Archive - Nov 27, 2013

Based on the Fed's wealth effect creating surge in stock prices, Guggenheim's Scott Minerd believes retail sales should be up 5.8% in Q4 2013. However, as we noted before, expectations are for a dismal 1-2% holiday spending growth at best; as 2013 is set to be the worst holiday spending season since 2009. Stores from Tilly's to Abercrombie and Wal-Mart are warning, the NRF projects the first drop YoY since 2009, and gas prices are set to rise (further pressuring consumers' disposable incomes). The bottom line - as we already know - is that QE's effects on the real economy (if there were ever any?) are set to end in the 2013 holidays.

A zombie government armed with accounting tricks has bailed out a zombie banking industry using even more financial phoniness. A few numbers pushed here and there, and the industry is earning record profits. But out in the real world where people live and work, things aren't so rosy. Zombies make negligent landlords and dangerous neighbors.

Some clarification from Wu Tang Financial on the ten key principles of economics...

"...they ain't no such thang as free lunch... if you haven't figured that out yet in yo life, we is shaking our heads at ya...

PV=MV bitches. Velocity of money just not picking up boo. People been deleveraging up in here..."

In Feb 2007, Oaktree Capital's Howard Marks wrote 'The Race to the Bottom', providing a timely warning about the capital market behavior that ultimately led to the mortgage meltdown of 2007 and the crisis of 2008 as he worried about "carelessness-induced behavior." In the pre-crisis years, as described in his 2007 memo, the race to the bottom manifested itself in a number of ways, and as Marks notes, "now we’re seeing another upswing in risky behavior." Simply put, Marks warns, "when people start to posit that fundamentals don’t matter and momentum will carry the day, it’s an omen we must heed," adding that "the riskiest thing in the investment world is the belief that there’s no risk."

Since expectations of Q3's GDP growth began to get ratcheted lower with reality (in March), 'economists' have banked on Q4's fiscally-dragless-renaissance to fill the wedge between equity prices and fundamentals. That 'hope' has been dashed (once again) on the shores of QE insanity as Q4 2013 expectations have collapsed 30% in 2 months to only 1.8%... but 'hope' and 'faith' remain as Q1 2014 will save the day. Of course, all this is magically achievable - like this.

By any reasonable measure, we think it is safe to say that the last quarter of 2013 has been an insane game of economic Russian Roulette.  Even more unsettling is the fact that most of the American population still has little to no clue that the U.S. was on the verge of a catastrophic catalyst event at least three times in the past three months alone, and that we face an even greater acceleration next year. Economic collapse is not necessarily an event, it is a process, the most frightening elements of which usually do not become visible until it is too late for common people to react in a productive way.  All of the dangers covered in this article could very well set fires tomorrow, that is how close our nation is to the edge.  However, the culmination of events so far seems to be setting the stage for something, an important something, in 2014.

The top holder of Bitcoins is the unlikely named 1933phfhK3ZgFQNLGSDXvqCn32k2buXY8a with 111,111 units of the crypto-currency (up from 40,000 units in the summer of 2011) for a total value over $110 million. Perhaps most interesting is these 100 Bitcoin holders represent over 20% of the entire outstanding amount of the alternative currency.

With every other bear throwing in the towel left and right these days, we fully expected that the latest letter by SocGen's Albert Edwards would have something about "how much he hates looking at himself in the mirror, but..." Luckily none of that happened. Instead we were greeted by the sharp insight and keen intellect that we have grown to expect from AE, and that have disappeared from the repertoire of so many other sellouts and lemming cheerleaders. Ironically, the topic of Edwards' latest piece is precisely the chart above - the explosion in future margins, or rather the complete lack thereof. But not only that. For everyone else who has dutifully thrown in the towel, very much as the Chairman expects, Edwards has a few words: 'The doomsayers who predicted that this recovery was on the verge of faltering have been proved wrong, and like the boy who cried wolf, can be safely ignored by the market. Yet that is exactly what happened in 2006 with the US consumer and housing boom, where the voices of caution had been so wrong, for so long, that their Cassandra-like utterances were ignored. Cassandra?s forecasts may have been ignored, but they proved to be correct. Investors demand a sign of when to get out and that trigger may have just arrived."

Also... "Heal"

"######" are a great analogy of how inflation works in the real economy. It’s clear that the supply of ###### is increasing rapidly. But the effects go unnoticed for a long time. Then suddenly, one day, prices go up dramatically. And most people who have been responsibly saving for a rainy day suddenly find that years of their savings are worth less. ###### are the most rapidly depreciating currency in the world. And they’re an interesting sign of things to come with fiat currencies. Can you guess?

Volumes - expectedly - were extremely light and so, we all know what that means: a dash for trash meltup. NASDAQ keeps powering ahead as the S&P and Dow recover from yesterday afternoon's cliff dive. Trannies now up 13.3% off the debt-ceiling lows 5 weeks ago... sure, why not. "Most shorted" names outperformed once again but it seems investors, while not wanting to sell, are happy to bid for protection as VIX diverges. Credit markets also diverged bearishly today. Stocks disconnected (a la yesterday) from JPY carry briefly but rapidly caught up in the low volume churn. Bonds leaked higher in yield (unch on the week now); the USD pushed higher after Europe's close (back to unch on the week); but inventories and USD strength weighed on oil prices and precious metals limped modestly lower.

"It's only a question of time before the central banks lose control," David Stockman warns a shocked CNBC anchor, "and a panic sets in when people realize that these values are massively overstated." The outspoken author of The Great Deformation rages "the Fed is exporting its lunatic policies worldwide." If one cares to look, Stockman adds, "there are bubbles everywhere," citing Russell 2000 valuations of 75x LTM earnings as an example, "that makes no sense. It's up 43% in the last year, but earnings of the Russell 2000 companies have not increased at all." This is dangerous, he strongly cautions, "I haven't seen too many bubbles in history" that haven't ended violently.

The maestro clarifies his 'experienced' perspective of spotting bubbles in the following quote from his interview with Bloomberg TV's Al Hunt:

“This does not have the characteristics, as far as I’m concerned, of a stock market bubble,”

Of course, as we noted here, some would beg to differ; but perhaps what would be useful is for the former Fed head to explain what 'characteristics' do constitute a bubble...

Japan – Like the U.S. – Turns to Censorship