Archive - Nov 2013

JUST IN: LAX gunman killed by law enforcement

— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 1, 2013

Just when you thought Healthcare.gov was the worst designed system and that nothing could match government incompetence, here comes Nasdaq, and adding insult to repeated shutdown injury from over the past several months, has just announced it will not unhalt the Options Market before the weekend, and will cancel all open orders. As for the scapegoat: "a significant increase in order entries." In other words, a blast of HFT quote churn again - just like the flash crash.

UPDATE: One TSA employee killed, one wounded in LAX shooting

— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 1, 2013

After briefly becoming the strongest currency in the world for 2013, yesterday's stunning inflation report out of the Eurozone has not only left the massively overblown European recovery story in tatters (but... but... those soaring PMIs, oh wait, John Paulson is investing in Greece - the "recovery" is indeed over), has sent the sellside penguins scrambling with the new conviction that the ECB now has no choice but to lower rates once again, either in November or in December. So with everyone confused, we were hoping that that perpetual contrarian bellwether Tom Stolper, who just came out with a report, may have some insight. And sure enough, while the long-term EUR bull admits that "the ECB could move the EUR/USD cross by about 5 big figures by cutting the refi rate by 25bp" and that "it is quite possible that we will see EUR/$ drop further towards 1.33", he concludes that "an ECB rate cut could turn out to be a buying opportunity to go long the EUR." And now we know: because what Stolper tells his few remaining muppets to buy, Goldman is selling: if and when the ECB cuts rates, do what Goldman does, not what is says: sell everything.

Reports hitting the tape of a shooting at LAX terminal 3, and that an evacuation is underway. According to local TV at least one TSA agent was inured and covered in blood, and the shooter may still be at large.

Proof that NSA Spying Is Not Very Focused On Terrorism

The bailed-out owner of the Fukushima nuke, famous for its lackadaisical handling of the fiasco and its stinginess with the truth, reported earnings. It was a doozie.

The Outrage!

When even Bank of America has a note titled "It's getting frothy, man", and joins such other bubble-warners as JPM, Bill Gross, Larry Fink, and David Einhorn, one can be absolutely positive that the Fed will do... absolutely nothing.

There was a time when the only complaint the SEC's 4000 employees had was that some porn sites charge just too much - after all, the SEC's "enforcement" budget is limited, while the worldwide supply of pornography is virtually endless. It's time to add one more grievance to the list of all those overworked regulators who have yet to put someone, anyone, from the big banks in jail as a consequence for nearly destroying the western way of life, or do more than merely wrist slap Steve Cohen with a penalty that costs more than three or four Picasso paintings: lunch breaks.

One thing that was not mentioned in the otherwise blemish-free GM sales report, is that the biggest reason for the surge in GM "deliveries" was because the car company once again resorted to that old faithful gimmick: dealer channel stuffing. At 728K units in dealer inventory at month end, or 87 days supply, this was the highest number since March 2013, but more troublingly, the monthly rate of increase was the highest since GM's emergency as a "new" company from bankruptcy.

So much for the government shutdown - as one of the just released manufacturing ISM respondents so candidly put it, "The government shutdown has not had any impact on our business that I can determine, nor has it impacted any supplier shipments." And speaking of the ISM itself, it naturally rejected everything that the Markit PMI noted, and printed at 56.4, beating expectations of a 55.0 print, the 5th beat in a row, and the highest print since April 2011. Sadly, it was not 66.4 or 76.4 to at least partially "confirm" the Chicago ISM surge. So while virtually all ISM components rose, with exports spiking by 5 points to 57.0, it was the employment index that dipped yet again, from 55.4 to 53.2, the lowest since June, but in the New Normal who needs jobs when one has Schrodinger diffusion indices to confuse everyone on a daily basis. Either way, while stocks did not like yesterday's exploding Chicago PMI and dipped on fears of a December taper, today's 2 years ISM high is one of those good news is good news instances, and ES soars as usual.

Today's "good Fed cop" award goes to St. Louis Fed president James Bullard who has some words of caution which neither he, nor anyone else at the FOMC, will pay attention to:

• BULLARD SAYS RISK OF ASSET PRICE BUBBLES ‘HUGE ISSUE’ FOR FOMC
• BULLARD: LOW RATES, NOT JUST QE, WOULD ACCOUNT FOR ANY BUBBLE
• BULLARD SAYS LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION DECLINE BEGAN IN 2000
• BULLARD SAYS LAND PRICES MAY BECOME ASSET PRICE BUBBLE
• BULLARD SAYS ‘I’M THE BIGGEST INFLATION HAWK’, or better known as dove in hawk's clothing

And the punchline:

• BULLARD: `THERE MAY BE SOME OTHER' ASSET BUBBLE `GOING ON'

Yes: the bubble of Fed "assets"