Archive - Apr 2013

Every two years the 50 states compete for the title of "Most Free State," and George Mason University's Mercatus Center rankings based on 200 factors generalized under Fiscal Policy, Regulatory Policy, and Personal Freedom, provide significant color on just how free (or not) the various states are. New Hampshire was the 'free-est' state in 2011 but fell to 4th this year as North Dakota is 2013's 'free-est' state. New York and California bring up the rear as the least free states but the following clip and charts show just where the freedom is spreading - Georgia, Arizona, and Idaho; and where it is not - Oregon, Kansas, and Colarado.

In the theory of rational expectations, human predictions are not systematically wrong. This means that in a rational expectations model, people’s subjective beliefs about the probability of future events are equal to the actual probabilities of those future events. Now, we think that rational expectations is one of the worst ideas in economic theory. It’s based on a germ of a good idea - that self-fulfilling prophesies are possible. Mainstream economic models often assume rational expectations, however. And if rational expectations holds, we could be in for a rough ride in the near future. Because an awful lot of Americans believe that a new financial crisis is coming soon - 75 percent of respondents said that it’s either very or somewhat likely that the country could have another financial crisis in the near future.

While the world twiddles it thumbs, buys stocks, and ignores any and every risk, tensions continue to mount on Korea. Bloomberg is reporting that:

*N. KOREA BANS S. KOREANS FROM ENTERING GAESEONG, S. KOREA SAYS
*N. KOREA ENTRY BAN HINDERS 'STABLE OPERATION' OF GAESEONG: KIM
*S.KOREA SAYS N. KOREA GAESEONG ENTRY BAN IS 'EXTREMELY SERIOUS'

The city of Gaeseong, due to its situation on the border, hosts cross-border economic exchanges ($2bn per year in trade for the impoverished North) between the two countries and is seen as "the last symbol of inter-Korean cooperation." In light of this, perhaps it is no surprise that the WSJ reports, the U.S. positioned a ship capable of shooting down ballistic missiles near the Korean peninsula amid South Korea demands that the military should "make a strong and swift response in initial combat without any political considerations."

There is no hope whatsoever of so-called U.S. "energy indepedence" unless three things happen. First, environmental rules have to be wound back to 1970 standards -- in other words, disband the EPA and make civil plaintiffs show actual harm, not just hypothetical harm because someone goofed on a sheaf of mandated paperwork. Second, stop wasting taxpayer money on nonsense like $25 per gallon biofuel. Third and most urgently, stop subsidizing Wall Street. Let the market decide what interest rates make sense, rewarding companies who can find and produce oil, instead of gorging themselves sick on artificially cheap junk bonds that money-losing shale swindlers will never pay off.

The ever-changing rules of the French 'tax-the-rich' socialist state have mad eyet another unintended consequence. Bloomberg reports that Prime Minister Jean-March Ayrault confirmed this evening that France's professional soccer players will be liable for the 75% 'surcharge' on salaries above EUR1 million. After the country’s top administrative court said any rate above 66% could be rejected as confiscatory, Hollande revived the tax, saying the rate would remain 75%, though it would be paid by corporations, not individuals, circumventing the courts’ objections. That solution left open the question of whether self- employed artists and athletes would be taxed - Ayrault confirmed it today. We suspect the transfer window will be wide open as soon as possible as "with these crazy labor costs, France will lose its best players, our clubs will see their competitiveness in Europe decline, and the government will lose its best taxpayers." Paris St. Germain, David Beckham's current team, has over a dozen players/coaches paid more than EUR1mm and with Zlatan Ibrahimovic at EUR15mm per year, we suspect the Swede will be heading back to England as soon as possible - or maybe Cyprus needs some players?

Biderman's back and belligerent as ever. The TrimTabs CEO is perplexed at Krugman's (empirically) flawed assumptions that the US government can manage the US economy (better than a free market), destroys Krugman's cornerstone argument that the deficit is reducing to sustainable levels (thanks only to a big jump in taxes and not growth), and suggest he win an award for perpetuating "The Big Lie" that deficits don't matter because 'we owe it to ourselves'. The bottom line is thanks to simple supply and demand, the Fed is blowing a huge bubble in stocks "that will explode," since the typical growth in incomes is not there. Biderman wholeheartedly agrees with David Stockman and goes on to warn of the "Ides of April" as, while many proclaim the calendar as indicative of it being a great month; in bull runs, he notes, taxpayers are 'trained' to sell at the last moment and with tax-day arriving soon, he expects this week to remain bid (on quarterly flows) and next week to be trouble (as taxes weigh).

Since taking over as party chairman Xi Jinping has repeatedly invoked the theme of the “Chinese Dream,” which heralds “the great revival of the Chinese nation.” During his first trip abroad, Xi gave a speech in Tanzania laying out his idea of “Africa Dream,” which entailed, among other things, “unity and achieving development through rejuvenation.” We have covered the race to re-colonize the African continent in depth while Xi's concepts are bound up with the growing economic influence China now exercises over Africa; African states would do well to be cautious in embracing Xi’s African Dream wholeheartedly. As innocuous as “Africa Dream” sounds, it signals a shift in which Beijing is pushing a revised form of its internal ideology on African countries. While the dissemination of such as term might result in policies that produce some domestic growth and rejuvenation in Africa, there is also the danger that it will come to resemble the CCP’s vision of the dream.

While everyone knows about the epic oversupply of dry bulk containerships as a result of the pre-bubble surge in charter rates (and subsequent collapse), which sent many shipping companies to an early bankruptcy or outright liquidation and also resulted in very depressed shipping rates for the last several years as the supply overhang continues to be cleared out of the system (coupled with still depressed end-demand for "dry" commodities) , few may be aware that in the past several months the same fate has befallen the oil-tanker industry. As Bloomberg reports, John Fredriksen's oil-tanker behemoth Frontline Ltd., said it’s rejecting some cargoes after a rout in rates for the vessels. "Frontline is offering tankers for charters “selectively” and the market is in a “state of panic” as excess ship supply drives down charter costs, Jens Martin Jensen, chief executive officer of the Hamilton, Bermuda-based company’s management unit, said by phone today." The reason for the charter rate crunch: plunging rates. "Crude rates remain in the doldrums,” RS Platou Markets AS, an Oslo-based investment bank, said by e-mail today. VLCCs earned $17,000 a day on average in the first quarter, down 32 percent from a year earlier, it said.  Fredriksen split Frontline Ltd. in two in December 2011, forming Frontline 2012 to withstand a slump in returns that put the original company at risk of running out of cash. Frontline Ltd.’s shares fell to the lowest since May 1999 last month and slumped 95 percent since the end of 2007.

I don't care how much money Japan prints. Those printing presses can't offset the powerful force of demographics, at least not for long.

There are four traits that UBS identified as common trends around the breakup of a monetary union. So has Cyprus (as is tirelessly pointed out, only 0.2% of the Euro area measured by GDP) set a course for the Euro’s destruction? Indeed, with Cyprus having checked the first three items on that list, while it has not left the Euro (yet), UBS concludes, "it may well be occupying a seat very close to the exit."

It has been a while since one had to track news of assorted real and false flag attacks involving Iran, Israel, Syria, Turkey, Gaza and various other middle-Eastern countries. That time is again here following news that an Israel tank fired into Syrian territory, supposedly in retaliation for a Syrian mortar hit in the Israeli-occupied Golan heights region (unclear if said mortar was launched by the domestic Al Qaeda-supported rebels, although we are confident the Assad army will surely get the blame as the story is further massaged). The Israel military was certainly busy today, with the Syrian retaliation just one of its military offensives today, the other being the first airstrike launched against Gaza by Israel since the bloody conflict in November which nearly resulted in an all out war, even if this particular offensive was not reported by its defense forces.

One of the hallmarks of the ongoing European economic depression has been the complete implosion in the continent's automotive sales (here and here) and as Reuters summarized last week, there is little hope of a rebound for a long, long time. Curiously, where Europe has seen complete devastation, the US has been surprisingly resilient, and even when factoring in for such traditional gimmicks as channel stuffing, performed most notoriously by GM, which in March had the second highest amount of cars parked on dealer lots in its post-bankruptcy history, car sales have been rather brisk which in turn has allowed the US to report manufacturing numbers which, until the recent PMI and ISM data, were better than expected. One does, wonder, however, how much of a factor for this has been the forward demand-pull impact of Hurricane Sandy in late 2012, when as a result of tens of thousands of cars being totaled in tri-state area flooding, consumers scrambled to car lots to buy new autos. Well, we may have found the reason for the recent disappointing performance in both the Chicago PMI and the Manufacturing ISM - the positive effect from Sandy is finally fading, as today's domestic car sales show, which posted a surprising decline in March, especially in non-Trucks which dipped to the lowest since October 2013, and the first miss in total light vehicle sales SAAR since October.

There is no stock bubble--Mr Bubbles

It all looked great as we held the overnight rampathon (driven by EURJPY fiddling) into the US open and yay verily, the media was celebrating (and kept their exuberance going til the close with the Dow at another all-time closing high). The S&P was amusingly (and oh so humanly) bid 7 points vertically into the close to ensure a VWAP close in the futures (and another new closing high for the S&P) as the Nasdaq bounced perfectly off unchanged from Cyprus levels. But away from that idiocy, things were not so great. Builders were battered out of the gate (-2.4% on the week); The Dow Transports never saw green all day dropping 1.3% (and now down 3% post-Cyprus) and while the broad Russell 2000 opened gap up (like the rest) it was slammed slower all day and ends -2% from pre-Cyprus (while the Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq hold 0.5-1% gains). Silver was monkey-hammered (on no news whatsoever - and record US Mint demand) down 4% on the week and gold slipped ending -1.3% (even with the USD retracing yesterday's weakness to close unchanged on the week). Treasuries drifted higher in yield with 7Y underperforming (but only unch on the week). VIX compressed but remains considerably dislocated from stocks' exuberance.

Presented with little comment but it would appear that it is not just the American investing public that believes in miracles as the Japanese and European equity markets are now fully disconnected from dismal macro reality...