Archive - Jan 24, 2014

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Yesterday's BofA's MacNeill Curry warned that once above $1270, gold becomes "explosive" as the squeeze trap slams shut, which explains why the shorts are desperately defending the critical resistance redline. Today, the chief technician of Bank of Countrywide Lynch looks at the two other key correlation pairs: the S&P500 (via the Emini ESH4) and the USDJPY, which by virtue of being the key funding pair determines the price of risk in virtually every corner of the globe. He is not too happy with what he sees.

If, as we are constantly told by the mainstream media, equity market performance is all that matters in the real world, then the following chart from The Economist should provide much food for thought for those praying at the altar of the elites in Davos. Despite hanging on their every word as if handed down by The Oracle herself, 'companies that regularly attend Davos' have dramatically underperformed the broad market... so, in the modern parlance of 'stocks are all that matters' - Davos attendees are less smart than the average business manager (and perhaps less smart given the costs of attendance for this lack of edge).

Spain's unemployment rate hit 26% again this week. Despite Rajoy's please for people to believe things are getting better, that the crisis is over (even as Draghi proclaims it otherwise and Axel Weber warns it is still festering), Spanish local ex-pat newspaper "The Local" has uncovered seven statistics that will help you understand just how serious the situation is. What is perhaps even more surreal is that in a year in which the economy supposedly grew, they depleted their pension reserve fund by 15%...

*SPAIN WITHDREW EU11.6B FROM PENSION RESERVE FUND IN 2013; Spain pension reserve fund ends 2013 With EU53.7 bln

So apart from that, here is how bad it really is in Spain...

After escalating higher and higher in the last few days as the rest of the market slipped further into the red for 2014, the Dow Transports has collapsed 3.25% at this morning's open - its biggest drop in 9 months. This, along with the plunge in the NASDAQ and Russell has dragged every major US equity index into the red once again for 2014... The S&P 500 cash index is now the most below its 50-day moving average in almost 4 months. VIX has spiked to 15.4% - its highest since pre-Taper as JPY carry unwinds drag US equities lower once again... Credit markets have no retraced all post-Taper gains (and stocks are rapidly catching down).

On the heels of Shinzo Abe's seeming hyprocrisy in Davos, commenting that "if peace and stability were shaken in Asia, the knock-on effect for the entire world would be enormous," while he raises military budget, antagonizes China, and inflames the militaristic fervor in his own nation with war-crime shrine visits, the Chinese have struck back specifically at Abe's comparison of China and Japan's present tensions to Germany and Britain's in 1914... Foreign Minister Wang Yi - writing from the Chinese Embassy in the US, warned:

• *CHINA'S WANG CALLS ABE'S STATEMENT ON WW1 'ANACHRONISTIC'
• *CHINA HAPPY TO REVIEW WORLD HISTORY WITH ABE: WANG YI
• *CHINA WANTS ABE TO RETHINK OWN COMMENTS, ACTIONS: WANG YI

Adding that, as we warned last night (and described in great detail here), China and the US need to show mutual respect and avoid conflict and confrontation on the matter of Japan.

The elimination of low-risk interest income in favor of risky speculative credit/asset bubbles has led to a monumental misallocation of capital and the institutionalization of perverse and highly corrosive incentives. Needless to say, the current bubbles in stocks, bonds and real estate will implode, and the phantom wealth that the bubbles temporarily generated will vanish.

China faces a very significant test of its reform policy pursuit rhetoric. With China's Bank regulator set to issue an alert on coal-industry loans - "as a result of outout cuts, they don't have much cash flow and thus they can't repay loans and debt," the massive growth in wealth products such as the CEG#1 (which offered a 10% yield for a 3 year term) based on these loans leaves the Chinese with a moral hazard dilemma - bailout or no bailout. ICBC has made it clear it wil not bailout investors since reputational damage would be "well manageable," and former-PBOC adviser Li Daokui adds that "a controlled default is much better than no default," noting critically that trust defaults "will teach future investors a very important lesson." Belief that contagion can be "contained" brings back memories of 2008 in the US but a total (or even partial) bailout will merely increase the leverage and risk-taking problem and signal government talk of policy reform is not real.

Earlier this week we reported that at JPMorgan, the many will pay for the crimes of the few, after the bank revealed that compensation for most workers would be flat with 2012, and no raises were planned for the bank's employees as a result of the massive, $20+ billion legal bill the bank has raked up in recent months as one after another market manipulation, fraud and malfeasance by current and former JPM workers has been revealed. One person, however, will be exempt from this blanket punishment: the firm's CEO Jamie Dimon, of course. Because there is always a reason Jamie is richer than you...

Following yesterday's early morning surge when gold jumped $30 from the low $1230, on news that India may relax its gold capital controls, today's sharp spike follow through is more a function of ongoing emerging market currency devaluation and overall risk-offness hitting equities around the globe. And with Bitcoin going nowhere even as both Turkey and Argentina continue to turmoil, it means there is only one good old faithful fiat-alternative - the barbarous relic. Sure enough, at last check, gold was trading north of $1270, back to levels last seen in November, and one sovereign default away from soaring a few hundred fiat equivalents higher. And since all hopes now rest on more BOJ easing (or else watch out below), and more of the same pent up inflation, we may have seen recent lows in gold for quite some time, especially with Gartman once again openly "hating" gold.

The last time markets scrambled for protection against sovereign defaults was over European country collapse in the summer of 2012 around the time Mario Draghi introduced a non-existent measure to allow Europe's nations to engage in zero reforms while their bond yields plunged. This time it is the emerging markets.

• Argentina +139bps at 2562.07bps, hit highest since Sept.
• Venezuela +81bps at 1398.19bps, highest since 2010
• Turkey +11.6bps at 276.7bps, highest since June 2012
• South Africa +10bps at 236bps, highest since Sept.

Of course, CDS aren't telling us anything (capital-controlled) FX hasn't already made quite clear.

• Emerging market sell-off raises specter of contagion (Reuters)
• China Bank Regulator Said to Issue Alert on Coal Mine Loans (BBG)
• Argentina to Ease FX Controls After Peso Devaluation (BBG)
• Pimco's Gross problem: who can succeed the 'Bond King'? (Reuters)
• Ukraine protesters seize building, put up more barricades (Reuters)
• Mideast Turmoil Dominates Gathering of Business Elite (WSJ)
• Central Banks Withdraw Dollar Funding (WSJ) - oh really?
• Samsung warns of weak earnings growth this quarter (FT)
• Three explosions rock Cairo, killing 5 (USA Today)

It's Risk Off time.

Things got really out of control, and the USDJPY plunged by some 150 pips in the matter of hours, plunging as low as 102, when EM revulsion once again hit participants, in particular TRY and ARS which also supported bid tone in USTs. This also saw spot TRY rate print fresh record high, while 5y Turkish CDS rate advanced to its highest level since June 2012, while at the same time Argentina announced it would life currency controls and dollar purchases in the aftermath of the ARS devaluation by 13%.  And since everything tracks the JPY carry pair as we have been showing for the past year, futures once again plunged overnight, for now held by 1810 support, Treasurys are bid throughout, with the same treasury yields that have "no where to go but up" sliding to 2.71% from 2.87% at the beginning of the week, while gold is finally spiking as the realization that absolutely nothing has been fixed, that apparently nobody got the taper is priced in memo, and that soon the Fed will have to untaper, begins to spread. Are the central planners finally starting to lose control?