Archive - Mar 14, 2013

They didn't see it coming last time either.  Back in 2007, President Bush, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and just about every prominent voice in the financial world were all predicting that we would experience tremendous economic prosperity well into the future.  In fact, as late as January 2008 Bernanke boldly declared that "the Federal Reserve is not currently forecasting a recession."  At the time, only the "doom and gloomers" were warning that everything was about to fall apart.  And of course we all know what happened.  But just a few short years later, history seems to be repeating itself. All of our "leaders" swear that everything is going to be okay.  You can believe them if you want, but denial is not just a river in Egypt, and another crash is inevitably coming.

Beneath the positive headlines Bloomberg's Joe Brusuelas notes that there is evidence that a good portion of consumers continue to face a difficult adjustment to the $125 billion tax hike in January and the 15 percent increase in gasoline prices during the past four months. Spending among the upper quintile of income earners is masking weakness elsewhere but it is jobs headlines that are really hiding the dismal reality in America. As the following chart shows, confirming our earlier discussion, the middle-class income-earner is becoming an endangered species (with no 'conservation group' willing to stand up for them) as the government holds the lowest income earners' hand and Bernanke the highest.

The long-awaited tell-all is coming soon to an ebook near you soon - well in 2014. AP reports that none other than 'Turbo' Tim Geithner has an agreement with Crown Publishers (Random House) to publish his 'behind-the-scenes' account of the financial crisis. From his tenure at the NYFRB to his stint under Obama's wing, we can't wait for all the gossip - ...and then I said, "yes sir, whatever you want sir..." As Crown adds in its PR, "Secretary Geithner will chronicle how decisions were made during the most harrowing moments of the crisis, when policy makers faced a fog of uncertainty, risked catastrophic outcomes, and had no institutional memory or recent precedent to guide them." Should be a thriller... as he answers the all-important question of why (or not) but rest comfortably as he intends to "provide a 'playbook' that future policy makers can draw on." Given the success of Obama's odyssey, we humbly suggest Tim title the as-yet-untitled book, 'The Oddacity Of Hype'.

Not even the Fed pre-monetizing yesterday of today's 30 Year reopening auction could do much to improve demand for today's $13 billion sale in long-dated paper. Because if yesterday's 10 Year auction was a testament to demand from Direct and Indirect buyers, today's final auction of the week was anything but. Moments ago the Treasury sold $13 billion in 30 year paper, in a 29 year, 11 month reopening, of the infamous 912810QZ4 Cusip, and which priced at a high yield of 3.248%, the highest yield since last March's 3.381%, and more importantly 1.5 bps higher than the When Issued 3.233%. The internals explained why the demand in the primary market was just not there: Indirects got 42%, Dealer take down was 51.2%, which mean Direct bidders were allotted just 4.9% of the total. This was the lowest Direct allocation since September of 2009, and in stark contrast to yesterday's surge in 10 Year Direct bidders. Finally, the Bid to Cover came at 2.43, the lowest since August of 2012.

French government study: cost would be over three times GDP. Financially, France would cease to exist as we know it

In addition to the phenomenon of "foreclosure stuffing" described here extensively before, one of the main reasons for the artificial drop in housing supply has been the ongoing government-subsidized, GSE/FHFA endorsed REO-to-Rent initiative, through which large asset managers have been encouraged to take advantage of government funded, risk-free financing and purchase foreclosed properties in bulk, with the intention of converting them into rental properties. The REO-To-Rent has traditionally been open to the biggest of financial companies, or at least those who don't have the stigma of legacy mortgage origination resulting in billions in litigation reserves, which means mostly hedge funds and PE firms. One of the main players in the space, Och-Ziff, decided to pull out of the landlord business in October of last year because, as Reuters reported, "the returns it is generating from rental income are less than expected and it is looking to take advantage of a recent rebound in home prices in northern California." In other words, selling while the selling is good. Of course, there is another, far more traditional way to offload risk while preserving some of the upside: dump the balance sheet exposure to others while giving them a fraction of the potential upside yield. This is precisely what the big banks were doing during the last housing bubble when massive residential mortgage-backed security portfolios were packaged, spliced, securitized (sometime without the feedback of firms like Paulson pre-shorting the MBS courtesy of firms like Goldman) and sold off to other yield-starved investors. Everyone knows how that ended. So fast forward to today, when this final missing link from the credit and housing bubble is finally here too, following news that mega-PE firm Blackstone is pushing forward with the first ever REO-To-Rental securitization.

Government to Spy On Everyone Who Banks In the U.S.

The “Fix” Is In?

Two of the key characteristics of an empire in terminal decline are complacency and intellectual sclerosis, what we have termed a failure of imagination. (The others are military over-reach, chronic deficits, a parasitic Elite that is immune to what's left of the rule of law, weak leadership, mass dependence on the Central State and excessive consumption.) It is important to discuss alternatives before the Status Quo devolves and collapses, so we have an intellectual framework to guide healthier, more sustainable alternatives once the current system implodes.

It seems more likely to Morgan Stanley's Gerard Minack that central bankers may win the battle: sustaining recovery in developed economies with extraordinarily loose monetary policy. For a while this would go hand-in-hand with better equity performance. The battle is against a crisis caused by too loose monetary policy, elevated debt and mis-priced risk. Ironically, he notes, central bankers may overcome these problems by running even looser monetary policy, encouraging a new round of levering up, and fresh mis-pricing of risk. However, winning the battle isn't winning the war. If central bankers do win this round, the next downturn could be, in Minack's view, an omnishambles. In short, it seems more likely that central bankers may add another leg to the credit super-cycle. The key question for investors in this scenario is when (and how) this cycle may end, and Minack's hunch is that this cycle is already closer to 2006 than 2003.

A few weeks ago we pointed out something curious: despite the so-called massive "slack" in the US economy - the traditional alibi used by Bernanke & Co. to justify ongoing endless QE, labor productivity has slumped while labor costs have soared at the fastest pace in 11 months. This is a result that is directly at odds with the assertion that the structural unemployment for the US is still at 5%, and indicates that the New Normal baseline jobless rate is more likely well above, perhaps in the mid to higher 7% range (which also means that the Fed will never voluntarily end QE as the unemployment will not drop to 6.5%, and as for inflation, well, there's BLS' Arima-X-12 goalseeker for that). While the immediate implication of this is that central planning has merely broken yet one more law, that of Okun which maps productivity to GDP, a topic we have covered in the past, there is another aspect to what lies in the future, which is the topic of Albert Edwards' letter today. In it, he observes as we do, the rising labor costs, and the inherent inflationary pressures these bring, yet his thesis is that any inflation will be short-lived, and that unlike the mainstream which is advocating for a rotation out of bonds (apparently falling on deaf ears as inflows into bond funds are once more far greater than those into equities), he is suggesting to stay invested in bonds.

Why do I bring all of this up? Because it was China’s stimulus and China’s economy that supposedly lead the world back towards growth again. China is the proverbial canary in the coalmine, the economy that most quickly reveals what’s coming and where we’re all heading…

The United States is expected to lead the pack among non-OPEC members in terms of oil supply growth for 2013. That's the assessment from this month's market report from the Vienna-based cartel. OPEC, in its forecast, said U.S. oil supply growth is projected at 600,000 bpd this year. That figure, however, is 40,000 bpd less than the previous year. The Vienna-based cartel said U.S. oil growth could go either way for 2013, but noted growth from tight oil developments in states like North Dakota is expected to slow down. While improved drilling technology may offset some of that decline, OPEC said that factors like price issues may dampen the oil boom in the United States.

Inside the FOMC...

Yesterday we noted the fact that China's Shanghai Composite was now red for 2013 as inflationary fears once again raise the odd specter of a central bank suggesting less than orgasmic expansion of its free money. While the 'Pisani's of the world see the relative outperformance as some 'rotation' in the smart money, we humbly suggest he take a trip down memory lane and note how rapidly the so-called 'smart money' reverted to China's lead in the last few years as the lack of an inflation shock absorber led the PBoC to pull back and implicitly drag on the world's equity market-based linearly-extrapolated economic growth hopes. As a reminder, it's never different this time.