Archive - May 13, 2013

Despite the aura of control, Fed officials (and casual observers) may sense things spinning out of control. Of course, hyper-fragility is exactly the effect that all the Fed’s own actions would predictably lead to. When you divorce truth from reality, strange things are bound to happen. There is one thing that we know for sure in this strange period when bankers have tried to manage reality in the absence of truth: that advanced industrial-technological economies designed to run on $20-a-barrel oil can’t run on $100-a-barrel oil, and that is why the US economy was subject to financialization in the first place - to offset declining productive activity by an attempt to get something for nothing. The world is about to find out that you really can’t get something for nothing. It will be a harsh lesson.

A Banzai7 Exclusive...

IRS Targeted those Educating Americans "on the Constitution and Bill of Rights", or "Government Spending,  Government Debt or Taxes" or Anyone Working to “Make America a Better Place To Live”

If we’ve learned one thing over the years from following markets, economics, and geopolitics is this: no man can push the Wheels of History. It unfolds in its own time and no other. The waves of human emotion, of optimism and pessimism both long and short term haven’t changed. So why are the markets still going up? Why can’t people respond to warnings of the blogosphere, or warnings of collapsing economies and accounts right before their eyes? Answer: Because they can’t. It isn’t time - yet... Human emotions and behavior run in cycles of set period. Obviously humankind cannot become infinitely more optimistic forever into the future. In the same way trees don’t grow to the sky, at some point human expectation must reverse and become less optimistic, more conservative and pessimistic until it reaches an opposite extreme. And this theory has a lot going for it: if governments truly controlled stock markets, economies, nations, then why would they ever decline? No government or market would ever voluntarily get smaller, less powerful, and prosperous. And yet despite everything they can do to prevent them, markets and economies always, always DO reverse. Always.

Premia for gold bars (physical over paper) rallied to their highest since late-2008 according to SocGen, even as 'professional' investors look to position the exact other way. The combined short positions of futures and options speculators in COMEX gold is now at a record high for the third week (having surged from 4.3 million ounces in late September to a a stunning 13.9 million ounces short now. At the same time, Gold ETFs have only seen one in-flow day in the last 34 days. It seems investors are well-and-truly on one side of this boat - even as price continues to buck the supposed structural weakness.

Meet the new "WMD" whose merest ownership is sufficient to get you arrested. That and having an Arabic sounding name of course.

Out of the gate and then again soon after the EU close, shorts were forced to cover this morning but in the last few minutes, the 'most shorted' names in the Russell 2000 have plunged...

There is no plan, no scheme that the Fed can concoct for exiting their support for the U.S. economy that will not negatively affect both the bond and equity markets and have a positive effect on the Dollar. The markets have relied upon the manna from Heaven to rise and virtually nothing else. The American economy cannot justify either the absolute levels of yield or the compression that has taken place or the lofty levels of our stock markets. All of this has had a single driver which is the Fed. The Fed has spent four years providing gifts for those that borrow and for the banks while penalizing those who save and invest. What one group gained the other lost. Now the Fed faces the dilemma of its own making; how to gradually exit their current strategy without setting the financial markets on their rear ends.

Another day, another US city on the brink of insolvency. This time it's Detroit, whose recently appointed emergency financial manager Kevyn Orr said may run out of cash next month and must cut costs such as long-term debt and retiree obligations. According to Bloomberg, "Orr’s report says the cost of $9.4 billion in bond, pension and other long-term liabilities is sapping the ability to provide such basic services as public safety and transportation. He listed cutting debt principal, retiree benefits and jobs among options he may take. “No one should underestimate the severity of the financial crisis,” He called his report "a sobering wake-up call about the dire financial straits the city of Detroit faces."

Presented with little comment aside to remember what we said the market ignored in 2007... and as a reminder, we warned last night that the Hilsenrath article would be spun to the equity-eating retail public as a positive (just another reason to buy stocks)...

Not much to add here. If there still is any confusion why China is desperately manipulating its economic data, so balatantly in fact that virtually everyone has now noticed, this chart should put all doubt to rest. According to CLSA's Chris Wood using NEA data, China's monthly power consumption (the most accurate proxy for underlying economic strength according to the current premier) growth slowed from 5.5% YoY in Jan-Feb 2013 to 1.9% YoY in March, the slowest growth rate since May 2009 (as discussed in-depth here).

The Fed knows this and is now trying to prepare the market for withdrawal. But the market is on total life support from the Fed. Take away the Fed punchbowl and the party stops.

The irony that the 'no taxation without representation' nation's Prime Minister David Cameron is on stage with President Obama amid the IRS-Gate scandal is not lost on us... We are sure the President will distance himself at pace from the witch-hunt - though it could get awkward on stage with the British PM looking on.

Neither side wants to talk about the real lesson of Benghazi: interventionism always carries with it unintended consequences. The US attack on Libya led to the unleashing of Islamist radicals in Libya. These radicals have destroyed the country, murdered thousands, and killed the US ambassador... Previously secure weapons in Libya flooded the region after the US attack, with many of them going to Islamist radicals who make up the majority of those fighting to overthrow the government in Syria. The US government has intervened in the Syrian conflict on behalf of the same rebels it assisted in the Libya conflict, likely helping with the weapons transfers... The real lesson of Benghazi will not be learned because neither Republicans nor Democrats want to hear it. But it is our interventionist foreign policy and its unintended consequences that have created these problems, including the attack and murder of Ambassador Stevens. The disputed talking points and White House whitewashing are just a sideshow.

what does it mean?