Archive - May 2013

When you step back and look at the long-term trends, it is undeniable what is happening to us.  We are in the midst of a horrifying economic decline that is the result of decades of very bad decisions.  30 years ago, the U.S. national debt was about one trillion dollars.  Today, it is almost 17 trillion dollars.  40 years ago, the total amount of debt in the United States was about 2 trillion dollars.  Today, it is more than 56 trillion dollars.  At the same time that we have been running up all of this debt, our economic infrastructure and our ability to produce wealth has been absolutely gutted.  Since 2001, the United States has lost more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities and millions of good jobs have been shipped overseas.  Our share of global GDP declined from 31.8 percent in 2001 to 21.6 percent in 2011.  The percentage of Americans that are self-employed is at a record low, and the percentage of Americans that are dependent on the government is at a record high.  The U.S. economy is a complete and total mess, and it is time that we faced the truth.

UPDATE: As if by magic, the 'spike' lower has been fully retraced with a 'spike' higher. Of course, in the preceding sentence one should replace "magic" with a selling algo suddenly taking out the bid stack simple because it is programmed to do so, only for another algo to step in and try to make the entire move less obvious, in the process showing just how much of a farce price discovery in paper gold has become...

With markets quiet, what better time than now to smash the 'price' of spot gold lower than the moment US futures close and all that is left are a few Spot FX traders. Of course this makes perfect sense for any 'rational' bullion seller looking to unwind a position (or even a short looking to set out a decent trade) - wait until there is no liquidity so that your price action culls the order book and leaves you with anything but 'best execution' - but then again, when you don't have to worry about MtM, that doesn't matter. It seems that while the volume cat's away, the gold manipulators will play...

Just like last year, when it was the turn of Europe-focused crushed and battered hedge funds to generate outsized returns due to some brief ECB-inspired euphoria, if only for a brief period, and then promptly fall back into obscurity, so now it is the time of the "Japan" strat. As the latest HSBC hedge fund performance report confirms, the best YTD returns are, as expected, those for Japan-focused funds. So how are the legacy titans of the hedge fund world doing? The answer is in the table below: of the vast majority of hedge funds, only a handful are outperforming the market year to date. This is becoming a major concern for an industry that has underperformed the S&P for the fifth year in a row, and which has to fight tooth and nail to justify its exorbitant fees in a world in which there is noneed to hedge any risk any more: after all, Ben Bernanke has everyone covered. One fund that has nothing to worry about is Dan Loeb's Third Point as it continues its juggernaut of crushing both returns and competition without pause.

Bitcoin has made significant progress towards becoming the world's first truly global currency over the past few years. To gain better perspective on bitcoin’s impact, we took a look at global wallet downloads, demonstrated interest by region, exchange volumes across currencies, mining node locations, real-world interactions around bitcoin, and the major companies and investors pushing the bitcoin economy forward. Perhaps most intrguingly, interest from China has grown extremely rapidly in the last 30 days.

While Japanese stocks plummet further during the admittedly thin European day session extending their losses from the Japan day-session, it seems the cats have been herded to the next high beta junk market - European sovereign bonds. Spanish and Italian bonds rallied 12bps today for their best day in over a month! European stock markets also benefited from Mrs. Watanabe's scramble ending the day up around 1% (Italy +1.4% despite Grillo's comments on the inevitability of a debt restructuring). Amid all this euphoria, European corporate and financial credit markets were not playing along at all. US equity futures got a helping hand from a ridiculous shunt in AUDJPY and CADJPY (FX carry) which lifted S&P futures 10 points off overnight lows. Treasury futures drifted tick-for-tick lower with S&P futures gains (implying around 3-4bps rise in yields). Obviously volumes were light and markets were thin. The USD is ending unchanged as JPY corrects lower and AUD higher but Gold and Silver are up 0.5% and 1.2% respectively.

"It's highly debatable whether AAPL iCloud is making the inroads that they predicted..."

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who died in service to their country. The holiday was officially proclaimed in 1868 to honor Union and Confederate soldiers and was expanded after World War I to honor those who died in all wars. Today, Memorial Day honors over one million men and women who have died in military service since the Civil War. This infographic compiles statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Defense to honor our men and women who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces.

Markets are starting to price the removal of the unprecedented policy stimulus provided by the Fed. Investors have faced this situation several times in recent years, but as Barclays notes, these prior episodes lacked broad consensus and proved short-lived as further risks to the global recovery quickly re-appeared. The edginess of markets to ebbs and flows in the data and Fed communications in recent months suggests this time is different. Market movements are saying the Fed’s exit is now more ‘when’ than ‘if’. Fed actions have led to some of the most extraordinary market moves on record. Nominal US bond yields are at historically low levels, and real yields have been negative for a prolonged time. Risky assets, by contrast, have rallied sharply, supported by central bank policy even in the face of poor economic data. If the Fed is preparing for an exit, these market moves may need to go in reverse...

Russia, Greece, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan expanded their gold reserves for a seventh straight month in April, buying bullion to diversify foreign exchange reserves due to concerns about the dollar and the euro. Russia’s steady increase in its gold reserves saw its holdings, the seventh-largest by country, climb another 8.4 metric tons to 990 tons, taking gains this year to 3.4% after expanding by 8.5% in 2012, International Monetary Fund data show.  Kazakhstan’s reserves grew 2.6 tons to 125.5 tons, taking the increase to 8.9% this year after a 41% expansion in 2012, data on the website showed. Turkey’s holdings rose 18.2 tons to 427.1 tons in April, increasing for a 10th month as it accepted gold in its reserve requirements from commercial banks.  Belarus’s holdings expanded for a seventh month as did Azerbaijan’s. Interestingly, Greece’s gold holdings climbed for a fourth month, according to the IMF data.   This could be a sign of rising economic nationalism in Greece or that the Greek central bank realises that if Greece leaves the euro and is forced back onto the drachma that gold reserves will offer a modicum of protection. Only a modicum, because Greece’s gold reserves remain miniscule especially considering the scale of their debts. 

As if the overnight session in Japan was not bad enough, futures markets are indicating yet more weakness from the market that seemed (until 3 days ago) incapable of falling. With a 14.3% drop from its May 22nd highs, Japan's Nikkei 225 is struggling to find buyers for this dip. What is interesting is the bid for European peripheral debt and equity markets this morning and the bounce in US futures (with no commensurate move in JPY which is hovering around 101). Gold and Silver are up around 1% with the USD unchanged. Treasury Futures imply a rise of 1-2bps in yield.

Once upon a time in the good old U.S. of A, way back in the 19^th century, there were gigantic companies that were known as trusts. We had trusts for Steel, we had trusts for oil, we had trusts for railroads, and we had trusts for just about everything except trust itself.

With US markets taking a day off today for Memorial Day, liquidity will be even more sporadic than usual, and any sharp moves will be that much more accentuated, although such a likelihood is minimal with all US traders still in the Hamptons. In an otherwise very quiet overnight session, perhaps the most notable move was that of the USDJPY, which continues to be "strangely attracted" to the 101 line although selling pressure is certainly to the downside, with a downside breakout quite possible, however that would lead to an early and very unpleasant end to Abe's latest 'experiment' (to quote Weidmann). The Nikkei225 already closed down 470 points, or 3.22%, as Mrs. Watanabe's faith in the market, seems to be fading with every passing day.

It has just been released that the UK came within 6 hours of seeing itself deprived of its eggs and bacon as gas supplies across the entire country depleted to danger levels on March 22nd.

There may be a rotten little maggot in Apple wiggling its way out as the EU antitrust-violation commission starts an inquiry after having been contacted by industry participants. Apple’s contracts with EU cellphone carriers are stricter than usual and in the face of popularity of the iPhone, those carriers have had little all else to do but to sign on the dotted line.