Archive - Oct 17, 2014

Welcome to the Dow-Data-Dependent^TM Fed. Because what a difference 1,100 Dow points makes!

If U.S. stocks have stabilized – granted, a big 'IF' - you can thank the fact that markets don’t believe the Federal Reserve’s outlook on interest rates. Bad news will keep the doves “Fed” (yes, a pun…  it’s Friday) and the hawks at bay. A spate of good U.S. news while the rest of the developed world slows is the worst potential outcome in this narrative.

Arlington County Fire Department and Fairfax County HAZMAT Teams are on the scene after a woman - alleged to have recently traveled from West Africa - fell ill and started vomiting in The Pentagon parking lot this morning. Arlington Public Health has activated its Emergency Operations Center to manage the incident.

WOMAN WHO VOMITED IN PENTAGON PARKING LOT VISITED LIBERIA TWO WEEKS AGO -- FOX CITING DEFENSE SOURCE

"If you like your phone secretly spied on, you can keep it," appears to be the message from the FBI. As Bloomberg reports, FBI Director James Comey said yesterday that companies like Apple and Google should be required to build surveillance capabilities into their products to help law enforcement with their probes, adding "if the challenges of real time data interception threatened to leave us in the dark, encryption threatens to lead us all to a very dark place."

This is a riot: watch the gubernatorial debate in Florida as the two candidates have a pissing match over.............a fan.

For those who doubt that America is ruled by a narrow elite: three charts.

We got it all covered here...

We believe that the “Save Our Swiss Gold” campaign has the potential to be a game changer in the gold market - both in terms of the ramifications for the current global monetary system and in terms of higher gold prices. 

There has been a lack of coverage of this important story and there is therefore a lack of awareness about the possible implications for the gold market. Thus, in the weeks prior to the referendum on November 30th, we are going to analyse the referendum, the important context to the referendum and the ramifications of a yes or a no vote.

It never gets old... if this sell-off was triggered by a realization that the consumer is truly depressed (retail sales) and the Fed is almost done, then the face-ripping rally (notably on weak volume) of the last 24+ hours is the ugly truth that the 'market' is always and everyday a function of central-bank bullshit. Since Bullard's "QE4" comment (strengthened by random headlines on Yellen's "economic confidence" and ECB Coeure's "QE any minute" comment), the Dow is up 400 points, S&P up 70, and Trannies up 3.5%. Small Caps are now up 3.5% on the week and 30Y Treasury yields only -2.5bps on the week.

Several days ago we were confused why, out of the blue, a €1 billion loan BWIC appeared that was dumping German non-performing loans. After all, the whole point of the European "recovery" fable to date has been to deflect all the attention from the "pristine" German banks, up to an including world-record derivatives juggernaut Deutsche Bank,  and to focus on Greece and other insolvent peripheral European nation. Earlier today, German Handelsblatt provided an answer, when it reported that "four German banks are on the brink", i.e., four banks of which three are known, HSH Nordbank, IKB and MunchenerHyp, will likely fail the ECB's stress test whose results are due to be announced next Friday.

"I see deflation flirting with America." Retail sales equals consumer spending equals velocity of money. And unless the money supply is rising, hardly likely in the taper, less spending is deflation by definition. Forget about PMI and all that kind of data, it’s much simpler than that. Central banks can do all kinds of stuff, but they can’t make us spend our money on things we don’t want or need. Let alone make us borrow to do so. And if we don’t, deflation is an inevitable fact. That doesn’t mean prices for some items won’t go up, but that’s not what counts. It’s about how fast we either spend the money we have – if we have any left – or how much we borrow. And if time is money, then borrowed money is borrowed time. So we really shouldn’t.

Google: Hunter Biden/cocaine...

This should fix it and calm the panic:

*OBAMA SAID TO APPOINT RON KLAIN AS EBOLA CZAR, CNN TWEETS

Forget medical experience, what the USA needs to combat the worst Ebola pandemic ever is "an American lawyer and political operative best known for serving as Chief of Staff to two Vice Presidents - Al Gore (1995–1999) and Joseph Biden (2009–2011)" Gotta wonder how Tom Frieden feels about this...