Archive - Aug 2013

If there was any doubt that the taper would take place shortly, it can be wiped out following the just released June international trade data, which showed a surge in exports to a record high $191.2 billion, an increase of $4.1 billion compared to May, even as imports declined by $5.8 billion to $225.4 billion, resulting in a trade deficit of just $34.2 billion, or 22.5% lower compared to the $44.1 billion in May, which is the lowest trade deficit since October 2009.  It is also the biggest beat to expectations of -$43.5 billion since March 2005. Whether this plunge in the deficit was the result of the new GDP methodology is unknown, however the resulting surge in revised Q2 GDP following this bean-counting addition to the last month of Q2, means that the economy grew even more than expected and that the Fed's tapering course is now assured. It also means Q3 GDP based on July trade data will be dragged down as there is no way this surge in the collapsing deficit can be sustained.

Bilderberg Approved!

The chart below, showing the distinct seasonal pattern in American exercise activity, with a summer (May-September) peak among those who train for 30 minutes at least 3 times per week, is not surprising. What is surprising is the near uniform 1% decline in working out Americans in 2013 compared to 2012. Why the pervasive behavioral change? Has the Fed's QE 3 launch in December 2012, in addition to once again locking up markets in a centrally-planned vice, also imposed a regime of quantitative eating, as more Americans focus on their E-Trade accounts with the associated sedentary lifestyle, instead of being engaged in healthy activities? Is Bernanke to blame for the next health crisis? Inquiring minds want to know.

Frequent readers are aware that one of our favorite topics is forensic market evidence confirming early release of market moving data to select "buyers" of said data, who then can trade ahead of the crowd and make illegal profits. The most recent example of just this took place last Friday when someone or something was leaked the non-farm payroll data as much as three second early. But while various third party profit-seeking intermediaries such as Deutsche Boerse's MNI, UMichigan consumer confidence and others have acknowledged to presell early dissemination of specialized data to subscribers such as well-paying high frequency traders, at least government data was said to be exempt from such a profit motive. At least until now: the WSJ reports that the FBI "has discovered vulnerabilities in the government's system for preventing market-moving economic reports from leaking to traders before public release. Law-enforcement officials found "a number of operational vulnerabilities" involving "black boxes" used by several departments to control the release of sensitive economic data such as the monthly unemployment rate, according to a report by the inspector general at the Commerce Department."

• Washington Post Company Chairman and CEO Donald Graham talks about the sale, what it means for the future of The Post (WaPo)
• Private-equity firms are adding debt to companies they own to fund payouts to themselves at a record pace (WSJ)
• U.S., U.K. Urge Citizens to Leave Yemen (WSJ)
• India Names Rajan Central Bank Governor as Rupee Plunges (BBG)
• Family Offices Chasing Wealthy’s $46 Trillion in Assets (BBG)
• UK 'bad bank' repays $2.9 billion to taxpayers in first half (Reuters)
• Sony rebuffs Daniel Loeb’s push for entertainment spin-off (FT)
• Public Pensions Up 12% Get Most in 2 Years as Stocks Soar (BBG)
• Hidden Billionaire Found With Food Fortune in California (BBG)
• Fonterra under fire over milk scare; more product recalls (Reuters)
• Crédit Agricole Profit Rises After Greek  (WSJ)

Bullish on one, no so much on the other. 

The summer doldrums continue. Overnight news included an expected 25 bps rate cut in Australia to a new record low of 2.50%, although the statement surprised by not retaining its expected dovish outlook. Perhaps this is due to the PBOC finally folding and despite raging for weeks that it was dead serious about its tightening experiment, injected another CNY12 billion in its banks via 7-day reverse repos at 4.0% compared to the previous, July 30 CNY14 billion 7 day injection at 4.40%. The Chinese central bank came, saw, and didn't like what it found in the Chinese interbank liquidity situation. Whether and how this will change the Politburo's reform agenda, and whether the provided liquidity will do much if anything, remains to be seen. Elsewhere, in Europe, German factory orders soared 3.8% on expectations of +1.0%, however all driven by Paris airshow orders which boosted bulk orders, and without which orders would have fallen -0.7%. The UK upward momentum continues with Industrial Production's turn now to soar to the highest since January 2011, while Italian GDP declined less than expected, dropping -0.2%, on expectations of a -0.4% slide. In other words Europe continues to rep and warrant that it does not need any assistance from the ECB despite a complete lock up in private lending and credit creation. Good luck with all that.

"No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear."

- Edmund Burke

Some analysts and Congressional officials suggested Friday that emphasizing a terrorist threat now was a good way to divert attention from the uproar over the N.S.A.’s data-collection programs, and that if it showed the intercepts had uncovered a possible plot, even better.

- NY Times article from August 2, 2013: Qaeda Messages Prompt U.S. Terror Warning

Thanks to an over-flowing cup of Fed liquidity, corporate debt maturities have not only been pushed out in time but have risen in their nominal outstandings as cheap financing was too good to ignore (especially for those firms on the bubble of failure). The problem these firms face now is, with the Fed set to Taper (and indeed tighten on rates in the next few years); the outlook of much higher bond yields will have a major impact on firms that levered up and used this period to 'survive'. As is clear from the chart below, debt maturities will once again surge in 2-3 years; and given credit markets now focused on fundamentals (future cashflows) as opposed to merely technicals (fed liquidity flows), the wall of maturities just as rates are rising (and liquidity being withdrawn) will make high-yield investors increasingly nervous (and feedback into lower valuations for stocks, no matter how exuberant a rotation retail investors expect). The message once again appears to be - there's no free lunch as the Fed has merely dragged forward exuberance at the expense of dystopia in the not so distant future.

The media, the financial markets and investors have become fixated on the unemployment rate, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, particularly since it was directly linked by the Federal Reserve to its current bond buying program. What is clearly evident is that, despite the headline reports, there is clearly an alarming divergence in employment from the long-term trend.  The structural shift in employment away from manufacturing and production to a service and outsourced based economy has clearly created a deviation that will not likely be corrected for decades to come.  The implications for the Federal Reserve, and the economy, should be concerning.  While the hope is that the economy will suddenly spark back towards stronger growth; the supply/demand imbalance suggests otherwise.

Nobody may wish to believe it, but, Diapason Commodities' Sean Corrigan warns, it just might be that the US economy has seen its best for this phase of the cycle. Where does that leave assets? Arguably overpriced and overbought, he believes. The VIX has swooped to a low only once briefly undercut since before the last New Era started to lose its luster in early 2007. As a result, Corrigan's "Blue Sky" index - the OEX divided by the VIX, being an inverse representation of what people perceive to be the worth of buying price protection - has jumped to the upper third of the ninety?ninth percentile of the past quarter-century's distribution; an anoxia?inducing plane only briefly exceeded just as the first rumblings of the forthcoming doom started to afflict the Boom in the March of 2007.

August is traditionally Europe’s holiday month, with many government officials taking several weeks off. In the process, important initiatives are put on hold until the “great return” at the beginning of September. This year, there is another reason why Europe has pressed the pause button for August. With a looming election in Germany, few wish to undermine Chancellor Angela Merkel’s likely victory.  Some of the recent economic news has seemed to justify this approach. Yet no one should be fooled. This summer’s sense of normality is neither natural nor necessarily tenable in the long term. It is the result of temporary and – if Europe is not attentive – potentially reversible factors. If officials do not return quickly to addressing economic challenges in a more comprehensive manner, the current calm may give way to renewed turmoil. In essence, Europe (and the West more generally) owes its recent tranquility to a series of experimental measures by central banks; consequently, the resulting surface calm masks still-worrisome economic and financial fundamentals.

China's bid to host the world's tallest building may be delayed for a while as the PBOC prints the money to complete the over-budget Sky Tower in Changsha, but that doesn't mean China can't enjoy the world's second largest building, and Asia's tallest, in the face of the 128-floor Shanghai Tower located, obviously, in Shanghai, and which stretches a massive 2073 feet from base to tip. The 'Skyscraper Index' anecdotes remain firmly ensconced throughout China (and India).

This insane world was created through decades of bad decisions, believing in false prophets, choosing current consumption over sustainable long-term savings based growth, electing corruptible men who promised voters entitlements that were mathematically impossible to deliver, the disintegration of a sense of civic and community obligation and a gradual degradation of the national intelligence and character. There is a common denominator in all the bubbles created over the last century – Wall Street bankers and their puppets at the Federal Reserve. Fractional reserve banking, control of a fiat currency by a privately owned central bank, and an economy dependent upon ever increasing levels of debt are nothing more than ingredients of a Ponzi scheme that will ultimately implode and destroy the worldwide financial system. Since 1913 we have been enduring the largest fraud and embezzlement scheme in world history, but the law of diminishing returns is revealing the plot and illuminating the culprits. Bernanke and his cronies have proven themselves to be highly educated one trick pony protectors of the status quo. Bernanke will eventually roll craps. When he does, the collapse will be epic and 2008 will seem like a walk in the park.

As the Fed gets ready to taper ‘QE’, UBS' Larry Hatheway warns investors to brace for a period of increased international policy tension. Previously harmonized - but not coordinated - monetary policy stances will give way to conflicting objectives and new strains as adverse ‘spillovers’ occur. As Hatheway notes, we are about to rediscover several inconvenient truths. First, the Fed is the US, not the world’s, central bank. Second, international policy coordination is desirable in an interdependent world but, third, it is no more likely to materialize now than in the past. The world, it seems, is destined for a less comfortable policy co-existence in the coming few years.