Archive - Oct 15, 2014

The systemic risks underlying the Financial Crisis are in no way resolved. 

Speculative short positioning in 10Y Treasury futures, according to CFTC, is at its highest since 2007 as traders added to shorts last week. Net positioning in 10Y Treasuries overall is its most short since June as shorts piled on in the last 2 weeks by the most since the Taper Tantrum.

The Nasdaq is opening down 0.5% year-to-date (having been gloriously above 10% in mid-September) and S&P 500 has now turned red for the year. Only Trannies remain green in 2014 (for now)...

“We’ve got the proverbial 800-pound gorilla -- the consumer,” said Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. in New York. “Households are more fixated on the good news here, and a big part of that is the labor market. The U.S. is going to be pretty immune to the rest of the world.”

Banks abused their position of controlling the daily silver fix to reap illegitimate profit from trading, hurting other investors in the silver market who use the benchmark in billions of dollars of transactions, according to the suit. 

So, it's not just Ferguson... Just because the business media channels have decided that Hong Kong protests are not incendiary enough to trump Ebola and stock market crashes, does not mean the pro-democracy efforts are waning... as this poor gentleman found out.

Eric Sprott, John Embry and Rick Rule discuss their views on the precious metals markets

Treasury yields are collapsing. 30Y yields are now at Taper Tantrum lows and the rest of the complex is catching down rapidly...

It may come as a shocker to some, but hopefully not to anyone here, that September retail sales were arguably the worst of the year excluding the "abortion" that was the Polar Vortex. The simple reason: after the US consumer loaded up on debt in the spring and the summer, the payback hangover has finally hit with the payment due in the mail resulting in a collapse in revolving credit as reported previously, and as the September retail sales just confirmed.

As we explained in detail yesterday, between governments hopes to exit the bailout program early (in order to save their election) - which the market does not like the idea of - and fears over the reality of OMT, Greek markets are tumbling. Greek stocks are down over 9% - the biggest plunge in 6 years and bond yields are surging... it appears the market is demanding Draghi get back to work as the "whatever it takes" gains have been halved (Greek stocks -35% from March 2014 highs).

From 5 years highs to 6-month lows in one month  - Empire Fed manufacturing missed expectations by the most since June 2010 as New orders collapsed. The employment sub-index rose but workweek tumbled. Yet again, as we have described in greast detail, US economic data surges into the end of Q3 (government fiscal year-end) on spend-spend-spend year-end budget flushes, then collapses and disappoints.

Blood in the leveraged momo streets. Nikkei was crushed overenight as USDJPY could not hold 107. European stock indices are tumbling led by weakness in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. The peripheral bond markets are also getting crushed (spreads wider by 15-20bps). This has bled over into US equities with Nasdaq leading the way lower. Treasury yields are collapsing (10Y tests below 2.15%). The USD is modestly lower but oil is continuing to collapse testing the $80 handle for WTI.

Curious what the local spin is in the aftermath of today's second Ebola case? Here is the press conference update by Dallas health officials on just that.

Remember when banks said to ignore "one-time, non-recurring" legal fees because they are going away? Well, JPM yesterday showed they aren't. But it was Bank of America today which was slammed with the latest whopping $5.3 billion pretax litigation charge, which pushed its EPS once again into the red. But wait, there's great news: the loss of $0.01 is really a $0.42 non-GAAP adjusted profit if one "adds back" the $0.43 in litigation charges.