Archive - Jul 2013

49 states to go till DOW 36k RT @zerohedge: S&P500 hits all time high as Detroit files. America in a nutshell

— Stalingrad Poorski™ (@Stalingrad_Poor) July 18, 2013

Change you can believe in with Detroit filing Chapter 9. But, really, adjusted for AFS, one-time items and a stock buyback which was pending but never fully effected, it is only a Chapter 11 and thus bullish.

City of Detroit files for Chapter 9 bankruptcy

— Detroit Free Press (@freep) July 18, 2013

Wait, wait, we know: it's the weather's fault. Also, soaring gas prices mean much more weather is coming.

The S&P 500 is up 8.5% from the 6/24 lows - the best 17-day run since Oct 2011 when the world's central banks launched their unprecedented 'save-the-markets' co-ordinated easing/printfest (as an aside, the S&P fell 140pts (or 12%) in the next 2 weeks). Trannies were on top today (+1.6%) while Nasdaq took the rear (-0.25%); homebuilders are down 2% on the week and 3% post-FOMC while Utilities and Financials are running 2% higher on the week. Aways from exuberant equities, bonds cracked 8bps higher in yield off their pre-Bernanke low yield levels (with the long-end notably underperforming on the week); the USD jumped back up to unchanged on the week (as JPY dumped - aiding risk-assets); and silver and gold diverged with the former holding the week's lows as gold limped higher. The real story of the day is oil prices which screamed above $108 - highest in 14 months - crushing the Brent-WTI spread. Hedgers were active (though clearly not sellers) as VIX notably underperformed stocks (as did credit indices).

Following yesterday's disappointing results from Intel, and the IBM revenue miss, completing the sad state of Q2 earnings season for tech companies are the just reported GOOG and MSFT results, both which missed not only on the topline but also on the bottom line. Guess they didn't have billions in reserve releases and Available For Sale MTM fudges to confuse HFT algos and pundits with.

After every non-farm payroll report we provide our own breakdown of what the real unemployment rate is in a country in which the labor force participation rate has not been adjusted to normalize for the Second Great Depression. In the most recent such endeavor we found the "Real Unemployment Rate" to be 11.3%. Today, courtesy of the Post's John Crudele we find that our estimate was spot on not just from anyone, but the former head of the BLS himself: Keith Hall.

It has been almost 2 years since FINRA started to get 'serious' about thinking about looking into an investigation of (get our point) high-frequency trading and dark pools but it seems, as the WSJ reports, this time they are more specific. In Sept 2011 FINRA noted "there's something that's troubling us in the marketplace," and it seems now that FINRA has spent the time since understanding the jargon they have some questions,  "who is responsible for the automatic shut off or kill switch," asking firms how they avoid "quote bursts and stuffing" that create confusion for other investors and potentially distort the market, and approving a plan to force dark pools (15% of all stock trading)  to disclose and detail trading activity on their platforms.  Of course, we've seen this kind of bluster before and they did nothing then but hope springs eternal.

Global conditions in early 1928 were oddly similar to today (Benjamin Strong puzzling over a strange brew of rising stock prices, uneven economic recovery, suspect banking practices and unusual strains in Europe’s monetary system), but skewed in a direction that would cause our current policymakers to apply even stronger stimulus than we’ve seen in 2013. The analogy suggests to us that today’s Fed is threatening mistakes that aren’t unlike those of the 1920s Fed. But what about the stock market? Unfortunately, a few market characteristics fit the late 1920s timeline pretty well... There can be little doubt that today’s Fed-fueled asset price rallies merely bring future price appreciation forward to the present. Asset prices eventually return to fundamental values, and as they do the Fed’s cherished wealth effects work in reverse. This is another risk that should be considered when you decide whether to take Bernanke’s bait and “reach for yield” in stocks and other risky assets.

Oh, please! What happened to the world that I and most people grew up in? The one where Russia was the enemy, the USA the good guys and never the twain shall meet in true Rudyard-Kipling fashion.

Presenting default you can believe in, as the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history, involing the one-time iconic "motor city" which now has a population of 700,000 and some $20 billion in liabilities, is about to become reality. But fear not: the Detroit bankruptcy, like rising rates, are entirely due to the economic recovery.

In the decade before the Fed announced QE2, the average Brent-WTI spread was around 90c. In the 14 months following the inception of that 'healing' easing, the spread exploded to around $28 by October 2011, bounced back up to around $25 in late 2012 and has been sliding since the start of the year driven by WTI's inexorable rise (amid Brent's relative stability). It seems no matter how hard they try to control the exuberant thrusting outgrowths of a liquidity spigot held wide-open, it eventually overwhelms and between Egypt, infrastructure, and RINs, the price of gas at the pump is about to cross its all time high for the time of year as WTI drops to its closest in price to Brent since QE2 was 'announced' at Jackson Hole. Brent-WTI is now at 35c as WTI tops $108.30 (highest in 17 months).

If indeed the administration had floated a trial balloon with Larry Summers' Fed Chairman candidacy, it appears to have been full of lead. Moments ago Fed mouthpiece Hilsenrath just undid the disturbance in the farce with an article that promptly crushes Larry's chances as Bernanke's replacement, instead putting Janet Yellen up as the "front-runner for the top fed post."

The Social Contract is broken not by wealth inequality per se but by the illegitimate process of wealth acquisition, i.e. the state has tipped the scales in favor of the few behind closed doors and routinely ignores or bypasses the intent of the law even as the state claims to be following the narrower letter of the law. By this definition, the Social Contract in America has been completely smashed. The honest taxpayer is a chump, a mark who foolishly ponies up the swag that's looted by the smart operators. When scammers large and small live better than those creating value in the real economy, the Social Contract has ceased to exist. Once the chumps and marks realize there is no way they can ever escape their exploited banana-republic status as neofeudal debt-serfs, the scammers, cheats and grifters large and small will be at risk of losing their perquisites. As Voltaire observed, "No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible": every claim, every game of the system, every political favor purchased is "fair and legal," of course. This is precisely how empires collapse.

There is a very simple and elegant solution to declining defense spending, one which has been used time and again in US history when the US government needed to provide the Fed with more securities (i.e. deficit) to monetize: war. According to RT that, or rather its more politicall correct equivalent "kinetic strikes", is what may be just over the horizon. RT reports that President Barack Obama is considering using military force in Syria, and the Pentagon has prepared various scenarios for possible United States intervention.  Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Obama administration is deliberating whether or not it should use the brute of the US military in Syria during a Thursday morning Senate hearing. Gen. Dempsey said the administration was considering using “kinetic strikes” in Syria and said "issue is under deliberation inside of our agencies of government,” the Associated Press reported from Washington.

The odds of an out-of-court settlement between Detroit's emergency manager and its creditors are "extremely slim," as the WSJ reports that the troubled city's D-Day draws ever closer to becoming the largest muni default in US history. The last straw on Detroit's camel's back of bankruptcy was following discussions last week between Kevyn Orr (Detroit's emergency manager) and the White House as any hope of a federal bailout to evert bankruptcy fizzled. Folowing Detroit's default in June - demonstrating its insolvency - and its "negotiations in full faith" with creditors set the scene for a pending day in court. The current plan (for now rejected by creditors) means a 90% loss for muni-worker retirees, 81% loss for unsecured creditors, and a 75% loss for secured creditors leaving a "free fall" bankruptcy filing - one without a clear plan or much agreement beforehand with creditors - the most  likely outcome "because there is no other way out of here if we don't reach consensus."