Archive - Oct 2013

It was as if a million Warren Buffetts cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. That is an artist's impression of what happened overnight following news that McDonalds would, after 40 years of serving the red tomato paste in its global restaurants, drop the use of Heinz ketchup from its stores. The apparent reason: executive bad blood due to the appointment of Bernardo Hees, the former CEO of biggest rival Burger King, as the current head of Heinz following the Berkshire purchase of the company in February, in the process making the John Kerry estate even richer.

Almost exactly one year after Superstorm Sandy crushed the eastern seaboard of the USA, and 26 years after the last devastating storm to hit the south of England, the so-called St.Jude's Day storm - among the worst in recent memory - is battering the UK (and some of Europe) with winds up to 99 mph. So far there are 2 reported deaths, 220,000 homes without power, all SouthWest trains halted, and over 130 flights cancelled at Heathrow airport. Two nuclear plants have been shutdown and hundreds of trees have fallen blocking roads and rail links across as the storm begins to shift into mainland Europe...

Across the board the USD is rallying against the majors (having once again tested 17 month low resistance in the USD index). Much of the strength is coming from EUR weakness as excess liquidity in the eurozone drops to a fresh two-year low (prompting talk of renewed liquidity injections or LTROs). This has knocked US and European stocks notably lower from overnight highs leaving S&P futures an odd shade of red in the pre-open. Treasury yields are also pressing higher in the last few hours along with Commodities.

While the "indignation" by America's allies will come and go, the punchline in the overnight response to NSA's ongoing reputational hammering came not from Europe, but from China.

• CHINA FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESWOMAN HUA CHUNYING COMMENTS ON NSA
• CHINA SAYS NSA PHONE TAPS VIOLATE LEADERS' PRIVACY

Because when even China makes fun of your spying practices, it's probably time to call it a ballgame.

If Churchill were alive today, he would probably characterize the rollout of Obamacare as a humiliation, wrapped in an embarrassment, inside a mockery-punching bag injury. And overnight, in addition to all the other well-known gremlins that have plagued America's socialized healthcare from Day 1, insult was added injury, following a Reuters report that a "data center critical for allowing uninsured Americans to buy health coverage under President Barack Obama's healthcare law went down on Sunday, halting online enrollment for all 50 states." In other words, on top of and in addition to all the other bad coding and website processing issues that have been exposed and promptly scapegoated on other (you see Obama knew all about the successes, but nothing about the failures of Obamacare), now the internet itself is starting to glitch up. Which is hardly surprising considering Al Gore's involvement in the latter.

• Budget deficit priorities people: U.S. NSA spied on 60 million Spanish phone calls in a month (Reuters)
• Stuck in countless scandals, Obama does what he does best: speak. Obama To Speak At Installation Of FBI Director James Comey (TPM)
• Five killed as car ploughs into crowd in Beijing's Tiananmen Square (Reuters)
• U.K. Storm Brings Power Cuts, Snarls Transport in South (BBG)
• China Signals ‘Unprecedented’ Policy Changes on Agenda at Plenum (BBG)
• Sandy's Legacy: Higher Home Prices (WSJ)
• Merkel Enters Concrete SPD Talks as Finance Post Looms (BBG)
• Keep arming those Syrian al-qaeda rebels: Car bombs kill scores in Baghdad, in sign of crisis in Iraq (WaPo)
• J.P. Morgan's Mortgage Troubles Ran Deep (WSJ)
• Detroit’s public library contains story of city’s decline (FT)
• Argentina elections: President loses in Buenos Aires province (BBC)
• Phone-hacking: trial of Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks to begin (Guardian)

In the upcoming week, the key event is the US FOMC, though we and the consensus do not expect any key decisions to be taken. Though a strengthening of forward guidance is still possible, virtually nobody expects anything of import to be announced until the Dec meeting. In the upcoming week we also have five more central bank meetings in addition to the FOMC: Japan, New Zealand, India, Hungary and Israel. In Hungary we, in line with consensus, expect a 20bps cut to 3.40% in the policy rate. In India consensus expects a 25bps hike in the repo rate to 7.75%. On the data front, US IP, retail sales and pending home sales are worth a look, but the key release will be the ISM survey at the end of the week, together with manufacturing PMIs around the world. US consumer confidence is worth a look, given the potential impact from the recent fiscal tensions.

Just as it is easy being a weatherman in San Diego ("the weather will be... nice. Back to you"), so the same inductive analysis can be applied to another week of stocks in Bernanke's centrally planned market: "stocks will be... up." Sure enough, as we enter October's last week where the key events will be the conclusion of the S&P earnings season and the October FOMC announcement (not much prop bets on a surprise tapering announcement this time), overnight futures have experienced the latest off the gates, JPY momentum ignition driven melt up.

"...There's only one thing left to do now, gentlemen... Let's find a way to blame Bush."

Most recently, it was the horrific rollout of Obamacare which as we observed earlier in the week, was all "someone else's fault" but certainly not the government's. Now, as the Snowden whistleblowing scandal has found its third (or fourth) wind courtesy of a furious international response following revelations that Obama was listening in to Merkel and at least 34 other world leaders', it is time for perhaps the most stunning revelation of all: you see, Obama is shocked, shocked to learn that cell phone spying - of virtually everyone on the planet - is going on in here.

How do we get a fundamental change away from this extend-and-pretend which prevails not only in Europe but also the world? History tells us that we only get real changes as a result of war, famine, social riots or collapsing stock markets. None of these is an issue for most of the world - at least not yet - but on the other hand we have never had less growth, worse demographics, or higher unemployment since WWII. This is a true paradox that somehow needs to be resolved, and quickly if we are to avoid wasting an entire generation of youth. Policymakers try to pretend we have achieved significant progress and stability as the result of their actions, but from a fundamental point of view that’s a mere illusion..

• NSA boss Keith Alexander personally informed Obama in 2010 about secret operations targeting German chancellor and president didn’t demand to stop it, Bild am Sonntag reported, citing unidentified U.S. intelligence sources: Bild
• US denies Obama knew of Merkel spying: AFP
• Merkel to seek 'no spy deal' within EU as well as with US: Reuters
• Merkel Violated Rules With Use of Party Mobile Phone, Welt Says
• NSA spied on Merkel’s text messages, mobile phone calls: Bild
• NSA specialists didn’t tap Merkel’s specially secured landline
• Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich says tapping phones is crime and needs to be prosecuted, says trust has evaporated: Bild

It seems 'someone' needed to run the S&P futures market back over Friday's highs just to flush the stops one more time. Thanks to some JPY-selling that momentum was ignited and S&P futures just made new all-time-highs... because, well why not. Soon after the stops were run in stocks, JPY started to revert and so are futures. Gold, oil, and treasuries are all unch for now as is EURUSD.

March 18, 1996. It was the height of the dot-com boom years. And gracing the cover of Fortune magazine was a photo of a rather smug looking Alan Greenspan, then Chairman of the US Federal Reserve.  The headline across the top-- "It's HIS economy, stupid". The inside story was entitled "In Greenspan We Trust".  And the article went on to suggest that, no matter WHO won the presidential election that year between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, Greenspan would still be running the economy. And handily.  This is a major testament to the state of our financial system. We award a tiny banking elite nearly totalitarian control over our money supply... and by extension, the economy.  We're just supposed to trust that they're good guys. Competent guys. That they know what they're doing.  Fast forward almost two decades. Long Term Capital Management. The NASDAQ bubble. The real estate bubble. The credit crunch. The mortgage crisis. The banking crisis. The sovereign debt crisis.