Archive - 2013

December 26th

Tyler Durden's picture

Initial Claims Tumble Even As 1.3 Million Americans Are Set To Stop Collecting Benefits





Despite the BLS claiming no states estimated their data and the previous week's apparently errant (but significantly not revised lower), the claims data this week saw its biggest week-over-week percentage drop since January 2006 (which ironically almost perfectly bottom-ticked the previous 'recovery' claims improvements). Continuing claims, however, rose for the 3rd week in a row - the largest 3-week rise in since March 2009! Of course, the more critical part of the labor department's report is the end of the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program which will pay one more claim this week and then 1,333,332 will begin to lose their benefits. EUC benefits cannot be paid for any week of unemployment after Dec 28th (which, of course, is great news for the unemployment rate). 

 

Tyler Durden's picture

The Selling Panic Begins: A Summary Of Retailers' "After-Christmas" Deals





As the holiday spending season draws to a close, there has been a huge schism between hope and reality once again as captured by these two numbers: 3.9% and -3.5%. The first, aka hope, is how much the national retail federation predicted holiday sales would rise by at the start of the holiday season; the second, aka reality, is how much in-store retail sales declined by in the week before Christmas. So what is a despondent retail industry - which unlike the stock market can't put off delivering results forever - to do? Why bet it all on a huge after-Christmas surge of course. 

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Frontrunning: December 26





  • Late Surge in Web Buying Blindsides UPS, Retailers, Some Christmas Packages Aren't Delivered (WSJ)
  • Yen Slides as Turkish Stocks Drop, U.S. Futures Rise (BBG)
  • Turkish lira drops to record low against dollar, as Turkey’s Erdogan replaces 10 ministers (FT)
  • Egypt designates Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist group (Reuters)
  • Thai elections in doubt after political violence (AFP)
  • Batista Cedes Oil Unit Control in $5.8 Billion Debt Deal (BBG)
  • China celebrates Mao's birthday, but events scaled back (Reuters)
  • First-class stamps to cost 49 cents as of Jan. 26 (AP)
  • Obamacare Hits Snag in States as U.S. Site Finds Footing (BBG)
  • NSA Struggles to Make Sense of Flood of Surveillance Data (WSJ)
 

Tyler Durden's picture

Summary Of Latest Overnight Market Meltup





The latest overnight meltup which has pushed the DJIA and S&P to new implied record opens has been driven by, what else, the falling Yen, which after tumbling to fresh new 5 year lows following the release of the BOJ minutes (which said nothing new), has sent both the Nikkei higher by 1%, to post-2008 highs of 16,174, while the S&P, up about 5 points just shy of 1840, and has only three trading days in which it should close the gap to the central banks' price target of 1900 as we first showed in April. In the absence of any actual newsflow (we now live in a world in which both good and bad news are P/E multiple beneficial, just continue keeping an eye on the EURJPY and the USDJPY - these are the only two signals tht matter for the market.

 

December 25th

Tyler Durden's picture

China (And Korea) Blast Abe's "Absolutely Unacceptable" Visit To War Shrine





It has been 7 years and 4 months since the last Prime Ministerial visit to Yasukuni Shrine (a symbol of Japan's past militarism - and its convicted war criminals - which appears to be resurrecting); but in what China describes as an act that is "absolutely unacceptable to the Chinese people," current Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe paid tribute to the war dead today. The strong reaction was met with a rapid 'apology' of sorts as Abe stated officially, "I am aware that, because of misunderstandings, some people criticise a visit to Yasukuni shrine as an act of worshipping war criminals... [but] I have no intention at all to hurt the feelings of Chinese or South Korean people."

 

Tyler Durden's picture

A Trip Through The Bitcoin Mines





Once upon a time, money - in the form of precious metals - used to be literally dug out of the earth. Limitations on the amount that could be mined, and on how much growth could be borrowed from the future (all debt is, is future consumption denied), is why eventually the world's central bankers moved from money backed by precious metals, to "money" backed by "faith and credit", in the process diluting both. It was the unprecedented explosion in credit money creation that resulted once money could be "printed" out of thin air that nearly destroyed the western financial system. Which brings us to Bitcoin, where currency "mining" takes place not in the earth's crust, or in the basement of the Federal Reserve, but inside supercomputers.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

McDonalds No Longer Telling Its Workers To Avoid McDonalds Food





McDonalds' internal employee resource website McResource Line has been no stranger to surreal, farcical scandals in the past several weeks. First, it was revealed that the site was offering MCD workers tips, telling employees to find second jobs, apply for food stamps and sell their things to weather a financial crisis. The site had also given advice on how to tip au pairs, doormen, personal trainers and pool boys. The irony meter went off the charts following a study released in October by UC Berkeley Labor Center and University of Illinois that said 52% of families of fast food workers receive assistance from a public program like Medicaid, food stamps, the Earned Income Tax Credit or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Still, none of this even remotely compares to the latest debacle at the world's largest fast food maker, when on one of the resource website pages, McDonalds basically strongly urged its employees to eat... elsewhere. Fast forward to today when in the aftermath of these humiliating revelations we find that the McResource site has been taken down and that MCD workers are no longer strongly advised to eat elsewhere.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Christmas: What It Means To America, By The Numbers





christmas2013-1Christmas: perhaps the most celebrated holiday in the US, regardless of religion, race, creed, ethnicity, gender, or any other background characteristic. At least, that is te case according to a recent Pew study which found that nine-in-ten Americans say they celebrate Christmas, and three-quarters say they believe in the virgin birth of Jesus. But only about half see Christmas mostly as a religious holiday, while one-third view it as more of a cultural holiday. Virtually all Christians (96%) celebrate Christmas, and two-thirds see it as a religious holiday. More surprisingly, fully eight-in-ten non-Christians in America also celebrate Christmas, but most view it as a cultural holiday rather than a religious occasion.

 

Phoenix Capital Research's picture

Why are so many laws and rules being thrown out?





 

The biggest problem facing investors today is that “the rules” of the game change almost every year. What I mean is that any basic rule investors took for granted could be thrown out the window. Indeed, in the last five years we’ve seen:

 
 

Tyler Durden's picture

3 Things To Ponder Over Christmas





While you enjoy your gifts, the traditional Christmas ham and the annual re-gifting of Aunt Meg's 12-pound fruit cake (or go to the movies and eat Chinese food) here are "3 Things To Ponder"  regarding the retail shopper this holiday season.

Of course, the reason that retailers are having to so heavily discount in the first place is because of weak wage growth, still high unemployment and rising healthcare costs which are reducing disposable income.  Of course, as I discussed yesterday, if healthcare costs due to the Affordable Care Act rise by just $100 per month per capita that is a $72.25 billion diversion of discretionary incomes away from retail spending.  This could mean that retailers will be fighting an uphill battle for quite some time to come.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Bill Gross: The Grinch Who Doesn't Like A 25% Gain In 2013





 

Tyler Durden's picture

Everything That Happened In 2013 In One Cartoon





While millisecond by millisecond we spend our lives focused on the machinations of the "markets", a lot of 'other stuff' happened in 2013. The following incredible image from Beutler Ink's Mario Zucca packs in an entire year's worth of 2013's major events.

 

williambanzai7's picture

BaRRaCK OBoZo ALTERNaTe CHRiSTMaS MeSSaGE...





A Christmas dispatch from Hona-Whoville...

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Holiday Greetings From Ben Bernanke





The only thing missing from the cartoon below is there is a minimum net worth requirement for "free money" eligibility.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

An "Angry" Bart Chilton Shares His Parting Lesson From 30 Years In Washington





While one may criticize now-ex CFTC commissioner Bart Chilton for years and years of sound and fury signifying nothing, countless promises of regulatory enforcement (all of which fell short of the target) and finally putting an end to precious metals manipulation only for the world to discover that while every other asset class is manipulated (involving such individuals as JPM's chief currency dealer), gold and silver are exempt, one must admit the former regulator does have a way wtih words (and of course haircuts). Sure enough, Chilton's most memorable parting gift will not be something he did, but rather what he said. William Cohan memorializes his parting message: "As we long suspected, Wall Street continues to use every trick in its playbook to do whatever it can to eviscerate numerous post-financial-crisis rules. The arsenal includes high-powered lobbyists who outnumber lawmakers 10-to-1; $1,000-an-hour letter-writing lawyers who gain strength from negotiating over arcana; and the occasional hoodwinking of a president whose knowledge of the ways of finance are close to nil." Chilton's take home message: “The lesson for me is: The financial sector is so powerful that they will roll things back over time,” Chilton says. “The Wall Street firms have tremendous influence, and they can impact policy to a greater degree than any one regulator or a small group of regulators can.

 
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