?   

While some believe we can decouple from the primary and secondary impacts of a China slowdown (jst what happens if we all decouple from the world?), it seems like wishful thinking that the growth engine of the world can now be waved aside on the back of "well, they will just re-stimulate and will be well" especially given where oil prices are currently. Michael Cembalest is little more sanguine that us on China's growth  (expecting 7-8% GDP growth to fuel Asian economic activity) but given the 'easing' that has already occurred in China: Chinese government has injected more liquidity; expanded the quota for foreign equity investment; cut bank reserve requirements; delayed tighter capital adequacy rules; created a program through which municipalities can issue bonds with government guarantees (rather than having to borrow from banks); eased first time homebuyer restrictions; and injected capital into its biggest banks; and yet still the macro data is leaking weaker as these 12 charts highlight only too harshly.

Commodities are broadly under significant pressure but nowhere is it more noteworthy than in Crude (even though the USD is only modestly higher on the day). Brent is falling but WTI is underperforming as it trades down on the day at the biggest drop in over three months. Brent-WTI is leaking higher though as the focus shifts increasingly to Brent. WTI and Brent are trading down close to the SPR-rumor spike-low levels as China and Russia both raise the rhetoric against the US on Iran.

Depending on debt to fuel nominal growth leads to an economic death spiral. Sometimes one chart says it all. Charted against consumer credit, the S&P 500 (SPX) collapsed after the 2000 dot-com bubble burst and has been tracing out a descending channel since then. The Fed's injections of liquidity via trillion-dollar purchases of toxic mortgages and Treasury bonds does not funnel money into productive investments--all it accomplished was to further incentivize speculative churning and financialization to enriched the few at the expense of the many. So sit back, tighten your seatbelts and enjoy the death spiral ride, brought to you by the Federal Reserve and your elected servants of the financial Elite.