Archive - Dec 22, 2014

This Federal Reserve is running on the final fumes of its credibility. Counsel “patience” as it might, other institutions and the people running them may run out of patience with it and start running for cover. When currencies catch fire, even a run on the bank becomes an exercise in futility. The rot is spreading from the margins to the center. Not even very far in the background, there is wreckage everywhere as events spin out of the pretense of control. What an opportunity for another country, say a country with an already foundering currency, to dare introduce money partially backed by gold.

From Evil Dr Kim...

Having exuberantly reached its highest level since September 2013 last month (despite the total collapse in mortgage applications), it appears the ugly reality of the housing market has peeked its head out once again. As prices rose, existing home sales plunged 6.1% - the most since July 2010 (against an expected 1.1% drop) to 4.93mm SAAR (the lowest in 6 months). As usual there is an excuse for this carnage... NAR's Larry Yun blames the stock market (and rising home values). Quite a conundrum for the Fed...

The private sector – the part that pays the bills – is only $12 trillion. Total debt – government, corporate and personal – in the US is now $58 trillion (misreported yesterday as $59 trillion… but what’s a trillion dollars between friends?). That’s nearly five times the real economy that supports it. Assuming an annual interest rate of 2%, even if you could contain debt increases to 3% of GDP a year, the productive part of the economy would have to grow at 5% just to stay even. If the average interest rate were to rise to that level again – and sooner or later it will – it would take $3 trillion to service America’s debt – or one-quarter of private sector output. That can’t happen. The wings would fall off first.

In Parts I and II (click Sprott News), readers saw how all of the public debts of our nations (past and present) were the direct result of fraud, and thus legally unenforceable – on two bases. Firstly; the bankers of these Big Banks proclaimed themselves the world’s foremost financial experts. On that basis; they not only received privileged treatment for these Big Banks, they were recipients of confidential financial and economic information from our governments, as fiduciaries who were claiming to be acting in our best interests.

The whole "North Korea hacking Sony" story had gotten so bizarre over the past week, there was nothing stopping it from jumping fully into the rabit hole. Which it did overnight when as the FT reported, North Korea warned of strikes against key sites in the US in retaliation for Washington blaming Pyongyang for the recent Sony cyber attack, saying any US punishment over the incident would lead to damage “thousands of times greater”. The NDC said its 1.2m-member army was ready to use all types of warfare against the US. “Our toughest counteraction will be boldly taken against the White House, the Pentagon, and the whole US mainland, the cesspool of terrorism, by far surpassing the ‘symmetric counteraction’ declared by Obama,” said the NDC statement, carried by official news agency KCNA.

It all looked so rosy just a few short hours ago. WTI crude has slipped from over $58.50 (once again testing that upper band of resistance) to back below $56 and down almost 2% from Friday's close (not stabilizing). While the S&P and Dow (futures) remain green, the Nasdaq has tumbled into the red on the heels of Gilead's weakness (the 6th largest name in the Nasdaq 100).

As we assess, how many analysts predicted teh 10 year at 3% and how many analysts were long oil

What assures that the relentless low in TSY yields continues is that, courtesy of a market that is so broken and counterintuitive that for a record 6 years bad news is good news, and the worse the economy the higher stocks and bonds go, hedge funds will continue bidding up Treasurys, which they bought on hopes that this time the recovery will be right around the corner. And sure enough, as BofA reports overnight, hedge fund specs "sold 10-yr contracts increasing net short position to largest in three years. 10-yr contracts have now been sold in six of past seven weeks."

• Police officers' slaying raises pressure on New York mayor (Reuters)
• People Call for Cooling of Racial Tensions After Murder of NYPD Officers (BBG)
• The $6.3 Trillion Frenzy That Vanquished Treasury Bears (BBG)
• China Investigates Possible Stock-Price Manipulation (WSJ)
• Citigroup Was Wary of Metals-Backed Loans (WSJ)
• UPS Turns Parking Lots Into Sorting Centers to Add Speed (BBG)
• U.S. Move to Normalize Cuba Ties Boosts Firms’ Asset Claims (WSJ)
• Meredith Whitney’s Fund Said to Drop 11% as Office Put on Market (BBG)
• Railcar Bottleneck Looms for Oil (WSJ)

There are two key events driving overnight risk prices: first, there is the Bloomberg story that "China Offers Russia Help With Currency Swap Suggestion", which was previously covered extensively here a week ago, but now that the algos have official confirmaiton they have sent the Ruble shorts into a panic short squeeze, with the USDRUB tumbling another 5% as of latest. The other key development pushing oil prices modestly higher again, is yesterday's speech by Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi who "expressed confidence prices will pick up", however not due to a drop in supply - because he made it very clear OPEC will never cut output and instead will wait for the high cost producers to exit the game - but amid improved economic growth.