Archive - Dec 2013

"Mediocrity," it would appear (based on their actions), is the new "excellence"...

Although the U.S. stock market continues to hit new nominal highs on a nearly daily basis, the U.S. economy bumps along at a lackluster pace. This disconnect has been achieved by a massive Fed experiment in monetary stimulation. Through the combination of seemingly endless maintenance of zero interest rates and the injection of some $1trillion a year of synthetic money into fixed-income markets, the Fed is hoping that the boom it is creating on Wall Street will lead to a boom on Main Street. In reality, this a very dangerous economic gamble of enormously high stakes.  As we have seen in the recent past, financial bubbles can leave catastrophe in their wake.

If you BTFATH today, this is the forward-looking fundamental backdrop that is supporting your decision...

What do you do if you have more money than you can ever spend, and own residences in most major metropolises around the world. You invest in the most exclusive "third" (or fourth, or fifth) vacation "house" that can be purchased by people for whom money is no object, such as the $1 billion Faena Miami Beach, which has lined up as buyers none other than the creme of the (bailed out courtesy of a multi-trillion ongoing taxpayer bailout) Wall Street crop including Apollo's Leon Black, and of course Goldman's very own resident of a duplex in 15 CPW, Lloyd Blankfein. The Faena oceanfront development for the megarich is financed by another billionaire, chairman of Access Industries, Len Blavatnik, whose $16.1 billion net worth puts him 49th in the Bloomberg Billionaires index. This is what Lloyd and company will buy with the Fed's "wealth effect."

“In 1960, about one in four renters paid more than 30% of income for housing. Today, one in two are cost burdened,” according to a new study (ironically) by Harvard University. As Bloomberg BusinessWeek's Peter Coy notes, the availability of apartments, especially cheaper ones, hasn’t nearly kept up with demand, and the problem has worsened since the 2007-09 recession. Remarkably, the number or people with severe cost burdens (paying over 50% of income to rent) is up by 2.5 million in just four years, to 11.3 million; and as usual, the pinch is hardest on the poor. The share of cost-burdened renters increased by a stunning 12 percentage points between 2000 and 2010, the largest jump in any decade dating back at least to 1960.

Bereft of holiday gift ideas for the greater-fool in your house? Too much hard multiple-expanded cash burning a binary hole in your Prime Broker's servers? Then spend it all on what will truly set you above the rest of the 0.1% - the following two lovely unicorns.

The WSJ has revealed the latest developments of tomorrow's "fluid" Volcker Rule vote on prop trading:

• Volcker Rule Will Bar Compensation Arrangements That Reward Proprietary Trading, Rule Text Says
• Rule Will Exempt Foreign Sovereign Debt From Proprietary Trading Ban, According To Rule Text Reviewed By Wall Street Journal

In other words, prop trading itself will not be explicitly barred, just associated compensation (and banks can still buy as much Italian and Spanish bonds for their accounts as they want). Which means banks can engage in as much prop trading as they wish (which courtesy of $2.4 trillion in excess deposits aka excess reserves is a lot) and bang as much VIX closes as they desire, they just need to have trader bonus "arranagements" to be tied to something else. Like make-believe flow trading which can be manipulated to show anything and everything.

The spin does not get any better than this... As they reported they would,

• *LEW SAYS U.S. SOLD ALL REMAINING SHARES OF GENERAL MOTORS RECOUPING $39 BLN OF ORIGINAL GM INVESTMENT

That is a $10.5 Billion loss! But, The Center for Automotive Research, a Michigan nonprofit organization that analyzes auto industry issues, those funds “saved or avoided the loss of $105.3 billion in transfer payments and the loss of personal and social insurance tax collections -- or 768% of the net investment.” We can't wait to hear how much Bill Ackman made or saved on his Herbalife investment...

Much has been written recently about the rigged London "gold fixing" process, during which, as even Bloomberg recently covered, the price of gold is blatantly manipulated. One thing was, however, missing: a photo of the fixers in practice. Today, courtesy of German WiWo, we show just what said "fixing" looks like in real life every single day.

WTF was this!!??

Following Friday's exuberance, US equity markets traded in an extraordinarily narrow range today (Dow's 41 points is lowest in 16 months) as S&P futures had the lowest non-holiday volume day of the year - despite plethora of Fed talking heads. Treasuries were no less un-vibrant with a 2bp range ending with the short-end very modestly higher in yield and long-end -1bps. The USD closed lower with its only sizable move driven by Bullard's dovish comments on inflation credibility; most notably US equities ignored JPY crosses efforts to ignite momentum. VIX was smashed lower at the close (back to inverted). The big movers on the day were in commodity-land. WTI dipped but Brent was slammed as the spread dropped notably to 6-week lows. Gold (and even more so Silver) were the big winners (relatively speaking) ending the day +1 and +2.2% respectively. Oh and TWTR went bull retard...

We warned here (and here most recently), the most insidious way in which the Fed's ZIRP policy is now bleeding not only the middle class dry, but is forcing companies to reallocate cash in ways that benefit corporate shareholders at the present, at the expense of investing prudently for growth 2 or 3 years down the road. It seems the message is being heard loud and very clear among 'some' of the FOMC members; most notably Richard Fisher:

"Without fiscal policy that incentivizes rather than discourages U.S. capex (capital expenditure), this accommodative monetary policy aimed at reducing unemployment (especially structural unemployment) or improving the quality of jobs is rendered flaccid and less than optimally effective... I would feel more comfortable were we to remove ourselves as soon as possible from interfering with the normal price-setting functioning of financial markets."

Perhaps Yellen (and others) will listen this time?

The number of employees across the firms of the broad-based Russell 2000 equity index has collapsed by more than half from its peak. The price of that index, in the same period, has risen 137%. Can you spot when the index 'price' disconnected from economic reality?

Of course, we are sure the chart will be dismissed as meaningless for some "demographic" or "cyclical" reason and we should not worry, just BTFATH, of course.

The United States’ reputation for sound economic policymaking took a beating in 2013. Some of this was warranted; some of it was not. And now a related distorted narrative – one that in 2014 could needlessly undermine policies that are key to improving America’s economic recovery – is gaining traction... to the danger of "government failure."

One of the underreported stories from last week, noted here previously, was that quietly, on the day in which French unemployment soared to a new 16 year high, French president Hollande did what every true Keynesian in his position would do and dispatched troops to the Central African Republic due to a "duty to intervene" and stop the "alarming, frightening massacres" taking place there. There were no YouTube clips available to justify said massacres yet: we assume they are being produced currently. A few days later the fighting has begun with Reuters reporting that French troops fought gunmen in Bangui, the capital of Central African Republic, on Monday as they searched for weapons in an operation to disarm rival Muslim and Christian fighters responsible for hundreds of killings since last week. Shooting erupted near the airport in the morning after gunmen refused to hand over their weapons, and French forces later came under attack by former rebels in the city centre. France said it was prepared to use force if fighters rejected calls to disarm or return to barracks. Paris boosted its military presence to 1,600 troops at the weekend as waves of religious violence swept its former colony.