Archive - Oct 28, 2014

Having previously warned of "an unimaginable tragedy," Peter Piot, one of the scientists who discovered Ebola, has warned that China is under threat from the deadly virus because of the huge number of Chinese workers in Africa. While offering a silver(ish) lining that the pandemic will be over in 6-12 months, Piot stresses "it will get worse before it gets better," and the director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine explained that "widespread screening [of arrivals] in airports is not that effective," and he "assumes that an outbreak of Ebola in China will happen."

What Will Happen to Ebola When Winter Hits?

Having confirmed earlier that Ebola Czar Ron Klain did not take the weekend off, and ensured the American public knows the decisions on what Chuck Hagel called "quarantine-like" isolation (though obviously not quarantine because the polls suggest that word would not play well with core liberal voters) are still under discussion; we anxiously await President Obama to explain how the mixed messages from various government entities and individual states (with Christie re-flopping to strict quarantines again today) all make sense and are not, as Christie said "incredibly confusing."

According to the official government data, the United States asserts its future obligations, as of Q2 2014, are $16.5 trillion. However, TrimTabs founder Charles Biderman says that is wrong, the actual figure of the country’s future obligations, which is $98 trillion. "This does not bode well for future generations," Biderman warns, adding "either Obama is ignorant of future US government obligations or he is hiding the truth."

Deutsche Bank executives are dropping like flies. Just days after receiving a clean bill of health from Europe's oh-so-stressful stress-tests, Deutsche Bank has decided that longtime finance chief Stefan Krause needs to be replaced. Perhaps most interesting is the bank that faces 'serious financial reporting problems' in the US and has a derivatives book literally the size of (actually 20 times bigger) than Germany, has decided the right man for the job is an ex-Goldman Sachs partner. Marcus Schenck, according to WSJ, will replace Krause, having worked at German utility E.ON until last year when he joined Goldman.

Altogether, an unremarkable auction in a week where the longer-maturities will be far more closely watched, especially after tomorrow once the FOMC announcement is in the history books.

When all else fails, and there is no growth, what you gonna call? Buybackbusters!

The behaviour of financial markets these days is frankly divorced from reality, with value-investing banished. Our dysfunctional markets have become little more than the essential prerequisite, as Louis XIV’s finance minister Colbert might have said, to plucking the goose for the largest amount of feathers with the minimum of hissing.

Making $700,000 per day with her 'game app' either gives Kim Kardashian the right to comment on Social Media superstardom or simply reflects an increasingly distracted American public disappearing into dystopian numbness. As the following clip shows, we all have a lot to learn from the curvy Kardashian... or perhaps its circular in its ponziness, social media is the parasite that is dependent on a farce like Kim to exist?

According to the the Harvard Soviet Business Review...

The markets continue to operate based on complete delusions.

Today's Sesame Street stock 'market'...

The last time US homeownership declined down to 64.4% (which the Census Bureau just reported is what US homeownership declined to from 64.7% in Q2), was back in the fourth quarter of 1983. Here's why.

Just 7 short weeks ago, no lesser guru of gains than CNBC's Jim Cramer proclaimed for all retail-stock-investing moms-and-pops that "through the end of the year, I am pegging Twitter, GoPro, Tesla and Netflix as the four stocks that investors will find irresistible." Things are not going well...