Archive - Jul 25, 2013

Goodbye sweet blue-eyed prince. It's been bittersweet. Just out from Bloomberg and Reuters:

• SAC CAPITAL ADVISORS INDICTED BY FEDERAL GRAND JURY IN NEW YORK
  
• COHEN'S HEDGE FUND, SUBORDINATES SUBJECT OF CRIMINAL INQUIRY
  
• U.S. SEEKS TO FORCE SAC TO FORFEIT ILLEGAL PROFITS STEMMING FROM FRAUD 
  
• U.S. SAYS THAT FROM ROUGHLY 1999 TO 2010, SAC OBTAINED AND TRADED ON INSIDE INFORMATION TO BOOST RETURNS, FEES

Perhaps now is a good time to retreat to the hockey rink behind 9 feet of electrified fence, before the TV newsvans arrive at 72 Cummings Point road. As for what happens to the 5-10% of daily NYSE volume traditionally associated with the SAC, we will find out soon enough.

Whenever the annual change in core capex, also known as Non-Defense Capital Goods excluding Aircraft shipments goes negative, the US has traditionally entered a recession. Where is this number now: +0.8%, and declining fast. Feeling lucky?

We need to think about lessening the economic “skin-in-the-game” for RMBS and focusing anew on enforcing US securities laws... 

One look at the June headline Durable Goods number today would have been enough to send algos into a buying spasm: printing at 4.2% it was three times greater than the forecast 1.4%, and followed an upward revised 5.2% (previously 3.6%). However, as always, there was a footnote: the entire Durable goods number was due to one thing: Boeing aircraft orders and other transportation equipment which have risen by a whopping $20 billion in the past two months, from $67 to $87 billion, or growth rates of 14.8% and 12.8%. Put another way, of the $21 billion increase in overall Durable Goods since April (from $223 billion to $244 billion), $20 billion is due to transportation equipment (from $67 billion to $87 billion). Sure enough, the June Durable Goods order ex-transports missed expectations of a 0.5% increase and was flat compared to May.

Another week, another prior revision down and rise week-over-week in the initial claims data but the print was a modest beat. The smoother 4-week average has now hovered around 345k for 9 weeks as the down-trend of the year-to-date appears to have stalled (for now). Continuing claims dropped back from its July 4th aberration. We worry that with top-line revenues missing significantly in the most recent earnings season, firms will be left once again with only one option to meet Wall Street's EPS demands and wonder if the flat trend in claims for over 2 months now reflects that wait-and-see mode for layoffs (or hirings).

Yesterday, ahead of the monthly update from the ECB, we posted "What Keeps Mario Draghi Up At Night, And Why The European Depression Has A Ways To Go" in which we showed that not only has M3 in Europe terminally broken apart from bank lending to the Euroarea private sector, but that lending to European banks was growing at the slowest annual pace on record. Today, the ECB showed that Draghi's unpleasant dream is becoming a full-blown nightmare with M3 sliding from a 2.9% growth rate in May to just 2.3% in June, suggesting that whatever the ECB is (not) doing is not working and yet another stimulus round is imminent. However, putting into question whether even such a stimulus would do anything, is the fact that actual private sector lending contracted even more, and in June declined from a previous record pace of -1.1% to a new record low of -1.6%. In other words, not only is Europe's Keynesian debt trap getting bigger by the month, but the European monetary plumbing system is completely and perhaps permanently fractured.

When we first reported about the tragic Spanish train crash the tally of casualties was 35. It has since doubled to 78 and will likely keep rising. However, judging by the severity of the crash, which can be seen on the just released CCTV video below, it is probably a miracle that orders of magnitude more were not killed.

Tens of billions in cold, hard cash was shuffled around just prior to 9-11 by none other than the Fed itself, then the Fed economist who exposed it was fired.

• The Department of Justice has opened an initial probe into the metals warehousing industry (WSJ)
• Obama Says Budget Debate a Battle for Middle Class Future (BBG)
• Death Toll From Spanish Train Crash Hits 77 (WSJ)
• ‘Fabulous Fab’ takes to witness stand (FT)
• Banks Said to Weigh Suspending Dealings With SAC as Charges Loom (BBG) - what about Anthony Scaramucci?
• How the Muslim Brotherhood lost Egypt (Reuters)
• German Business Confidence Rises for a Third Month (BBG)
• Fraternities Lobby for Tax Break Without Hazing Penalties (BBG)
• China charges Bo Xilai with corruption, paves way for trial (Reuters)
• Airbus Pushes Higher-Density A380 to Counter Luxury Image (BBG)

At precisely 4 am Eastern two opposite things happened: the German IFO Business Climate for July printed at a better than expected 106.2 vs 105.9 in June and higher than the 106.1 consensus: news which would have been EURUSD positive. And yet the EUR tumbled. Why? Because at the same time the ECB provided an update to the chart that "keeps Mario Draghi up at night" as we reminded readers yesterday - the ECB's all important credit creation update in the form of the M3, which not only missed expectations (of +3%) but declined from 2.9% to 2.3%. But more importantly, ECB lending to private sector shrank for the 14th consecutive month in June, and slid to a new record low 1.6% in June, down from a 1.1% in May.

Any backwardation in gold at all is serious. Recently, a related phenomenon has occurred: the GOFO rate has gone negative.