Archive - Jan 15, 2014

Like in the bubble days of 2007: the big numbers, the deal exuberance, the craziness, the hoopla

First the Volcker Rule was defanged when last night the requirement to offload TruPS CDOs was eliminated, and now here comes Europe where the ECB just lowered the capital requirement for its "stringent" bank stress test (the one where Bankia and Dexia won't pass with flying colors we assume) by 25%. From the wires:

• ECB SAID TO FAVOR 6% CAPITAL REQUIREMENT IN BANK STRESS TEST
• ECB SAYS DECISION ON CAPITAL REQUIREMENT NOT YET FORMALLY MADE

Why is this notable? Recall from three short months ago: "the ECB confirmed that it will require lenders to have a capital ratio of 8 percent."

When Google bought Nest (for its smart, intrusive thermostat technology that gives the NSA a front-row seat into the heating requirements of Americans), little did it know that it was purchasing an OTC penny stock with the ticker NEST and a market cap of a few hundred thousand. Or maybe, Google knew very well what it paid $3 billion for, and it was the increasingly prevalent idiots that make up the stock market that were confused. Either way, just like TWTRQ was TWTR for a few short days, so NEST (not to be confused with the GOOG acquisition target if even that is precisely what happened) is now the second coming of the unmitigated idiocy that defines the "market" NEST was up 4900% at its peak yesterday on massive volume.

One of Warren Buffett’s greatest investment ideas concerned “economic moats.”

Between lack of cash flows, insurmountable liabilities, an untenable pension funding, even insider fraud, we thought we had seen all the various reasons for filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. And then along came the Catholic Diocese of Stockton which announced that it would join its host city and seek bankruptcy protection "in the wake of the church's sexual-abuse scandal." As WSJ reported, Bishop Stephen E. Blaire said in a news release Monday that the diocese would seek bankruptcy protection Wednesday, explaining that reorganization was the only option for dealing with mounting legal costs related to abuse by priests. The bishop said the diocese has spent $14 million in legal settlements and judgments over the past 20 years dealing with abuse allegations, and doesn't have funds available to settle pending lawsuits or address future allegations. The punchline: "Very simply, we are in this situation because of those priests in our diocese who perpetrated grave, evil acts of child sexual abuse."

Presented with little comment; aside to note that it would appear (based on BlackRock's survey) that there is only one trade the sell-side wants you in...

UPDATE: USDJPY retraced the POMO spike... So VIX takes over...

The S&P 500 is screaching back towards its record all-time highs with a little help from a USDJPY-sparked momentum ignition and a $4-5 Billion POMO... behold the efficient markets...

Either the Fed and the OCC are unaware of this thing called "computers" which allows them to find out what a bank's trading desk somewhere, anywhere in the world has done at any point in the past 30 or so years, or they really felt the need to stretch their legs around London's Canary Wharf, or they heard very good news about Citi's seafood buffet at its London HQ, but whatever the reason Reuters reports that "the U.S. Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have sent investigators to Citigroup's London headquarters as part of an international investigation into alleged manipulation of the global currency market, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday."

For now unsupported by the usual VIX slam or JPY smash, US equities are spiking higher. The Dow and The S&P 500 remain in the red for the year still but Russell has now surged to new highs and joined Trannies and NASDAQ in the green for 2014.

As equity markets revert to their new normal BTFATH, Japanese-Yen-pinned reality, we thought a gentle reminder of the longer-term state of the real (not financial) economy would prod more than a few into the realization of just how 'encouraged' they should be by the nominal high after nominal high that is gloated over day after day...

Yesterday, Deutsche's Jim Reid was kind enough to put modern capital markets in their most proper context: "in these artificial markets the percentages are skewed towards the bulls for now." Today, for everyone confused how to navigate the "artificial market", Reid has the much needed explanation. To wit: "So far this year markets have gone down on good data, gone up on good data, gone down on concerns over weaker data and also gone up on weaker data."

And now you know everything there is to "know."

So much for the strict, evil Volcker Rule which was a "victory for regulators" and its requirement that banks dispose of TruPS CDOs. Recall a month, when it was revealed that various regional banks would need to dispose of their TruPS CDO portfolios, we posted "As First Volcker Rule Victim Emerges, Implications Could "Roil The Market"." Well, the market shall remain unroiled because last night by FDIC decree, the TruPS CDO provision was effectively stripped from the rule. This is what came out of the FDIC last night: "Five federal agencies on Tuesday approved an interim final rule to permit banking entities to retain interests in certain collateralized debt obligations backed primarily by trust preferred securities (TruPS CDOs) from the investment prohibitions of section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, known as the Volcker rule." In other words, the first unintended consequences of the Volcker Rule was just neutralized after the ABA and assorted banks screamed against it.

Following October and November's disturbing declines in Producer Prices, which many misread as an indication that the Fed will delay tapering for a few months, today's PPI reversed the recent drop, and posted a 0.4% jump for the headline number in line with expectations, following two months of declines and the highest print since June's 0.6% sequential increase. And while the Foods PPI dropped by 0.6% in December, Energy prices jumped by 1.6% once again the highest monthly increase since June. But it was the core increase of 0.3%, the highest jump since July 2012 that caught everyone's attention. So is inflation finally seeping back in the production channel? Not really: as the BLS reported, "Nearly half of the December increase is attributable to prices for tobacco products, which climbed 3.6 percent." So bad inflationary news for smokers. For everyone else (who eats and drives hedonically) the status quo still remains.

After 5 months of missed expectations, Empire Fed manufacturing beat expectations by the most since Feb 2013, spiking to the highest since May 2012. Most sub-indices were positive but it is perhaps worth noting that despite all this exuberance, over 70% of companies expected no improvement in employment and over 80% expected no improvement in the average workweek. While inflation is nowehere to be seen, it is interesting that the Empire Fed's Prices Paid index spiked this month by the most since March 2012. Hope remains that Capex and Tech Spend will pick up as the outlook index rose by the most in 5 months (though remains historically low).

If yesterday it was JPM's turn to shock and awe everyone with its adoption of FVA and impress with its non-GAAP revenues, today it is the turn of Bank of America to confuse everyone with its traditionally indecipherable earnings release. So here is the punchline. BAC reported revenues of $21.7 billion which beat expectations of $21.14 billion, although more importantly EPS of $0.29 vs expectations of $0.27. So how did BAC generate the better than expected top and bottom line? Simple - the top line beat was driven by the bank's return to an aggressive extraction of non-income income from loan-loss reserve releases, which in the current quarter rose to $1.246 billion, up from $900 million a year ago. Considering the Bank had non-GAAP pretax income of $3.8 billion, this amount to just about a third of its earnings. Additionally, the company paid only $406 million in reported taxes on pretax income of $3.845 billion, or a 10.6% effective tax rate. How does this compare to the historic average of 25%? Obviously, it's much lower.  In fact, if BAC had used its historic tax rate of 25%, the EPS "beat" of $0.29 would have become a $0.25 miss. But all is fair in sellside analyst love and making up non-GAAP numbers.