Archive - Feb 2013

Asset inflation often produces something called "wealth illusion," the belief that pricier asset holdings necessarily make one permanently richer. Illusions are dangerous. Eventually, painful reality intervenes. The "wealth illusion" of asset inflation is seductive, which is why central banks in charge of a fiat currency and subject to no external disciplines so often drift in that direction. Politicians smile in satisfaction and powerful Washington lobbies cry for more.  But an economy built on an illusion is hardly a sound structure. We may be doomed to learn that lesson once again before long.

While Moody's slipped over 20% when the DoJ announced its cajillion dollar lawsuit against S&P for knowing the crisis was coming but not telling anyone, it later bounced back over 10% as investors believed the non-US-downgrading rating agency (that happened to be owned by Buffett) was too-big-to-jail. After-hours today, Reuters is reporting that the Justice Department and multiple states are discussing also suing Moody's Corp for defrauding investors, according to people familiar with the matter, but any such move will likely wait until a similar lawsuit against rival Standard and Poor's is tested in the courts. The stock is trading down 3% after-hours as sources (not authorized to speak publicly) added "don't think Moody's is off the hook." We can't help but think about the pending sequester-delaying deficit spike as perhaps, to appear impartial, the DoJ will keep the threat of a lawsuit against Moody's alive... during the entire period when the US may and should be downgraded.

Any trader of paper gold and silver will likely never forget the endless and certainly parabolic barrage of margin hikes that the CME imposed in the spring and summer of 2011 which had only one purpose: to break the back of the relentless anti-fiat rally in the precious metals (and which culminated with the historic May 1 take down of silver when the metal plunged some 15% in the span of seconds). Since then, perhaps as a result of initial and maintenance margins still at residual levels indicative of when the S&P was some 30% lower and some $4 trillion less in slushing global central bank liquidity, the upside euphoria in gold and silver has been decidedly hobbled, perhaps so much that the CME is now scrambling to find a whole new set of gullible investors who will obediently put their money in the paper trap, only to see a surge followed by yet another mauling from soaring margin demands. After all, the CME needs trading volume to keep the cash flow flowing - killing the paper market in any one product suits nobody. Sure enough, moments ago, the CME once again cut margins in a slew of products, most notably gold and silver, by some 10% and 14%.

The equity markets, despite a verey modest drop so far today, continue to hang in despite slowing profits growth. David Rosenberg notes that while many tout the +6% YoY earnings growth, once adjusted for special factors, the growth rate in earnings is a meager 40bps! So, he notes, it appears not to be about earnings but about what investors are willing to pay for the earnings stream and lays out four reasons for the market's 'comfort'. However, while Mr. Market is catching on to the Fed's overt attempt to reflate the economy by reflating asset values, he warns, we have seen in the past how these cycles turn out - and whether you are a trend-follower or contrarian, take note of the overwhelming consensus across almost every asset class right now. Dow Theory advocates have been doing high-fives all year long as the S&P Industrials and Dow Transports make new highs, reinforcing the notion (mirage is more like it) of economic escape velocity, but Rosenberg has more than a few (EIGHT)  'anomalies' that show things are actually stagnating (or contracting) and don't pass his smell test.

Five full years on from the financial crisis, stock markets have regained lost ground and are within striking distance of new record highs. Yet, it’s only now, after all the gains from the bottom have been made, that the investing crowd is starting to put money back into stocks. Curious. When stocks were cheap, nobody wanted them. Now that they’ve breached record nominal highs again (Dow 14,000++), investors are piling back in. It’s almost a cliche, but to make money investing, you generally have to buy something when nobody else wants it, and sell when everyone wants to buy. As a group, gold stocks are down between 20% and 30% over the past year. Yet in that same timeframe, the price of the gold has risen. As a result, sentiment toward gold stocks is pitiful. Even diehard gold bugs are tired of losing money in gold stocks and have been dumping their shares in disgust. There are 4 main reasons I can think of why gold stocks might be so cheap...

Just as it was all tropical storm Sandy's fault for somehow impacting the national economy from California, to Florida, to Oregon and all the way to Vermont, but more importantly - giving economists a scapegoat on which to blame the acute weakness in economic data in the November timeframe, so tomorrow's "historic" blizzard will be the inevitable reason for which the economy will once again perform "below expectations." It will have nothing to do with the ongoing reign of authoritarian terror conducted by the residents of the Marriner Eccles building, which has made a baseline growth rate of 1% in the artificial economy an optimistic outcome. Because, as everyone knows, in a centrally-planned, priced to absolute perfection economy, no exogenous variables, such as snow storms in the middle of winter, can possibly be allowed or certainly factored for. Which is why expect to hear a whole lot more in the next 24 hours about Blizzard Nemo: after all propaganda patterning demands that everyone has a clear image of the perpetrator when the time comes to cast all blame on one single event and to distract from the real cause of now structural underlying economic weakness.

Thanks to Draghi's jawboning the correlated risk-off rampage that occurred into and through the open of the US day-session (as EUR plunged 200 pips) sent S&P futures back well below 1500 on serious volume. Of course, that was unacceptable and once Europe closed and POMO was done, S&P futures began their VIX-coupled liftathon. By the close, S&P cash ended just in the red for the week again - within a 3pt range of closes (1511, 1512, 1509) in the last 3 days. Risk-assets in general were more correlated early on in the dip and then de-correlated (surprise) as stocks lifted. ETFs across rates, stocks, vol, and credit held together; but the underlying markets did not play along as the USD flatlined and Treasury yields only rose modestly as stocks surged this afternoon. Gold and silver ended the day down (after a flurry of dips and rips as Draghi spoke). A late-day, well-timed AAPL press release provided some impetus, pushing Tech almost into the green on the week (as only Staples are so far). European stocks, bonds, and credit are all red for the year; US credit is red for the year; US macro is red for the year; and US stocks continue to believe (SPX +6%) - even as the USD (+0.5% YTD) has the biggest 4-day jump in 7 months!

We urge readers to read the bolded section below, which comes straight from this quariter's Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee (i.e., Primary Dealers) presentation to the Treasury Department, and explain, with a straight face, just how the Fed will ever be able to not only stop monetizing debt and injecting $85 billion of flow into the stock market, but actually sell any holdings.

"Apple's management team and Board of Directors have been in active discussions about returning additional cash to shareholders. As part of our review, we will thoroughly evaluate Greenlight Capital's current proposal to issue some form of preferred stock. We welcome Greenlight's views and the views of all of our shareholders."

If anyone was hoping that in the peak holiday month of December the US consumer would finally open up the purse strings and "charge" everything, we have bad news: in the last month of 2012 revolving consumer credit dipped by some $3.6 billion, a reversion of the modest increases seen in November and October, and the biggest decline in credit card debt since July of 2012. Yet overall consumer credit rose by some $14.6 billion and beat expectations of a $14 billion increase. Why? Because as we have been warning for quite a while, everyone is now piling into student debt (and NINJA Uncle Sam subprime car loans). Sure enough, non-revolving credit soared by $18.2 billion in December - a monthly record for this time series since its revision several months back - and shows that when it comes to levering up, few are using their credit cards, as increasingly more opt to rotate proceeds from their "student loans" into everyday purchases.

 A recent poll finds that a plurality of Americans would agree with a secret memo authorizing the droning of Banksters on a skeet shooting range.

In a surprise announcement, BoJ Governor Shirakawa announced that he will step down on 3/19 (a month ahead of schedule) and while Barclays notes that there had been talk at one point that Mr Shirakawa might step down in a bid to protect the BoJ’s independence in response to Mr Abe’s threats to revise the BoJ Act; the decision, however, appears to have been motivated by policy considerations (the desire to have the governor and deputies start together). At a time when Japan’s stockmarkets are celebrating JPY weakness, Mr Shirakawa’s move provided yet more bounce as the new BoJ leader is expected to be even more dovish. Abe's push for a new governor, however, is meeting resistance from his own cabinet and financial bureaucrats, who fear extreme measures from the central bank may trigger a damaging rise in bond yields. The tussle, which Reuters notes, is testing Abe's resolve, but lies between a slightly less dovish bureaucrat in Toshiro Muto (favored by the opposition) and a banker, Haruhiko Kuroda, who is a front-runner in Abe's camp. With Draghi's comments today, we suspect Abe will err on the side of uber-dovish to fight the currency wars alongside him.

Jeremy Grantham: "I like the analogy of the Fed beating a donkey (the 1% growing economy) for not being a horse (his 3% growing economy). I assume he keeps beating it until it either turns into a horse or drops dead from too much beating!"

Can you imagine successfully navigating the next decade ahead with a great system. We have arrived at a juncture that will require major efforts on the part of investors to reshape their investments. You see, we believe that major forces at work will be to the benefit of credits. We propose a structure that removes any debt based investments.

The insanity that has gripped policymakers all over the world really is a sight to see. There was a time when central bankers were extremely careful not to do anything that might endanger the currency's value too much – in other words, they were intent on boiling the frog slowly. And why wouldn't they? After all, the amount by which the citizenry is plucked via depreciation of the currency every year is compounding, so that the men behind the curtain extract more than enough over time. The latest example for the growing chutzpa of these snake-oil sellers is provided by Lord Adair Turner in the UK (as it faces its triple-dip recession) - who sees the current policy is evidently failing, so he naturally concludes that there should not only be more of it, but it should become more brazen by veering off into the 'Weimaresque'.