Archive - Jan 2, 2014

Despite the government's ongoing efforts to cut gold imports - aimed at closing a widening current account deficit among other status-quo-questioning factors, the following brief clip from Bloomberg TV sums it all up perfectly - For this country of over one billion, "Gold is, was, and always wlll be... money." And now, following import bans and higher taxes, the government is considering restrictions on the holiest of holies - wedding gifts, and "legislating against love."

2014 is upon us. For a person who graduated from Georgia Tech in 1961, a year in which the class ring showed the same date right side up or upside down, the 21st century was a science fiction concept associated with Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film, "2001: A Space Odyssey." To us George Orwell's 1984 seemed so far in the future we would never get there. Now it is 30 years in the past. Did we get there in Orwell's sense? In terms of surveillance technology, we are far beyond Orwell's imagination. In terms of the unaccountability of government, we exceptional and indispensable people now live a 1984 existence. In America today people with power are no longer accountable. This means citizens have become subjects, an indication of social collapse.

While the taper is apparently priced in, someone forgot to tell Emerging Market FX markets again as from India to Indonesia and from Thailand to the Philippines, currencies are tumbling against the USD. While most of Asian FX is weakening, the JPY is surging - its biggest gain in 4 months. Of course, with Japanese cash markets still closed, futures are bearing the brunt as Nikkei 225 futures are down 450 points from New Year's Eve's high close, filling the Christmas Eve gap perfectly.

All it took was a year or two of extremely obvious "catches" of leaked data for the government to begin to decide that perhaps, just perhaps, it is time to end the press lockup for each week's initial jobless claims data. As the WSJ reports, the original idea behind lockups was to give reporters time to digest complicated economic reports to produce accurate reports for the public. In the past decade, news organizations have also built expensive networks to send government data to high-speed investors who can make trades on the data before members of the public can react. Now, however, the BLS believes, "government data is for the public good and it is paid for by taxpayer dollars. There must be a commitment to a level playing field."

For generating the greatest "wealth effect" and highest return of any global stock market in the world in 2013, the Caracas stock exchange, which closed the year at the ripe level of 2.7 million, is getting surprisingly little attention or love (maybe because unlike other countries, here unpleasant inflation from currency debasement is a coincident indicator resulting in such things as a shortage of toilet paper). Because after all isn't it an economist and monetarist's dream to achieve a 480% return in one year based on simply printing money?  Supposedly, the answer is no. But for whatever reason, since nobody talks about the massively successful Venezuelan stock market, which in the modern era is second only to the even more "successful" Zimbabwe stock market, it bears noting that earlier today, quietly, the Caracas stock market announced it would proceed with a 1000 for 1 stock, er, index split.

After multiple months of positive acceleration, Goldman expect the Global Leading Indicator to continue to stabilize around current levels in the coming months. The infamous Swirlogram shows that the last 3 months have seen the indicator in "slowdown" mode - which Goldman optimistically notes is on the border of 'expansion' also...and while they see no clear evidence of further acceleration, they see overall level of growth at solid levels.

While the growth of inequality in America has been heavily discussed here, it was Stan Druckenmiller's outbursts (and warnings that "from beginning to end - once markets adjust from these subsidized prices - that the wealth effect of QE will have been negative not positive") that brought it more broadly into the average American's mind. QE, taxes, income disparity, and entitlements are four major means by which wealth is transferred from the poor and the middle class to the rich. The following simple chart explains it all...

Margaret Macmillan recently warned there are dangerous parallels between the year WWI broke out and today. Pivoting off the well-know Mark Twain adage that history does not repeat itself, but does rhyme, Macmillan suggests that the one-hundredth anniversary of World War I encourages us to reflect on the “valuable warnings” of the past. The actual and potential conflicts in the year ahead are many, and some of the same structural forces that lead to the Great War a century ago will be prevalent in 2014.

Worried about being priced out of the housing market once again? Concerned that longer-term fixed rates will rise? It seems the general public, guided by the always full of fiduciary duty - mortgage broker - has reverted to old habits and is charging back into Adjustable-Rate Mortgages. As The LA Times reports, ARMs, which all but vanished during the housing bust, are back - accounting for 11.2% of homes purchased in November (double that of the year before)! While not the Option Arms of yesteryear, it would appear people, pushing for lower monthly payments, remain completely oblivious to the word "adjustable" when they shift their risk to the shorter-end. Though, as the 'experts' continue to tell us, rising rates won't affect housing negatively - not at all...

As recently as October, we joked that the "best-performing" job category in the US was also the most miserable one - i.e., "bartenders and waiters", also known as jobs which often times get paid below minimum wages and rely on the goodwill of their customers for tips to survive. And indeed, as of November, there were a record 10.4 million waiters in the US, representing a record 45 consecutive monthly increases in this job category - hardly the stuff robust recoveries are made of. However, it turns out the joke may be on us after all because as the WSJ explains, "Waiting Tables at Top-Tier Restaurants Is New Career Path for Ivy League and Culinary School Grads." It appears that gone are the days when every Ivy graduate's fast-track to stardom dream was to become a banker (or in the worst case, a corporate lawyer). And with Wall Street's increasing conversion into a utility, the aspirations of the best and the brightest will progressively shift elsewhere. But waiting tables? Well, as it turns out that's where the money is because "head waiters at top-tier restaurants can earn from $80,000 to as much as $150,000 a year including tips, according to industry executives."

Italy's anti-austerity Pitchfork movement, who described Italy as being "enslaved by wealthy Jewish bankers," has come under fire for "shamelessly recall[ing] a historical period characterised by death, violence and denial of the most elementary rights." The nation's Jewish community, writing in La Repubblica, said the Pitchfork leader's remarks demonstrate a "deeper sense of discomfort" fuelled by "the most violent and grimmest anti-Semitic stereotypes". Despite Italian stock and bond markets surging to multi-year highs, IB Times notes that mass demonstrations continue to rile the company's economy as Pitchfork followers demand the total removal of the ruling political class.

Bitcoin has a future here in Singapore, but it is a future that inevitably will be co-opted by central planning and control. The majority of locals who did not have the best sentiments regarding Bitcoin cited the lack of central control, ironically the reason in other countries why Bitcoin enjoyed its meteoric rise. Bitcoin is expected to be pilloried with payment gateways and other payment process implementation mechanisms to streamline the Bitcoin protocol into a fashion that the locals are familiarized to and prefer- a robust payment method with savings applications that is guaranteed by an actual organization against loss. Look no further than this lagging indicator, taken around the Promenade of the central business district overlooking the Marina Bay Sands casino, that Bitcoin's future in Singapore is a co-opted system run on the familiar rails of global multinational corporations.

Despite the best efforts of 330RAMP CAPITAL, US equity indices ended the first trading day of the year with the biggest loss (on that day) since 2008. Led by weakness in the high-beta indices as Trannies tumbled their most in 4 months and the S&P's biggest daily downswing in over 3 weeks. On a side-note, gas prices have never been this high on the first day of the year. VIX closed higher once again as stocks began to catch down to it's recent warnings. Bonds rallied from the open this morning (with 10Y 6bps lower in yield from its opening print) with 10Y back under 3%. EUR weakness drove the USD higher (but JPY strength weighed on stocks). The biggest moves appeared in commodities with gold and silver up nicely and WTI crude down hard.

Statewide state of emergency declared --> stay off the roads if you can #blizzard #StormWatch #NYS

— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) January 2, 2014

The combination of impulsive gains and corrective weakness from the late October lows at 78.99, repeated failure to hold a break of 79.95/79.82 area support and now bullish seasonals (January is the strongest month of the year for the US $ Index) all tell BofAML's Macneil Curry that the US Dollar Index is headed higher. While he remains a long-term Treasury bear, Curry warns bond bears to take a wait-and-see approach and fears a "defensive posture" may correct bond yields and stock prices lower.