Archive - Nov 6, 2013

And so another conspiracy theory, that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was poisoned with Polonium, becomes non-conspiracy fact.

Sales of coins and minted Perth Mint gold bars climbed 13% to 77,255 ounces last month from 68,488 ounces in September

Having been "on fire" for most of the year - managing a simply remarkable (Venezuela stock market-like) 472% gain from the start of the year to September highs; it appears the momentum stock of the year is 'running out of gas'. Now down over 22% from its highs, Elon Musk's experiment in exuberance has entered a bear market. Indices most levred to the momo mayhem are struggling this morning also with NASDAQ leading the 'charge' lower. At 3-month lows, TSLA is now up 'only' 335% YTD...

And the flies got wise...

HHS Secretary Sebelius faces up to the self-described "debacle" that is Obamacare in fron the The Senate Finance Committee this morning. We should expect much "mid-November"-ing as the new replacement for "plead da fif."

Because those record offshore (tax-haven arbitraged) corporate cash balances will not grow themselves, obviously.

Even though a meager 3 of 70 economists actually expected Mario Draghi to announce some sort of rate cut at tomorrow's ECB press conference, moments ago MarketNews reported that according to "sources" a rate change tomorrow is unlikely even amid a dip in Europe's inflation.

ECB SOURCES: RATE CHANGE THURSDAY UNLIKELY EVEN AMID INFLATION DIP - MNI

The flashing red headline, as this non-news was picked up by the algos, was enough to send the EUR, and naturally the all important EURJPY spiking by another 40 pips, and taking the correlated US equity markets, right along with it.

Still living with the misguided idea that the bulk of government spending goes to defense? Wrong. As the just released Treasury refunding presentation shows, for yet another year in a row, the bulk of government outlays was for Medicare and Medicaid, as well as Social Security, both amounting to just shy of $900 billion in 2013, a sizable increase compared to the prior year. Defense spending? It declined once again to just over $600 billion, as did Interest outlays, which net of the Fed's remittances on interest payments, declined from under $500 billion to just about $400 billion in the past year.

Bit by bit, we’re learning more about President Obama’s broken promise that you can keep your health insurance if you like it, which was repeated at least two dozen times in recent years... Obama’s pledge was no different to, say, JPMorgan’s misrepresentations about the toxic mortgages it sold to unwitting investors. Fraudulent mortgage claims were surely discussed within JPM, just as Obama’s team debated the health insurance promise. Moreover, any internal concerns about the mortgage fraud were certainly squashed, just like the reservations expressed by Obama’s more truthful advisers. Simply put: Obama told a blatant lie, which he then continued to repeat.  It’s not the first time he’s lied, but this was an absolute whopper.

As was long predicted and foreshadowed (and analyzed here previously with the proposed FRN term sheet shown half a year ago), after nearly two years of foreplay with the idea of issuing inflation-friendly floating rate notes, moments ago as part of its refunding announcement, the Treasury announced the first floater issuance in history would take place on January 29, 2014, will have a 2 year tenor, and will amount to between $10 and $15 billion.

The last month has seen the USD price of Bitcoins double from $130 to $270 as a combination of wider acceptance (in China and even ebay/Paypal 'watching') and concerns over ongoing global money printing (delayed taper) have sent the cryptocurrency to new record highs. With most 'markets' now manipulated or repressed by government mandate, one wonders whether Bitcoin represents the last bastion of free market expression for concern at the fiat status quo? Or is it already 'broken'?

While it took Japan over two years to admit the Fukushima situation on the ground is "out of control", a development many had predicted for years, a just as important topic is what are the implications of this uncontrolled radioactive disaster on not only the local environment and society but also globally, particularly Japan's neighbor across the Pacific - the US. To be sure, there has been much speculation, much of it unjustified, in the past two years debating when, how substantial and how acute any potential debris from Fukushima would be on the US. Which is why it was somewhat surprising to see the NOAA come out with its own modeling effort, which shows that not only "some buoyant items first reached the Pacific Northwest coast during winter 2011-2012" but to openly confirm that a debris field weighing over 1 million tons, and larger than Texas is now on the verge of hitting the American coastline, just west off the state of California.

Are we all wealthier because the Dow is at ~ 15,000?  Should Katee Sackhoff be the next Fed Chairman?

• Christie Sets Himself Up for Run in 2016 (WSJ)
• De Blasio Elected Next New York City Mayor in Landslide (WSJ)
• Hilsenrath: Fed Study: Rate Peg Off Mark (WSJ)
• MF Global Customers Will Recover All They Lost (NYT) - amazing what happens when you look under the rug
• Virginia, Alabama Voter Choices Show Tea Party Declining (BBG)
• Explosions kill 1, injure 8 in north China city (Reuters)
• Toyota boosts full-year guidance as weak yen drives revenues (FT)
• Starbucks wants to recruit 10,000 vets, spouses to its ranks (Reuters)
• U.S. Economy Slack Justifies Stimulus, Top Fed Staff Papers Show (BBG)
• Israel set to become major gas exporter (FT)

It was the deep of illiquid night when the momentum ignition trading algos struck. Out of the blue, a liftathon in all JPY crosses without any accompanying news sent the all important ES leading EURJPY surging by 50 pips, which in turn sent both the Nikkei up over 1% in minutes, and led to an E-Mini futures melt up of just about 8 points just when everyone was going to sleep. All of this happened completely independent of the actual data, which was chiefly European retail sales which missed (-0.6%, Exp. 0.4%, prior revised lower to 0.5%), Eurozone Service PMI which dropped (from 52.2 to 51.6) but beat expectations of 50.9 (notably the Spanish Service PMI of 49.6, up from 49.0 saw its employment index drop from 46.5 to 45.3, the lowest print since June), and finally, German Factory Orders which surged from last month's -0.3% to +3.3% in September. And while all this impacted the EUR modestly stronger, it had little if any residual effect on the ES. The bigger question is whether these slightly stronger than expected data point will offset the ECB's expected dovishness when Mario takes to the mic tomorrow).