Archive - Sep 2012

Neoconservatives Ignored CIA Because They Had Other Priorities

While it appears the mainstream media has forgotten about the ongoing drama in South Africa, the tensions are rising rather dramatically around the Marikana mines (owned by LonMin mining). As Al Jazeera reports, thousands of miners (along with wives and supporters) have defied an extended deadline (brokered by the government) and decide to remain on strike. The following clip provides some rather concerning color on what is occurring as Julius Malema, the expelled ANC leader, has already been charged with inciting violence - and is "playing a rather dangerous game." He is calling for a national strike as he addresses the people: "they have been stealing this gold from you. Now it is your turn, you want your piece of the gold." The tough reality is that as extraction costs rise (energy/depth) and now miners' costs rise, then the end-product's cost must rise, or - as Melema suggests - supply goes offline.  Must see clip.

The conundra continue to mount up around the world as central planning efforts dislocate asset-values from reality wherever one looks. Nowhere is the juxtaposition of hope-and-fear more evident than in the industrial metals. We have discussed the reality of Iron Ore, and the unreality of China stimulus (funded or unfunded) bringing the excess inventory back from the edge ad nauseum but, as the WSJ notes, the stacks of copper slabs inside the warehouses of Shanghai last month grew by 20% since July. In fact, so much copper has been sent into storage that it is being lined up outside some buildings as "there's much more metal than we'd expected," and some would see this huge inventory growth as a signal of "people's uneasiness about Chinese growth." However, sure enough, copper prices are soaring - on the back of expectations that inventories are so high that the PBoC will step in with some stimulus and all will be well in the world again. While Deutsche Bank opines "any rally in copper prices based on expectations will likely not be sustainable," the alternate perspective, based on hope and dreams is that "just a couple of months of better demand - it will quickly change the perception of surplus to tightness." Meanwhile, the effervescence of central-bank-driven exuberance in prices has driven the 'value' of a good-old-US-Nickel up to 5.2 cents (its highest in four months).

The middle won't disappear, but might wildly transform its appearance.

It happened in September 2011, again in April 2012, and now its starting again. Despite the launch tomorrow of Apple's iPhone 5 (rumored to include the happy-ending-hand-extension), AAPL has notably underperformed in the last few days. Whether this is to do with the 20%-plus weighting in the NASDAQ-100 or whether, as we show below, the market's wise-men see AAPL's P/E ratio approaching that of the exuberant market and capping their attention, we do not know. What we do know is that each time, AAPL has notably underperformed the broad market for the next month (whether an up-market or down-market).

Three months ago, the Muslim Bortherhood supported, US-endorsed and recommended candidate, Mohammed Mursi won the Egyptian presidential election. Fast forward to today, when we learn from Al Jazeera that the grateful Egyptian population has decided to conduct a little Arab Spring repeat rehearsal in the fall, as Egyptian protesters scaled the walls of the U.S. embassy in Cairo on Tuesday and some pulled down the American flag during a protest over what they said was a film being produced in the United States that was insulting to the Prophet Mohammad, witnesses said.

I have often identified Keynesian economists and the Federal Reserve as cargo cults. After the U.S. won World War II in the Pacific Theater, its forces left huge stockpiles of goods behind on remote South Pacific islands because it wasn’t worth taking it all back to America. After the Americans left, some islanders, nostalgic for the seemingly endless fleet of ships loaded with technological goodies, started Cargo Cults that believed magical rituals and incantations would bring the ships of “free” wealth back. Some mimicked technology by painting radio dials on rocks and using the phantom radio to “call back” the “free wealth” ships. The Keynesians are like deluded members of a Cargo Cult. They ignore the reality of debt, rising interest payments and the resulting debt-serfdom in their belief that money spent indiscriminately on friction, fraud, speculation and malinvestment will magically call back the fleet of rapid growth. To the Keynesian, a Bridge to Nowhere is equally worthy of borrowed money as a high-tech factory. They are unable to distinguish between sterile sand and fertilizer, and unable to grasp the fact that ever-rising debt leaves America a nation of wealthy banks and increasingly impoverished debt-serfs.

There was a time when the short end of the curve was not very loved, as all bonds 3 years and shorter were sold by none other than the Fed. Today, that is no longer the case, driven primarily by ever louder whispers that because the Fed is very much limited in its long-dated purchases as we first calculated last Friday, it may give up on sterilization entirely (since nobody really knows what the Fed will do, but 101% of traders are now certain it will do something), and proceed to monetize all maturities as all Stock considerations are thrown away, and everyone focuses solely on the Flow. Sure enough, the $32 billion 3 year auction just priced at the second lowest yield ever of 0.337%, with only the Sept 2011 yield of 0.334% lower. This was well inside the WI yield of 0.34% at 1 pm. Offsetting the yield "disappointment" was the spike in the Bid To Cover which rose from 3.51 to 3.936, the highest ever. Finally, looking at the internals, for the first time November, Dealers took down less than half of the auction, or 49.8%, with 36.8% going to Indirects, and 13.4% to the PIMCOs of the world, and other Direct bidders such as China. Of course, if there is disappointment on Thursday, and if Dealers have no choice but to keep buying the short-end as a result of the continuation of Twist, as sterilization continues, expect to see some disappointed buyers of today's auction, which incidentally together with the rest of this week's issuance will bring total US debt to a new record of just over $16.07 trillion, and rising very rapidly.

We have already discussed what is priced into FX markets with regard QE3 - and as Barclays notes, we also saw a similar gain in momentum into QE1 and QE2 (only to fade post the announcement). Mortgage traders see a sizable QE3 more than priced in, which is especially notable given the consensus forming around the NEW LSAP being centered on the MBS market. Of course, global markets are imbibing more than just the hope of the Fed's extreme policy actions but the ESM ratification as well as handicapping ECB's OMT conditionality (and European growth expectations). Having said all that, it is worthwhile to get a sense of just what happened among the major risk asset classes into and beyond the prior QE (and Twist) announcements, and just what these markets have been doing in the lead-up to this much-anticipated announcement. It seems that no matter where one looks, as one wise old mortgage derivative trader put it "the rumor has been bought."

Which is it Ms. Lagarde?

The official release, just issued by HM Treasury, is below. The unofficial one is as follows: "The successful candidate must have proficiency with the CTRL and P buttons. Must sound confident and sophisticated when talking in circles while saying nothing. Must be malleable to financial sector suggestions. All other considerations secondary."

Looks like a loop bad US news, good EUR; good EUR must be good news.

Love boat, everywhere. Final Risk On, or so. And up 1%

Last week we discussed what the expectations were for Draghi's OMT - approximately EUR250bn - which coincidentally provided cover for the rest of the year (conditionally) for the entire new issuance of the European Union. Based on EURUSD's recent exuberance - something we saw ahead of QE1 and QE2 - the market is now more than primed for some serious USD debasement. The current EURUSD of 1.2850 implies a Fed-to-ECB balance sheet ratio around 1.11x. If we assume the ECB wil not have to fire its conditional bazooka (of which is priced in 100% likelihood of EUR250bn), then the Fed is expected to conjure a monetization scheme of around USD580bn - anything less would be a disappointment to the market. However, if we assume the ECB will be doing it's bond-buying monetization thing  - as per the equity market's expectations - then the Fed will need to come to the table with a bag of swag around USD850bn in order to debase the USD just enough to regain some hope. It seems like the market has priced in a great deal of monetary policy exuberance  - especially considering how 'confident' consumers appear to be.

To all who miss the highly volatile days of August 2011, when as a result of the congressional deadlock on the debt ceiling, and the S&P downgrade of the US, the DJIA swung by 400 points every day for 4 days in a row just to get Congress to come to the "compromise" exposed in painful detail by Bob Woodward a few days ago, fear not: they are coming back, and with a vengeance. Because while last year only the debt ceiling was under discussion, now we get the double whammy of the debt ceiling and the Fiscal cliff. And just so the suspense meter is pushed off the charts early, and the performance gets maximum billing for theatrics if not execution, House Speaker John Boehner has just said he's not confident Congress can reach a budget deal and avoid a downgrading of the U.S. debt rating. Let us paraphrase: there will be no deal until the 11th hour, 59th minute, 59th second, and 999th millisecond, at which point the market will plunge and get Congress to do what it always does: Wall Street's bidding, which now and always, is a smooth and seamless continuation of the status quo.

Just in case there wasn't enough excitement and fury directed at Swiss bank account holders, which continue to dominate the presidential election "debate" above such mundane topics as the economy, or, say, reality, here comes the IRS, which as we noted yesterday collected $192 billion less than the government spent in the month of August alone, and have awarded Bradely Birkenfeld, a former UBS employee who in 2008 pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States and was sentenced in 2009 to 40 months in prison, but received preferential whistleblower status after a prior arrangement to expose numerous Americans with Swiss bank accounts, has just been awarded $104 million.