Archive - Jul 15, 2013

By now everyone knows that when all else fails with propaganda data manipulation, the US government goes right to Plan B: the X-12-ARIMA seasonal adjustment program (full 257 instruction manual here). It most certainly did that in June. The chart below shows the June difference between Seasonally Adjusted and Non-Seasonally Adjusted headline data: a positive number means that contrary to the empirical seasonal adjustment data of the past 15 years, NSA was lower than SA, implying an abnormal boost to seasonal adjustments to make June appear far, far better than the actual NSA data implies. Well, try to find which June of the past 15 is an outlier...

Wild price swings in a market of this size (that is often leveraged at 80 to 1 or even 100 to 1) mean massive amounts of wealth evaporating instantly. Historically, currencies are the first asset class to register when the system is in big trouble. These wild swings in the US Dollar are a major red flag that trouble is beginning to brew behind the scenes in the financial system.

If the worst retail sales number in 12 months doesn't send the S&P to 1,700 nothing will. Because that is precisely the data point we got moments ago when the Census bureau reported June retail sales growth of 0.4%, missing expectations of a 0.8% print and down from a downward revised 0.5%. However, the only growth in the headline number was thanks to auto and gas sales. Ex autos retail sales were unchanged on expectations of a 0.5% increase, while ex autos and gas the print was down -0.1%, crushing hopes of a +0.4% increase. Any minute now, however, the Fed's S&P500 trickle down wil, with a 4 year delay, hit the end consumer: the entire Princeton economics department pinky swears.

Wednesday and Thursday of last week were the US 10yr and 30yr auctions.  These auctions (combined with the price action in the secondary market leading up to the auctions) are the best times to gauge demand for UST paper.

Everyone wants to know what day everything will change. Despite all the chaos in Portugal, Greece, Spain, and France; none of this will matter until after this drop-dead date. Nothing is going to be allowed to upset the bratwurst cart and we mean nothing. If more money is needed it will be spent. If favors need to be called the phone will be in use. But in the day following, however...

Once again, as always happens with a very substantial delay, two themes that have been covered extensively on these pages in the past much to the ridicule of the mainstream media, namely that while the US may have "No Manufacturing Jobs But More Waiters And Bartenders Than Ever" and that Obamacare has finally struck as "Part-Time Jobs Surge To All Time High; Full-Time Jobs Plunge By 240,000" are now begrudgingly covered and in fact, endorsed, by the very same MSM. Enter the Wall Street Journal which blends the two themes well known to our readers, and writes that "More Restaurants Replace Full-Timers, Concerned About Insurance." To wit: "Ken Adams has been turning to more part-time workers at his 10 Subway sandwich shops in Michigan to avoid possibly incurring higher health-care costs under the new federal insurance law. He added approximately 25 part-time workers in May and June as he reduced some employees' hours and replaced other workers who left. The move showed how efforts by some restaurant owners and other businesses to remake their workforces because of the Affordable Care Act may be turning the country's labor market into a more part-time workforce." In other words, the already worst paying jobs in the US are getting even more of the shaft, downgraded from full time to part time status. Precisely the New "part-time worker society" that we predicted would happen back in 2010...

• An actual Bloomberg headline: Granny’s Gold Bars Are Key to Vietnam Push to Boost Dong (BBG)
• Gay delivers further body blow to troubled sport (Reuters)
• China Wealth Eludes Foreigners as Stocks Earn 1% in 20 Years (BBG)
• Bernanke Boom Signaled by Yield Surge as Market Recalculates (BBG)
• Portugal's Parties Set Deadline for Pact (WSJ)
• Corporate Spending Set to Surge in U.S. (BBG)... or not at all based on the actual corporate data
• Legal Fears Slowed Aid to Syrian Rebels (WSJ)
• A mega-camp adds to the Boy Scouts’ troubles (Reuters)
• GSK accused of being ‘ringleader’ in China probe (FT)
• 19 Hospitalized in US-Ukraine Army Exercise - Ministry (RIA)
• Egypt Islamists march as senior U.S. official visits (Reuters)
• German spies made use of U.S. surveillance data (Reuters)

Risk assets are not quite (yet) back to the ‘melt-up' of May but equity markets are trading in a confident mood after Bernanke caused sentiment to flip from glass ‘half empty' to ‘half full'. China Q2 GDP data did not derail price action as equity futures anticipate a positive start of the week. The semi-annual testimony of the Fed Chairman is typically a seminal event on the market calendar but do we dare say that the one coming up this week is a non-event following last week's message on policy accommodation? The VIX index dropped 7 points over the last three weeks of which 2 points alone came last Thursday and Friday as stocks roared to new highs and shrugged off the candid observation on the Chinese economy by finance minister Lou Jiwei. If a 6.5% growth rate is tolerable in the future, there is little doubt that commodities and the AUD have further to fall. Chinese GDP slowed from 7.7% to 7.5% according to data released overnight and prospects for the second half don't look much brighter after evidence of slowing credit growth. Data on Friday showed declines of narrow money from 11.3% yoy to 9.1% in May, with broad money growth slowing to 14% yoy. Non-bank credit and new foreign currency bank lending also weakened.