Archive - Jul 25, 2013

Oh, But Yes We Can!

It turns out that the National Security Agency of the US can actually locate your cell phone even when it has been turned off and is no longer emitting a signal.

First we had Schordinger markets in which value is either zero or whatever the Fed says it is; then we got Schrodinger economies when China was both expanding and contracting at the same time; now we have Schrodinger military coups which are both a coup and not a coup, at least as far as the US is concerned. According to AP: "The Obama administration will tell lawmakers Thursday that it won't declare Egypt's government overthrow a coup, U.S. officials said." So why will the US claim the obvious military overthrow of Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood was a "democratic" process? Simple: it will allow the United States "to continue providing $1.5 billion in annual military and economic aid to the Arab world's most populous country." And why will the US continue providing Egypt with $1.5 billion in annual military aid? Simple: so Egypt can continue buying more Made In Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter jets to spread the Nobel Peace Prize winner's diplomatic agenda in the middle east. Because one must always think of the children GDP.

Following that press conference, it seems the sinking ship has had a few more rats quietly slink out through the back door... SAC Capital is a sea of red and grey Bloomberg Terminals that appears to confirm our earlier image of Mr. Cohen among his friends and colleagues.

"QE in my view is less efficacious for the real economy than most people suppose," may just be the sentence that ends Larry Summers' run at becoming the next 'most powerful person in the world'. As the FT reports, the chubby ex-chief economist for Obama made these, and other, somewhat hawkish comments (entirely unacceptable for a Federal Reserve chairman) at a conference in Santa Monica in April. 

The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, is about to do what so many iterations of prosecutors have dreamed of doing in the past three decades: announce criminal charges against SAC Capital, if not against its chief Steve Cohen (at least not yet). Watch him do it live at the following webcast.

While the conventional way of looking at hedge fund assets has traditionally been to simply add up the assets under management to estimate gross exposure, as so often happens conventional wisdom is wrong. Because what the "traditional" approach simplistically looks at is merely a fund's equity and ignores all leverage through assorted generic and "shadow" conduits such as repo, loans, rehypothecation, "hedging" and others. Luckily, as a result of Dodd-Frank, hedge funds were required to present their full market exposure when netting leverage as per an annual SEC form known as Form PF. It is here that we learn that SAC's market exposure, something very relevant now that the firm is facing an imminent or eventual winddown, is likely orders of magnitude above what the market believes.

If we analyze inflation by these two metrics (purchasing power - which declines as real income stagnates and prices rise - and by exposure to real costs), we find the middle class is increasingly exposed to skyrocketing real-world prices. Pundits in the top 5% have the luxury of pontificating on the accuracy of the CPI while those protected by government subsidies and coverage have the luxury of wondering what all the fuss is about. Only those 100% exposed to the real costs experience the full fury of actual inflation.

With capital controls like these who needs bank runs.

The Fed publicly claims it wants to help the economy and Main Street. However, as we are now discovering, the Fed is more than willing to sacrifice the good of the people in order to prop up a few insolvent big banks.  

According to media reports, the People's Bank of China is considering phasing out the dollar as the reference currency or peg for the yuan, and to start using gold as the reference point.

The reports have not been confirmed officially, but there has been official comments to that effect in recent years and Chinese academics have advocated backing the renminbi or yuan with gold.

Beijing's possible move to back the yuan with gold would be a strategic move in order to, lessen the risk of inflation, increase the yuan’s attractiveness as an investment medium and create faith in the yuan as a reserve currency.

Following the criminal indictment, Stevie Cohen suddenly finds himself surrounded by all of his newfound friends at Cummings Point Road 72...

Homebuilder stocks are down 4% on the week (and -6.3% from the FOMC) as D.R.Horton's CEO dares to utter some ugly truths on his earnings call. Despite any and every talking-heads reassurance that rising mortgage rates won't impact the awesomeness of the housing recovery, it seems the actual homebuilders have a different view:

• *HOMEBUYERS 'SHOCKED AND DISTURBED' BY RATE JUMP, TOMNITZ SAYS
• *D.R. HORTON CEO SAYS 'DISAPPOINTED' RATES ROSE SO 'VIOLENTLY'
• *D.R. HORTON CEO SAYS TRAFFIC COUNT HAS SLOWED SINCE RATE RISE

What? No? Un-Possible. With home prices collapsing (despite headlines trying their best to proclaim victory), it seems the fragile 'recovery' in an inventory-less housing market is about to pop once again (as we note, mortgage rates have not tracked lower as Treasuries un-Tapered).

With the posturing in full swing - and Hilsenrath's pontifications making front-pages - we thought we would look at who the 'market' believes is most likely to become the next Chair(wo)man of the Federal Reserve. While the headlines proclaim two front-runners, there is a clear leader at the moment...

When French President François Hollande (aka Mr. Flabby in the French press) announced just a few months ago while on a state visit to Japan that the EU recession was well and truly over