Archive - Jan 2014

The first month of a quarter may set the market’s tone in subsequent months. In the context of today’s markets, they tie into a few questions you may be asking about early 2014 volatility:  Is January’s market drop merely noise on the way to another string of all-time highs, or is there more to it than that? For instance, doesn’t it seem a little ominous that we stumbled out of the gates this year despite sentiment being rampantly bullish? Does this tell us to be cautious going forward?  If you happen to read the Stock Trader’s Almanac, you’ll connect our questions to the “January barometer” (not to be confused with the “effect” discussed above). The Almanac’s founder, Yale Hirsch, coined the term in 1972 when he presented research showing that January’s return is a decent predictor of full-year returns. He concluded: “As January goes, so goes the year.”

Between 2008 and 2013, China’s credit market increased from $9 trillion to an incredible $23 trillion.

So far in 2013, Bank of America lost money on 9 trading days out of a total 188. Statistically, this result is absolutely ridiculous when one considers that the bulk of bank trading revenues are still in the form of prop positions disguised as "flow" trading to evade Volcker which means the only way a bank could make money with near uniform perfection is if it either i) consistently has inside information that it trades on or ii) it consistently front-runs its clients (the latter incidentally was a topic we covered back in 2009 relating to Goldman Sachs, and which the bank sternly rejected). We now know that when it comes to Bank of America at least one of the two happened.

Just because it wasn't enough of a vote of confidence in Jamie "Dear Congress: oath I vouch under oath that it was nothing but a tempest in a teapot" Dimon that his pay rose 74% to $20 million in 2013 despite JPM's Net Income crashing as the bank had to provision for tens of billions in legal expenses (conveniently excluded from Non-GAAP earnings) - but that's ok because the Fed's pumping of $1 trillion in fake buying power meant the stock soared - here comes folksy Crony Capitalist #1, aka cuddly Uncle Warren seemingly desperate for close encounters of the rectal kind with the JPM CEO, telling the world just how underappreciated poor, poor (we use the term loosely) Jamie is and said that if he owned J.P. Morgan, "he would keep Chief Executive James Dimon at the helm and would pay him even more than he’s making now."

#BREAKING: France's Francois Hollande announces split with partner Valerie Trierweiler to @AFP

— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) January 25, 2014

The most heavily touted statistical "proofs" that the U.S. economy is "recovering" and "growing" are the unemployment rate and the stock market. Both are completely bogus. Yes, bogus, as in phony, wrong, rigged, misleading, carefully crafted propaganda. Simply put, "new highs" in the stock market are statistical sleight-of-hand. By any practical, real-world measure, the SPX is worth significantly less adjusted dollars in 2014 compared to the real peak in 2000. Equally bogus is the unemployment rate, which has magically declined for years. You probably know this already, but it bears repeating: the unemployment rate is calculated by counting the labor force and those with a job of some sort--temporary, part-time, whatever.

The concept of the "Fed Put" is about to be tested.

Overview of the price action in the foreign exchange market.  

China’s GDP will almost certainly soon surpass America’s in absolute terms. The end of the unipolar era will create new dangers that the world mustn’t overlook. China’s relative rise and the United States’ relative decline carries significant risks, for the rest of the world probably more so than for Americans. Odds are, the world will be worse off if China and especially others reach parity with the U.S. in the coming years. This isn’t to say America is necessarily as benign a hegemon as some in the U.S. claim it to be. Regardless of your opinion on U.S. global leadership over the last two decades, however, there is good reason to fear its relative decline compared with China and other emerging nations. To begin with, hegemonic transition periods have historically been the most destabilizing eras in history.

Following research last week suggesting that HSBC has a major capital shortfall, the fact that several farmer's co-ops were unable to pay back depositors in China, and, of course, the liquidity crisis in China itself, news from The BBC that HSBC is imposing restrictions on large cash withdrawals raising a number of red flags. The BBC reports that some HSBC customers have been prevented from withdrawing large amounts of cash because they could not provide evidence of why they wanted it. HSBC admitted it has not informed customers of the change in policy, which was implemented in November for their own good: "We ask our customers about the purpose of large cash withdrawals when they are unusual... the reason being we have an obligation to protect our customers, and to minimise the opportunity for financial crime." As one customer responded: "you shouldn't have to explain to your bank why you want that money. It's not theirs, it's yours."

In the last year Bitcoin has gone 'viral'. As ConvergEx's Nick Colas notes, a lot has happened in 2013: Price appreciation, yes, from $20 to +$800 – the result of this online “Currency” going from science project to mainstream topic.  Volatility too – disruptive technologies seldom travel a level path. The story, Colas notes, is about to change, and there are three critical gates which bitcoin must navigate in the New Year.  First is regulation, and we will get a good dose of that next Tuesday and Wednesday when the New York State Department of Financial Services holds hearings on bitcoin and potentially issuing a ‘Bitlicense’ to help regulate business which transact in the currency.  Second is adoption – how will existing businesses incorporate bitcoin into their sales, marketing and payment channels.  Lastly will be volatility, which will have to come down in 2014 to encourage broader use.

Have you been paying attention to what has been happening in Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, Ukraine, Turkey and China?  If you are like most Americans, you have not been.  Most Americans don't seem to really care too much about what is happening in the rest of the world, but they should.  In major cities all over the globe right now, there is looting, violence, shortages of basic supplies, and runs on the banks.  We are not at a "global crisis" stage yet, but things are getting worse with each passing day.  Many have felt that 2014 could turn out to be a major "turning point" for the global economy, and so far that is exactly what it is turning out to be.  The following are 20 early warning signs that we are rapidly approaching a global economic meltdown...

Dick Clark didn't poll America to determine their taste in music. He told them their taste in music ... not directly, but by creating common knowledge — ideas that a crowd believes that the crowd believes. With the American Bandstand group dance staging and scripted questions, Clark allowed the TV audience to see a crowd of attractive young people act as if the music were popular. This is all it takes. Clark didn't have to force his preferred choice of popular culture on his audience like some centrally-planned Ministry of Culture. The TV audience chose it all on their own, thinking all along it was their choice! This is the power of the Emperor's New Clothes. This is the power of the sitcom laugh track and the live studio audience. This is the power of public coronations and executions. This is the power of Tahrir Square and Tiananmen Square. This is the power of the crowd seeing the crowd, and it is the most potent force in the social world.  It's certainly the most potent force in the social world of markets, and every Central Banker today is playing the Common Knowledge Game just as hard as Dick Clark ever did.

Well, they did predict this would happen, even if it was in direct contradiction with the numerator part of Goldman's top trade of 2014 which is being long the S&P500.

While the world's talking heads are desperately opening their global financial crisis fire-extinguishing mouths that this time is different, Rick Santelli takes 4 minutes to highlight the problems associated with liquidity that is always leveraged to the max and the problems that now await us. "For a while," Santelli calmly explains, the fairy-dust commercial planners (Central banks) "at least for a while, made everything seem like it could work." However, with "no excess margin in the system," emerging-market-cannonball-driven ripples in the global pool of liquidity are a major problem. Slamming those who argue 'taper is small' or 'Argentina doesn't matter'; the ever-increasing central-bank-inspired interconnectedness means "the market is realizing in a hurry," as we have warned numerous times, "these [central bank] programs can't go on forever,"