Archive - Aug 17, 2012

drhousingbubble's picture

The resurgence of the low down payment market





The dramatic rise in FHA insured loans in a time of historically low rates demonstrates two key aspects of the current American economy. The first point is that many US households have the inability to save for an adequate down payment on housing. Forget about the historical 20 percent down payment but many households cannot scrimp up even a modest 10 percent down payment.

 

testosteronepit's picture

Nuclear Radiation On San Francisco’s Treasure Island: We Don’t Need To Know, Apparently





It’s not just Japan: “That amount of radium found to date cannot be explained by gauges, deck markers, and decontamination activities.”

 

Burkhardt's picture

Rate Cut Talk Saps Strength of the AUD





Even the strong falter. As the dynamics within this global economy become more severe, the strengthening local economies find it more difficult to remain on course. The situation in Australia is that the country’s currency appears to be overvalued which impedes their ability to compete in the global market place.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Guest Post: A Final Word On Those "Robust" July Retail Sales





The retail sales figures from that perspective show a couple of very clear points: 1. Last year's Christmas season was not only weak and disappointing, it may have marked the inflection point in consumer spending (at least as far as retail sales measure); 2. The July "improvement" is far less impressive. June 2012 had an extra holiday shopping weekend, but registered only a 3.3% improvement over June 2011. Without an extra holiday weekend, July 2012 saw almost identical year-over-year growth; 3.4%. No matter what or how weekends were arranged within the calendar context, non-adjusted growth was not really all that inspiring in either month. If this inflection in consumption is indeed valid, it makes sense that the early part of 2012 would then experience economic “volatility” – revenue pressures at firms cause them to cut back on capex or re-investment in real projects, including a decrease in the pace of hiring new workers. Manufacturing falls off (seen in the ISM and regional Fed surveys) as reduced demand from businesses works its way back into this vicious cycle of employment malaise where job growth is consistently and vitally below population growth or labor force expansion. As government transfers drop off, the segment of the economy under the gun of stagnation rises in proportion and the bifurcated economy becomes more so – except that as the troubled half grows it inevitably pulls down the half doing relatively well. What looks like a muddle of weak growth is really the rot of monetary intrusions eating at what should be a free market-driven reset to the previous dislocation of failures from past monetary episodes. And it is all in the name of some ephemeral “wealth”.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Face-Off: FaceBerg Groupon'd At Half-Off IPO Price





"And yay verily it was written that as the moon passes thrice through the sky after providing your funds to the IPO-of-the-decade, thou shalt see said funds smite in two..." Faceberg just touched $19, that is a 50% haircut on its IPO launch price from exactly 3 months ago - but as CNBC's Simon Hobbs seems convinced...what about the short-interest? Ask JCP or GRPN! Well, easy come, easy go. Just ask Mark, who has lost half his net worth in 3 months. Do we feel bad for him and his $9.6 billion? No. But we will check back in another 3 months just in case.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

What Recovery? Petroleum Deliveries Lowest Since September 2008; Weakest July Demand Since 1995





While the Achilles heel to the endless "economic data" BS coming out of China may be its electric production and demand, both of which show a vastly different picture than what the Beijing politburo's very wide brush strokes paint, the US itself is not immune from indicators that confirm that anything the BEA dishes out should be taken with a grain of salt. One data set that we showed recently that paints a drastically different (read slowing) picture of the US economy which we noted recently is railcar loading of waste and scrap for the simple reason that "The more we demand, the more waste is generated by that production." Of course, the propaganda manipulation machinery only focuses on the "entrance" of production, and completely ignore the "exit." But an even far more important metric of the general health of the US economy may be none other than broad energy demand, in the form of petroleum deliveries and gasoline demand. If this is indeed the relevant metric to observe, then things are about to get far, far worse. As Dow Jones notes: "U.S. petroleum deliveries, a measure of demand, fell by 2.7% in July from a year earlier to the lowest level in any month since September 2008, the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, said Friday." It gets worse: "Demand in the world's biggest oil consumer, at 18.062 million barrels a day, was the weakest for the month of July since 1995, the API said. Year-to-date demand is down 2.3% from the same period in 2011."

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Apple Hits New Record North Of $600 Billion In Market Cap





Update: in the 20 or so minutes since uploading this article, AAPL added another OpenTable in market cap. It has in the course of a day added the same market cap as Linked In and just shy of Sony.

Moments ago Apple, long since the largest company in the world by market cap, just crossed $600 billion in capitalization, needless to say a record high, after adding the equivalent of 2.4 RIMMs in market cap in a few short hours. As of this moment, the company that makes a phone, a tablet, various computers (all of which now have an upgrade lifecycle inside of 1 year and ever shorter), has a product "ecosystem", retail stores and may be launching a cable box, is larger than the entire semiconductor sector, larger than the entire retail index, and at this rate of parabolic blow off top growth, will be larger than both combined in about 5-6 months. We can only hope that the company will soon use its $110+ billion cash hoard to launch a captive bank to finance the purchase of its products because unless consumers' disposable incomes are growing at the same rate (with penetration already quite high), and assuming of course it is still cool to have an AAPL product in a few years (just as it was the peak of coolness to have a Palm Tungsten a decade ago... or a RIM phone 5 years ago), the company that is now owned by about 250 hedge funds will certainly have growing pains in the future.

 

williambanzai7's picture

FaCeBOoB: A LoNG WaY To Go....





Look out below!

 

Tyler Durden's picture

In A Paper System, All Assets Are Backed by the Treasury Bond





In a gold-based monetary system, every asset is ultimately backed by gold. This does not mean that every debtor (including banks) keeps the full amount of its liability in gold coin just lying around. Why would one bother to borrow if one did not need the money? It means that every asset generates a gold income and every asset could be liquidated for gold, if necessary. If a debtor declares bankruptcy, the creditor may take losses. But he can rely on the gold income stream for each asset or if need be he can sell the asset for gold. In a gold-based monetary system, money is gold and gold is money. Money cannot disappear; it does not go “poof”. Bad credit can be defaulted and must be written off. But money merely changes hands.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Will The Fall Of Europe's Discontent Follow The Glorious Summer Made By This Head Of The ECB





Measuring the 'contentedness' during this summer of total comfort is tricky. With equities at the year's highs in nominal prices in the US and breaking multi-month highs in Europe, how do we 'know' the relative richness or cheapness (or hope or despair) that is priced into stocks and what the 'fall' ahead looks like. We may have found a way. Europe's economic and implicitly market performance is very much based on the explicit belief that the EMU remains in tact and that Draghi's recent 'promise' will enable sovereigns to go about their economic business (austerity and growth) without the hindrance of those nasty speculating long-only fixed income managers repricing cost-of-funds and eating into the nation's growth. In the US, it's all about multiples - P/E expansion (in the face of lower 'E') has maintained the hope; and so it is in Europe. The following chart shows the extremely high correlation between European equity P/E (hope multiples) and European Sovereign risk. At the end of LTRO2, European stocks were exuberant only to fade away; currently, European stock multiples are once again back to those exuberant 'hope' heights. Trade accordingly.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Guest Post: When the Weakest Critical Part Fails, the Machine Breaks Down





When financialization fails, the consumerist economy dies. This is what is happening in Greece, and is starting to happen in Spain and Italy. The central banks and Central States are attempting resuscitation by issuing credit that is freed from the constraints of collateral. The basic idea here is that if credit based on collateral has failed, then let's replace it with credit backed by phantom assets, i.e. illusory collateral. In essence, the financialization system has shifted to the realm of fantasy, where we (taxpayers, people who took out student loans, homeowners continuing to make payments on underwater mortgages, etc.) are paying very real interest on illusory debt backed by nothing. Once this flimsy con unravels, the credibility of all institutions that participated in the con will be irrevocably destroyed. This includes the European Central Bank (ECB), the Federal Reserve, the E.U., "too big to fail" banks, and so on down the financialization line of dominoes. Once credit ceases to expand, asset bubbles pop and consumerism grinds to a halt

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Why VIX Is So Low, And What Comes Next?





VIX is nothing more than the market's implied 'factor' that makes the supply-demand of options prices fit with model-based parameters. In simple terms it measures the market's expectations for volatility (up or down moves - not just down) going forward. Empirically it has a relationship with realized volatility - how much the market actually moved up or down relative to what VIX expected - and professionals will use various 'scalping' techniques to lock in day-to-day gains from the difference between the market's actual movement and what options prices expected. To wit: the current expectations of central bank action, just as it did in 11/2011 (global CB action) and 1/2012 (LTRO1), has caused a slow steady leak higher in stocks which crushes realized volatility - currently at record lows. This in turn drags implied vol lower as the 'scalpers' sell vol to capture the difference. With September 'events' around the corner, we suspect there are only a few more days before realized vol picks up and implicitly implied vol momentum scalpers are squeezed out again (and despite a low absolute VIX, the market IS pricing for a pick-up in risk).

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Brooklyn Deli Clerk's Face Slashed Open For Refusing To Sell Beer For Food Stamps





The face of Yemeni deli clerk Mutahar Murshed Ali was slashed nearly in two for committing that most grievous of offenses: refusing to "sell" a Colt 45 to a drunk 20 year-old in exchange for foodstamps (whose usage Zero Hedge readers know, recently reverted back to all time highs). Of course, Ali was perfectly in his right to refuse to exchange booze for EBT: we reported recently that "New York would prohibit welfare recipients from spending their tax-funded benefits on cigarettes, alcohol, gambling, and strip clubs under a bill passed overwhelmingly by the state Senate." That however appears to not have bothered the assailant, who nearly cut off the deli vendor's face off in retaliation for not getting the "entitled" quid-pro-handout.

 
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