Archive - Dec 2014

Oil is not quite as powerful a weapon against modern-day Russia as one might think.

Yields on very short-dated T-Bills are up notably over the last week hinting at the potential tonight's Cromnibus Bill to fail and the potential for government shutdown therefore looms. Whatever the outcome, Goldman does not expect a prolonged shutdown like the one that occurred in 2013...

When the PBOC popped the Chinese equity market bubble earlier in the week, American investors (and talking heads) were stunned by such limitations on speculative excess. However, as the following chart suggests, perhaps it was a public service they were doing as the demise of Macau's easy-visa workarounds to currency controls has meant China's habitual gamblers needed to find a new outlet for their cash... "customers who used to wager on casino tables are probably now sitting at home betting on stocks."

As an investor, it is simply your job to step away from your "emotions" for a moment and look objectively at the market around you. Is it currently dominated by "greed" or "fear?"  Your long-term returns will depend greatly not only on how you answer that question, but to manage the inherent risk.  “The investor’s chief problem – and even his worst enemy – is likely to be himself.” - Benjamin Graham

You know 'the market' is laughing at you when...

The central banks are now out of dry powder - impaled on the zero-bound. That means any resort to a massive new round of money printing can not be disguised as an effort to “stimulate” the macro-economy by temporarily driving interest rates to “extraordinarily” low levels. They are already there. Instead, a Bernanke style balance sheet explosion like that which stopped the financial meltdown in the fall and winter of 2008-2009 will be seen for exactly what it is—-an exercise in pure monetary desperation and quackery. So duck and cover. This storm could be a monster.

UPDATE: WTI just traded with a $58 handle

Zee overnight stabilitee (and brief dead-cat-bounce this morning) has turned into a renewed bout of selling pressure and for the first time since July 2009, WTI has broken below the $60 level. Canada Heavy is trading $42.10 (down almst $4 today!), its lowest since April 2009. As Deutsche Bank warned last month, a drop in the oil price to $60 a barrel "is likely to push the whole HY energy sector into distress," and sure enough - Energy credit spreads are wider once again, now at +952bps.

With Detroit emerging from bankruptcy yesterday, its experience under Chapter 9 was apparently so successful (occasional subsequent massive power outage notwithstanding), that suddenly every other insolvent city in the US is also i) admitting it is in dire straits and ii) hoping to recreate the Detroit experience. Enter East Cleveland. As Bloomberg Brief reports, the council president in East Cleveland said if she had her way, the city would follow Detroit's path and become Ohio's first municipality to file for bankruptcy to help solve its fiscal woes.  State Auditor Dave Yost said the suburb of 17,500, where oil baron John D. Rockefeller once had a summer estate, is insolvent. Things in the small town, representative of most small cities in middle America, are so bad "the community lacks a working ladder truck in its fire department, had its mobile phones shut off and faces $1.7 million in unpaid bills."

Presented with no comment...

In the last 3 days, the broad Greek stock market has cratered a stunning 20%. This is the biggest 3-day drop since 1987 and all on the back of the 'possibility' that an anti-EU party takes over. Did we just get a glimpse of the ugly reality hiding behind the veil of status-quo-maintaining central-bank-sponsored manipulation?

The so-called economic recovery that America has experienced in recent years is "unfair" and "distorted" according to Elliott Management's Paul Singer. Speaking at The DealBook Conference in New York, Singer warned that the recent 'great' jobs data is "part of the distrortion" that he has so vociferously ascribed (having previously noted that he "does not think the current optimism is warranted.") But when asked if the Fed should be blamed for income inequality in America, Singer exclaimed "Yes, they are the enablers."

One of our old rules of trading is that whenever a major asset class, index, or other benchmark has a sudden, rapid move in price, something blows up. Sky high. That’s because people get used to regimes. They get used to a certain state of affairs with a lack of volatility. They become complacent. Maybe they stop hedging. Maybe they allow themselves to have unbounded downside risk. Maybe they start gambling. So what's going to blow up?

BREAKING: White House budget office held conference call with agencies Thursday to prepare for shutdown if funding lapses by midnight.

— Damian Paletta (@damianpaletta) December 11, 2014

Confused at how such awesome retail sales headlines can lead to the kind of weakness we are seeing in stocks now that Lending Club's IPO has started trading? Wondering why bonds are now lower in yield on the day in the face of 'proof' that the US consumer is back? Wonder no more, as STA Wealth Management's Lance Roberts points out, November's seasonal adjustment for retail sales was - drum roll please - the 3rd largest on record... so maybe, just maybe, the 'market' is seeing through that pure riggedness, wondering about the huge surge in continuing claims, and agog at the blowout in credit spreads and collapse in crude...