Archive - Aug 2013

Americans Are Sick of War

WAR DRUMS: An official tells @CNN The U.S. could strike #Syria within hours- @PoliticaILine -Israelis scramble for gas masks- @TimesofIsrael

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) August 26, 2013

While Portuguese bond spreads suggest all-is-well, stocks rally, and the nation's leaders proclaim the worst is over, there is a hard-to-manipulate statistic that should shock many about the truly dismal state of the troubled nation. As The FT reports in the brief clip, Portuguese road-traffic fell 50% in 2012, and a stunning 68% in Q1 2013... and the detail are even worse.

BREAKING. @MajorCBS says that at a Saturday White House meeting there was no debate that a military response against Syira is necessary.

— Charlie Kaye (@CharlieKayeCBS) August 26, 2013

Less than a month ago, potash stocks around the world cratered overnight following news that Russian potash producer OAO Uralkali announced its decision to break up a 'marketing venture' that controlled around 43% of global potash exports in the process ending the cartel that many US fertilized companies enjoyed for years. The end of the cartel was also a big hit for former partner Belarusian Potash Company (BPS) and the host nation Belarus, a country of 9.5 million people, where revenue from its potash industry accounts for almost 20 percent of the budget.  Everyone, Goldman Sachs, included were confounded by the move: Such behavior by Belaruskali in a structurally oversupplied potash industry should push for stricter competition for end customers and result in a significant swift decline in pricing... " What was most surprising is that Uralkali would voluntarily engage in this move, knowing full well that the Belarus government would retaliate. The only question is how severely. Turns out the answer is "very."

It seems "glitch" is rapidly becoming the new normal for our cloud-based world as last week's epic fail on the NASDARK (and Amazon's 30-minute 'dark' period) has now been followed up by a "glitch" at one of Amazon's data centers last night knocking out users of Vine, Instagram, and Netflix. While NASDAQ remains tight-lipped over the source of its glitch, Amazon has narrowed the search for the vindictive bug to a 'partial failure of a network device' in a northern Virgina data center. As The BBC reports, the problems began around 1600ET and continued for several hours. We await news from EUREX on what 'glitch' caused their systems to fail epically this morning also.

Remember what the 2012 leaked Stratfor memo said about the focal point of western airborne power? Here it is again: "Syrian air defenses are a lot more robust and are much denser, esp around Damascus and on the borders with Israel, Turkey. THey are most worried about mobile air defenses, particularly the SA-17s that they've been getting recently. It's still a doable mission, it's just not an easy one. The main base they would use is Cyprus, hands down. Brits and FRench would fly out of there. They kept stressing how much is stored at Cyprus and how much recce comes out of there. The group was split on whether Turkey would be involved, but said Turkey would be pretty critical to the mission to base stuff out of there. EVen if Turkey had a poltiical problem with Cyprus, they said there is no way the Brits and the FRench wouldn't use Cyprus as their main air force base." (sic) Well, it has begun. Guardian reports that "Warplanes and military transporters have begun arriving at Britain's Akrotiri airbase on Cyprus, less than 100 miles from the Syrian coast, in a sign of increasing preparations for a military strike against the Assad regime in Syria."

In Part 1 of this article we documented the insane remedies prescribed by the mad banker scientists presiding over this preposterous fiat experiment since they blew up the lab in 2008. In Part 2 we tried to articulate why the country has allowed itself to be brought to the brink of catastrophe. There is no turning back time. The choices we’ve made and avoided making over the last one hundred years are going to come home to roost over the next fifteen years. We are in the midst of a great Crisis that will not be resolved until the mid-2020s. The appearance of stability is illusory, as the civic fabric of the country continues to tear asunder. Record high stock markets do not trickle down. The masters of propaganda seem baffled that their standard operating procedures are not generating the expected response from the serfs. They have failed to take into account the generational mood changes that occur; propaganda loses its effectiveness in proportion to the pain and distress being experienced by the citizenry.

Just what does Hitler have to do to catch a break?

29 months after ramping his initial stake to over 39 million shares (and witnessing a collapse of the stock from Over $40 to under $13), Ackman has decided that enough is enough. Through a just filed Citi-sole managed prospectus, Pershing Square is set to sell his entire 39,075,771 share stake in the beleaguered firm. The stock price's initial plunge on the news was immediately met by an avalanche of algo-driven buying to enable those that can to escape quick but as we post, JCP is heading back to its lows. With an overall cost-basis in the mid $20s, this one will sting a bit.

Infiltrate these thoughts Sunstein!

All was well in the world early on. Dismal durable goods orders were terrible enough to provide the index-watching-muppets with the bad-news-that-is-good-news to pump stocks higher. Other markets reacted in a pro-Taper-off mode (aside from Gold and silver which were man-handled back down from the $1,400 level). Volume is/was terrible in stocks but they clung to earlier highs as homebuilders surged (seeming to ignore Friday's data entirely). Then Kerry spoke... first WTI broke higher (catching up Brent), then gold (and silver), the USD sold off (as JPY strengthened as a million carry traders were suddenly silenced), and US equity markets fell out of bed with a thump. The dow lost 15,000; S&P futures tested down to their 50DMA; gold traded up to $1,403; silver well over $24; VIX snapped 1 vol higher to 15.0%; and AAPL tumbled from early highs (holding above $500 though). An ugly close at the lows of the day for stocks...

UPDATE 2: the valiant $1400 defense failed. Gold at $1405 now

UPDATE: Dow lost 15,000. AAPL $502 (from $510), Gold $1399

It seems defending the critical levels we highlighted on Friday remains the market's mission today. AAPL over $500, check! Dow over 15,000, check! Gold under $1,400, check... for now (oh and Silver under $24, check). We can't help but wonder who the magnificently positioned 'trader' is that keeps wiping away the bid-stack every time we touch $1,400 - especially as the contrarian in us notes that more than half the analysts in Bloomberg's survey expect price to fall (the most since just before gold bottomed nine weeks ago)... With Kerry's briefing appearing to raise the chances of war, it will be tough for 'them' to defend this push...

"Anyone who could claim that an attack of this staggering scale could be contrived or fabricated needs to check their conscience and their own moral compass. What is before us today is real, and it is compelling."

No matter how hard the Washington crowd tries to sell an economic recovery, inconvenient and contrary facts keep rearing up to shatter their mythmaking. Few people any longer believe the claims of declining unemployment or low inflation at least based on purchases they make. The fable of a housing recovery is now crumbling. The recession, declared over in June 2009, never ended. Some wonder how bad the recession/depression might have been had government not acted. Others worry that we will find out when the Fed tapers. For lack of a better term, the process the entire country is headed for is “Detroitification.” At this stage, the damage is done and cannot be undone quickly enough to avoid this crisis. Even if there were time, there is no way that politicians would willingly address the problem.