Archive - Jan 2013

Now corporations are begging: we need more inflation!

While little has been said in the mainstream western press about the ongoing fiasco surrounding Siena's Banca Monte dei Pasci, Italy's third largest bank and the world's oldest which may get its third bailout in three years - or even be nationalized - as soon as today, for fears that it may break the thin veneer of "recovery" in the European financial system, the situation on the ground in Italy is getting more serious by the minute, and will have implications on both next month's general election, on Mario Monti, on Silvio Berlusconi, on frontrunner for the Prime Minister post Pier Luigi Bersani, and reach as far up as the head of the ECB - Mario Draghi.

Farewell Davos. The Farce be with you all...

The purpose of asset purchases by the Fed might no longer be improvements in the real economy, but rather a more subtle financing of U.S. government deficits. However, in the long run, expanding the money supply inevitably leads to inflationary pressures. Luckily for the Fed and the U.S. government, there is so much slack in the labour market that inflation might be years away. And, if we are right about the long run unemployment rate being structurally higher, then the Fed has all the room it needs to continue Quantitative Easing (QE) to infinity. This might allow them to continue to hide the true financial position of the government for many years to come. Nonetheless, the rising GAAP deficit and the sheer size of the U.S. Federal Government’s liabilities to its citizens makes it clear that one day or another, services (health care, social security) will have to be cut. Financial alchemy can hide reality, but it does not provide any tangible services. Europe’s (unresolved) experience with its debt crisis provides an insightful window into the future. Austerity measures in Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Greece have caused tremendous pain to their citizens (25% unemployment rates) and wreaked havoc in their economies (double digit retail sales declines). Are we going to ignore the obvious?

Here is a weekly over view of the currency market from a technical perspective.  The divergence between the performance of the dollar against the euro-bloc, with the exception of sterling, and the other major currencies is noteworthy.  In the analysis, I suggest a few opportnities for near-term contrarians.  I fully appreciate that some readers eschew technical analysis and regulate it to the same space as numerology and witchcraft.  Yet, even still, it is useful to recall Keynes' view that the markets are like a beauty contest and the trick is not to pick who one thinks is the most beautiful, but to pick who others will think most beautiful.  Moreover, technicals allow one to quantify how much one is willing to lose in a way that fundamental macro-economic analysis doesn't.  It is a tool then for risk management.  

The Securities Litigation and Consulting Group just released a report which highlights the rise in Apple's stock price coinciding with the issuance of debt products linked to Apple's stock price.

Today's reminder of the importance of taking physical delivery of gold at the best price possible comes from Singapore.

Royal Bank of Scotland Says We're In Deep DooDoo ... Worst Economy Since Before Queen Victoria Was Crowned

Nassim Taleb sits down for a quite extensive interview based around his new book Anti-Fragile. Whether the Black Swan best-seller is philosopher or trader is up to you but the discussion is worth the time as Taleb wonders rigorously from the basic tenets of capitalism - "being more about disincentives that incentives" as failure (he believes) is critical to its success (and is clearly not allowed in our current environment) - to his intellectual influences (and total disdain for the likes of Krugman, Stiglitz, and Friedman - who all espouse grandiose and verbose work with no accountability whatsoever). His fears of large centralized states (such as the US is becoming and Europe is become) being prone to fail along with his libertarianism make for good viewing. However, his fundamental premise that TBTF banks should be nationalized and the critical importance of 'skin in the game' for a functioning financial system are all so crucial for the current 'do no harm' regime in which we live. Grab a beer (or glass of wine, it is Taleb) and watch...

"Regardless of what the markets do near-term, a correction is overdue," Marc Faber tells Bloomberg TV's Betty Liu. From discussing Europe's 'apparent' stabilization - "anything can go up when you print money"; to US equity exuberance - "a correction is overdue and February is a seasonally weak month"; Faber sees no change from Geithner's handover to Lew as he opines: "The only thing I know is one day the markets will punish the interventionists, the Keynesians and the monetary policy that the Federal Reserve and ECB has enforced because the markets will be more powerful one day. How will this look like? Will the bond market collapse or equity markets become a bubble, which would be embarrassing for the Fed's sake if the U.S. market became a gigantic bubble and at the same time the economy does not recover."

Drip...drip...drip... day by day, stocks leak higher, gradually inching up to record nominal highs; credit yields compress to record lows (and spreads near record pre-crisis tights); and volatility compresses (realized and implied) to near all-time-record lows. We have discussed the positioning of the market (S&P 500 futures at their net longest since 2007), crowded nature (JPY Shorts and NKY Longs), and sentiment (AAII Bulls near record highs). But, it is Credit Suisse indicator of risk appetite that should be worrisome for most investors. With Credit Risk Appetite well beyond any previous record high and Global Risk Appetite at its highest since 2006, perhaps it is time to consider the hedging discussion we had yesterday? With the euphoria dramatically dislocated from fundamentals and empirical world wealth trough-to-peak moves indicating a turning point, the lack of bearish arguments is deafening.

This objective report concisely summarizes important macro events over the past week.  It is not geared to push an agenda.  Impartiality is necessary to avoid costly psychological traps, which all investors are prone to, such as confirmation, conservatism, and endowment biases. 

In a week dominated by prognosticators pointing reflexively to a nominal price index flashing green on their TV as indication that all is well in the world, Bob Shiller provides some much-needed healthy skepticism on not just the state of the housing market but the broad economy itself. While Bloomberg TV's Tom Keene presses his short-term anchoring-biased view of a world heading for much better growth and a US housing recovery that will seemingly save us all; Shiller warns we have seen this before (in 2009's housing market) and that the housing decline could go on. When Keene tries to translate the market's performance into economic performance expectations, Shiller responds "you are talking to wrong man." From the fact that we should be growing super-normally now to return to 'normal' market conditions to his view of many more years to go in this stagnation, four minutes of Shiller's historical prescience is the perfect foil to the tick-watching talking-heads exuberance (especially in light of today's dismal new home sales).

Sure, the retail "investors" are coming back into the "markets"... They are coming back in shifts.  And just so they know what to expect, here is what happened to Apple stock in the last second of regular trading today, courtesy of Nanex. Unlike traditional flash crashes where the trade is an HFT error, or a few shares traded through the entire bid or offer stack, in this case it looks like a very premeditated unloading of some 800K shares (some $350 million worth) of AAPL in the last second, with the full knowledge it was shake the market. Why anyone would want (or wait until the very last second) to do that, while covering the offsetting ES short in the pair trade, to ramp the market into the close, is anyone's guess.

A close above 1500, and the last time the S&P 500 managed 8 close-to-close gains in a row was November 2004 (with the 9th higher close marking the end of the run that time). The rise of the Dow Industrials is the best January since 1994 - which saw a rather painful 10% decline in Febuary. Today saw bonds monkey-hammered to catch up (yields) to equity's strength on the week. FX markets saw more JPY weakness (-1% on the week) as EUR strength from this morning's LTRO news followed on - dragging the USD down 0.3% on the week. Commodities were mixed with Oil unch on the week, Copper down (but global growth?), and Gold and Silver slammed on what looks like AAPL collateral calls. AAPL spent the day wiggling up to VWAP and getting dumped to new 52-week lows unable to get any bid and once again we saw VIX totally ignoring the equity exuberance. Builders outperformed (+3.2%), Tech underperformed (-0.4%), as trade-size and volume were relatively low. The close with AAPL smashing lower on huge volume and ES ripping to new highs confirms the pairs-trade unwind we have been banging on about.