Archive - Oct 18, 2013

As the excitement of another US equity day session approaches, the BTFATHers can't help themselves and have lifted the S&P 500 futures to another new all-time record high. Sure, why not, when the Fed has the path illuminated... It would seem the dips that are bought have now been reduced to 3-4 points though what is perhaps more worrisome is that EURJPY has 'decoupled' from the exuberance in the last hour.

Despite the onslaught of confidence-inspiring flim-flam from leadership in Europe and a Spanish Prime Minister (and finance minister) desperate to distract with "soft" survey based data, the hard numbers keep coming in and keep getting worse and worse. The latest, seemingly confirming the IMF's fearsome forecast that European banks face massive loan losses in the coming years, is Spain's loan delinquency rate. Bad loans across Spanish banks amounted to $247 billion in August - a new record-breaking 12.12% of all loans outstanding (now 30% higher than any previous crisis in the history of Spain). Credit creation continues to implode with a 12.3% plunge in total loans outstanding but of course, none of that matters (for now), as Spanish bond spreads (and yields) press back towards pre-crisis lows...

While the downward Q4 GDP revisions were inevitable courtesy of the government shutdown scapegoat (making a joke out of the sellside exuberance in late 2012 which had seen 3% growth some time around now,) starting first at Goldman, and shortly after at JPM both of which cut their Q4 GDP forecasts by 0.5% to 2.0%, we had yet to see the persistent bullish bias spill over into 2014. That just changed following an overnight cut by Bank of America of Q1 2014 growth estimates from 3.3% to 2.8%. Certainly, this is the first of many as once again optimism proves unjustified. But who can blame it: after all there will have been "only" 5 years of QE, and the Fed's balance sheet will be only $4 trillion at December 31, 2013, implying a S&P of 1800.

• Republican Civil War Erupts: Business Groups v. Tea Party (BBG)
• Budget fight leaves Boehner 'damaged' but still standing (Reuters)
• Madoff Was Like a God, Wizard of Oz, Lawyers Tell Jury (BBG) - just like Bernanke
• Republicans press U.S. officials over Obamacare snags (Reuters)
• Brilliant: Fed Unlikely to Trim Bond Buying in October (Hilsenrath)
• More brilliant: Fed could taper as early as December (FT)
• Russia Roofing Billionaires Seen Among Country’s Youngest (BBG)
• Ford's Mulally won't dismiss Boeing, Microsoft speculation (Reuters)
• China reverses first-half slowdown (FT)
• NY Fed’s Fired Goldman Examiner Makes Weird Case (BBG)

While the US economic data reporting machinery slowly starts churning again following the "reactivation" of government, last night it was China 's turn to report a slew of goalseeked economic items. Q3 GDP (+7.8% yoy), Industrial Production (+10.2% yoy), Fixed Asset Investments (+20.2% YTD yoy) and Retail sales (+13.3% yoy) for September all came in broadly in line with market consensus. The economy grew at a faster pace on a sequential basis with Q3 growth being 0.3ppts higher than Q2. Nonetheless, many observers forecast yoy Q4 GDP growth to decline due to the end of inventory restocking and the fade out of a major credit stimulus in the prior quarter, even as total Chinese debt continues to push ever higher into bubble territory.Speaking of China, however, it is worth noting that overnight the Chinese Yuan rose to the highest level against the dollar in 20 years. This happens as the USD tumbles to nearly a year low, which incidentally is the theme of the overnight session: the ongoing dollar poundage is reverberating across the globe, and the resulting unleashing of global funding carry trades looks set to take the S&P (and everything else) to fresh record highs on the back of even more generous Fed Kool Aid expectations.

The U.S. is engaged in fiscal and monetary policies that are akin to a Banana Republic.

In addition to electronically creating out of nothing $85 billion every month to buy its own debt in the form of bonds, the U.S. is also borrowing more money than it is authorized to borrow, from itself again.