Archive - Mar 7, 2013

Brian Sack, he who held the fattest finger on the Fed's green buy button until Simon Potter and his young protege Kevin Henry stepped into those prodigious shoes, has landed a role at mega quant fund D.E.Shaw. As Reuters reports, the former head of the Fed's Market Group will be the co-Director of Global Economics. The fund, with its reputation for mathematical modeling and computer-driven trading over short-term horizons will, we are sure, benefit from Sack's empirical ability to stomp on the throat of the VIX and tinker with VWAPs, though we hope he lasts longer than Larry Summers did. Of course, this almost guarantees that former-D.E.Shaw alum Jeff Bezos' Amazon.com share price will continue to surge as its fundamental performance plunges. The Plunge Protection Team, it appears, is in strong demand, though we hope someone explains that maybe D.E.Shaw does have a MtM policy (and not unlimited balance sheet).

The World Gold Council noted that central banks increased gold buying 17% to 534.6 tons last year.

Central banks are among the shrewd investors who buy gold bullion on dips. It was reported that South Korea bought 20 tonnes of gold last month rumoured to be below the $1,600/oz mark. This is the first purchase this year for South Korea, after they purchased 30 tonnes in 2012.  Previously they purchased in July 2012 at the same price levels.

ICI recently released their retirement plan data through Q3 of 2012 - including IRA's, defined contribution plans, private defined benefit plans, state and local government pension plans, federal pension plans, and annuities. The good news is that the liquidity induced rally over the last four years has finally, along with plan matches and contributions, recovered much of the lost value that occurred during the financial crisis in 2008.  The bad news is, as shown below, that on average each working age person has roughly only $79,651 saved up for retirement and is no better off today than they were in 1999. There are two major problems that arise from this.  The first is that for individuals trying to save for their retirement they have lost 14 years of irreplaceable time to do so. Secondly, consumption makes up roughly 70% of the overall economy - and with the average income at roughly $55,000 per year - retirees have little margin of error with only 18 months of incomes saved up in retirement plans.

Checkmate, Fed. You’re spending over $100 million per day to create a grand illusion. Stocks are hitting new all time highs, but none of us are any richer for it.

No, this is not about Dick Bove's Buy recommendation of Lehman days ahead of the bankruptcy, or what seems like his "Buy" rating on Bank of America since the end of World War II, or 4 years after Bove's birth. No: we have a special surprise for readers out of the overhyped banking analyst, who still inexplicably appears on various TV outlets, even if the anchors have a tough time remembering just what firm he is with these days. So, without further ado, here is Bove's take on the single worst merger in the history of the financial industry: that between Bank of America and the toxic mortgage factory Countrywide Financial.

Many see a rising US stock market and a weaker euro and conclude the correlation has broken down. Well, it did break down, but it has risen more recently. Correlation is a statistical relationship not something than can easily be eyeballed.

Let's try to spin this: "Gas demand is plunging on a soaring economy, a record DJIA and a more resilient consumer"... Hm, no, that didn't work. Let's give it another try: "Surge in sales of flaming paperweights known as Chevy Volts leads to a plunge in gasoline demand." Uh, no. One last try: "Consumers migrate to Flintstonemobiles, gas up what internal combustion engine cars they have with redbull vodka"... Sorry, we suck at this "spin" stuff -  we will leave it to CNBC. They are the real pros.

Imagine the following: you read in a newspaper that a group of investors has sold US dollars to the tune of $820 million over the past two months for other currencies. This incidentally represents approximately 0.082% of the broad dollar money supply TMS-2 (which amounts to roughly $9.3 trillion at present). It means they would have been selling roughly $20 million per trading day. You then learn that $4 trillion of US dollars are traded in global currency markets every single trading day. Would you believe that their selling has influenced the exchange value of the dollar beyond a rounding error? And yet, we are supposed to believe that the selling of an equivalent amount of gold from the gold holdings of exchange traded funds over the past two months (they have sold 140 tons, or 0.082% of the total global gold supply) has greatly influenced the gold price.

So much for that December plunge in the US trade deficit, which plunged from $48.6 billion to three year low of $38.5 billion supposedly on a drop in energy imports, but in reality was due to a drop in broad imports as the US economy ground to a halt ahead of the Fiscal Cliff. In January, or after the stop gap measure to allow the economy to continue, things went back to normal, with the US returning to doing what it does best: importing, especially importing expensive energy, and sure enough the deficit spiked promptly back to $44.4 billion - it recent long-term average - as exports were $2.2 billion less than December exports of $186.6 billion while January imports were $4.1 billion more than December imports of $224.8 billion. Immediate result: look for banks to trim 0.2-0.3% GDP points from their Q1 GDP forecasts.

Initial claims were expected to rise modestly to 355k from last week's noisy 344k print (which was revised up) but instead (seasonally-adjusted of course) they improved to 340k (from a revised 347k). However, non-seasonally-adjusted claims rose at their fastest rate of the year. Adding further confusing salt to the wound, as we noted here, it seems Okun's Law is broken, with productivity dropping at its fastest since Dec 2008, unit labor costs surging at their fastest since in 11 months - and all with GDP going nowhere and initial claims improving.

No change, no change. Disappointing some who hoped for more of Zee Stabilitee and less denomination risk as EUR loses 1.30, we suspect Draghi will see this as a non-inflationary positive, pat himself on the back for a job well done, urge the Italians to get it together in his independent way, and hint, promise, jawbone, talk-loudly-and-carry-a-big-stick but do nothing. Chatter is of easing collateral requirements to include used Italian voting slips and old Spanish passports but we will have to see...

The markets are where they are for one reason only, just one, the sea of money that the central banks have poured out across the globe. There is no other reason. Money flows into the corporations, money flows into the markets and the tide rises because it must but it is a House of Cards, a dangerous game that works because there is no place else to go with money and the euphoria, New Year’s Eve at the Big Casino, continues but the price will be high when it all ends and it will end because it is not this or that asset class that is in a bubble but the entire world that is a giant soap bubble that will float until the heat of the sun pops the thing in one ugly mess. I fear that subprime loans, dot.com fantasies, and the S&L crisis will pale when we are done with this party because, my friends, the bill for the festivities must get paid. Watch the hat; the rabbit will be coming out soon.

It is no secret that one of the main reasons why Italy's former PM, and resurgent soon to be member of government, Silvio Berlusconi, is so adamant to be in parliament, is simply to obtain the immunity he would need to stay out of prison as a result of countless lawsuits which he has valiantly fought, and lost. As of this morning, a rather convenient time for sure just as Italy is preparing to create a coalition government, Silvio has one more lawsuit he will need to appeal, and evade in Parliament, following news that he was convicted in a 2006 wiretapping scandal, and will have to serve a one year prison sentence. Will he serve even one day? Of course not - the appeals process alone will take at least several years, and when that runs out, well, the 76 year old Silvio is a billionaire, and will have ample opportunity to spend his money to buy himself enough freedom to last him until the end of his life.

As was largely expected by the sell-side, the ECB kas kept all three key rates unchanged. From the ECB:

At today’s meeting the Governing Council of the ECB decided that the interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility will remain unchanged at 0.75%, 1.50% and 0.00% respectively.

The President of the ECB will comment on the considerations underlying these decisions at a press conference starting at 2.30 p.m. CET today.

It is expected that Draghi will tone down his expectations at the press conference in 45 minutes, although what actual steps he will take as opposed to just talking even more, is unclear. As for JPM, which was alone among those calling for a rate cut, it will promptly pull reality's margin and bankrupt the real world, leading to a new, better world, one in which JPM is the only entity.

As Morpheus said to Neo in the film The Matrix:  You still think that is air you are breathing?