Archive - Oct 6, 2013

Despite the screaming surge higher in late Friday trading for Nikkei 225 futures (on the back of the "well they must agree a deal this weekend" exuberance), as cash markets open in Asia, the Nikkei futures are cratering 400 points from the Friday close. The rest of AsiaPac stocks are red but Japan is worst for now. S&P futures have pushed back to overnight lows (down 11 points) and Treasury yields are 2-3bps lower.

"MasterCard will be the first major payment network to join FIDO. The Alliance is developing an open industry standard for biometric data such as fingerprints to be used for identification online. The goal is to replace clunky passwords and take friction out of logging on and purchasing using mobile devices."

It’s for your own good, and it’ll probably fight terrorism too!

We last discussed the rise of the robot (as a a replacement for human labor) six months ago, pointing to the implicit (and large) deflationary bust that this entails and nowhere is this more evident today than in Australia's outback. As Bloomberg reports, the 400-plus workers employed by Rio Tinto in the remote Pilbara region (driving train-loads of mined minerals) are the highest-paid train-drivers in the world. The decade-long mining boom down-under has sucked up skilled workers, raising wages for engineers to drivers to an average $224,000 per year - as much as a surgeon in the US. This ridiculous situation has led, unsurprisingly, to the mining companies replacing them with robot locomotives.

Coca-Cola has been dethroned by Apple from its long-running position as the world’s most valuable brand, according to the closely watched Interbrand Best Global Brands survey. As Bloomberg BusinessWeek notes, the soft drink giant had held the No. 1 ranking for 13 consecutive years but fell to No. 3 in this year’s study by the consulting firm. Interbrand values the Apple brand at about $98 billion, and other tech companies such as Google, IBM, and Microsoft finished in the top five. Here’s a look at the twists and turns of the top 10 brands in the Interbrand study, which analyzes a brand’s financial strength and influence, going back to 2000.

After seeing this, it may be no wonder the rest of the non-mail-providing-public in the US goes "postal."...

The situation in Spain is shifting from the sublime (as reflected in PM Rajoy's epic failure during his recent Bloomberg TV interview) to the absolutely ridiculous. As AFP reports, a simple typographical error boosted Spain's 2014 public debt forecast by 10 billion euros ($13.6 billion), the government admitted on Thursday. Four days after announcing the national debt figure to the world, the Economy Ministry issued a correction: "It is an erratum," adding that the person that typed up the report mixed up the last two digits...

Seasoned CBS News Anchor: “Whenever I’m Asked What Is The Most Manipulative And Secretive Administration I’ve Covered, I Always Say It’s The One In Office Now”

The federal government has been partially shut down for 4 days, and it appears likely that the situation could continue for a while longer. As the shutdown continues, the political focus has begun to shift to the next deadline.  If the debt limit is not raised before the Treasury depletes its cash balance, Goldman fears it could force the Treasury to rapidly eliminate the budget deficit to stay under the debt ceiling. They estimate that the fiscal pullback would amount to as much as 4.2% of GDP (annualized). The effect on quarterly growth rates (rather than levels) could be even greater.

"Change" indeed...

It takes a lot of courage to go against the crowd. Whether in investing, or acknowledging that your country is heading towards an epic fiscal crisis, it isn’t easy to stand alone... especially when everyone else is betting the other way. After more than a decade of positive returns, many investors have abandoned their precious metals positions. The conventional wisdom says that gold is ‘finished’. After all, the dollar price is falling... so it must be a bad ‘investment’. Others, however, are looking at where gold is right now, where it probably will be a few years from now, and thinking that it’s a hell of a bargain.

UDPATE: Futures bouncing a little off their opening lows (down 7)

Despite the US equity market's efficient "knowing better" on Friday, the total and utter lack of progress this weekend in any and all fiscal issues in Washington has seen the gains from Friday evaporate as the S&P 500 futures open  down 10 points. We are sure the headline-driven ping-pong will continue to drive stocks though as there remains over 15 hours until the US day-session opens. Gold and FX markets are practically unchanged for now.

Perhaps it is time to rename the Dow as its trend of de-industrialization provides the perfect visual example of what David Stockman called the 'Sundown in America'.

If you listen to TV commentators, you’ve been told the worst is behind us. Growth is picking up, and Europe is coming out of its slumber. No one seems to be concerned that this tepid below-2-percent growth is being entirely fed by the central bank’s massive money printing. It’s a “growth at any price” policy. How quickly we forget. We currently fear Fed tapering, as we should. Yet, we should be even more fearful that it doesn’t taper. Today, we really have a dreaded choice of losing an arm now or two arms and a leg tomorrow. Because the price distortions have been massive, the adjustment will be horrendous. Government policy makers and government economists simply do not understand the critical role of prices in helping discovery and coordination.

Given the post-crisis record pace of growth in the Federal Reserve's balance sheet (aka money-printing) it is perhaps surprising that year-to-date, Gold has underperformed its cross-asset-class peers. But considering the 2-and-20 that is flushed away by "sophisticated" investors year after year, the dismal performance of the average hedge fund remains a symbol of the only thing that has worked this year: buy-every-dip, dash-for-trash, always sell vol, and never (ever) sell...

The last time we opined on the possibility of a Cyprus-style "bail-in" in Greece, which is essentially a legally-mandated confiscation of private sector assets held hostage by the local financial system, until such time as the balance sheet of said financial system is viable, we were joking. Well, not really joking. But not even we thought that a banking sector "bail in", in which unsecured bank liabilities, which include bonds and of course deposits, are used as a matched source of extinguishment of non-performing bad debt "assets" could spread to the broader economy, and specifically to unencumbered private sector assets. Alas, this is precisely what Greece, which is desperately to delay the inevitable and announce it needs not only a third but fourth bailout, appears keen on doing. As Kathimerini reports, the Greek Labor and Social Insurance Ministry is "seriously considering drastic measures in order to obtain the social security contributions owed by enterprises and to avoid having to slash pensions and benefits." What drastic measures? "The ministry is planning to force companies to pay up or face having their assets seized, so that the 14 billion euros of contributions due can be recouped."