Archive - Jan 2014

We have shown the charts; explained the implications; but perhaps nothing sums up the situation in the US labor force than "the other ongoing bridge scandal" in the following cartoon...

Following China's pledge to seize another South China Sea island, The Philippine navy hopes to add two more warships to its fleet as Southeast Asian countries continue to expand their militaries in response to the Chinese government’s increasingly assertive territorial ambitions. “An army that fails to achieve victory is nothing,” China's Liu was quoted as saying by a defense magazine “Those borders where our army has won victories are more peaceful and stable, but those where we were too timid have more disputes.” That type of language again irritated its neighbors.

UPDATE: China overnight repo rates just spiked to 6% - the worst since June...

Chinese overnight repo rates were already on the rise (several trades at 5.5%: 200bps above Friday's close) as contagion concerns over wealth management product default spreads and the Chinese Business Climate Index tumbled to its lowest since June 09. Equity futures were sliding also with JPY strength and the Shanghai Composite was testing down towards the 1-handle once again. Then, amid the glorious nashing of spreadsheets and in the face of missed manufacturing and services PMIs, Chinese GDP (according to the Chinese government) came in at a better-than-expected 7.7% YoY (7.6% exp.) and handily above the all-too-crucial-to-hit 7.5% target GDP growth - but in keeping with the Schrodinger plan missed QoQ expectations (+1.8% vs +2.0% exp.). Industrial production also miraculously met expectations of 9.7% perfectly; and (shocker) Retail Sales perfectly matched expectations of 13.6% YoY. The results of all this 'meeting expectations' - JPY weakness (back down to 104 instantaneously) and implicitly US equity futures regain some momentum and scramble back close to unchanged.

Chalk this one up to US (f)austerity, and a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bull that forgot to add Pentobarbital among the billions in pork spending. Two months ago we reported that due to a shortage of Pentobarbital, Ohio would be unable to execute death row convicts. It appears that the shortage has persisted into the new year, and now some states are taking matters into their own hands. Or rather the hands of the firing squad. As NBC reports, due to the lethal drug shortage, lawmakers in at least two states to call for the return of firing squads. "Missouri state Rep. Rick Brattin, a Republican representing Harrisonville, introduced legislation Friday (.pdf) that would add five-person firing squads as an alternative to the state's current method of capital punishment, lethal injection."

Shanghai Daily: "China may soon announce an increase in its official gold reserve from 1,054 tons to 2,710 tons, Jeffrey Nichols, managing director of American Precious Metals Advisors, said. The People’s Bank of China has not reported any increase in official gold holdings since 2009, when the central bank said the official reserve was at 1,054 tons, which accounted for only about 1 percent of its multi-trillion foreign exchange reserves. The PBOC has been “surreptitiously” adding to its official gold reserves. It has bought a total of 654 tons in 2009 through 2011, another 388 tons in 2012, and more than 622 tons last year, mostly from domestic mine production and secondary supplies, Nichols said in a commentary posted on NicholsOnGold.com yesterday. Central bank purchases comprise the smallest fraction of global gold demand — less than 10 percent. “If China announces an increase in gold reserves, there would be an immediate drag-up force in the gold market,” Albert Cheng, managing director of the industrial association World Gold Council for the Far East, told Shanghai Daily. China is the biggest gold consumer and producer in the world."

Jeff Gundlach recently warned that the trade that could inflict the most pain to the most people is a significant move down in yields (and potential bull flattening to the yield curve). Citi's FX Technicals group laid out numerous reasons why this is entirely possible (technically and fundamentally) but despite this, investors remain entirely enamored with stocks and, as the following chart shows, Treasury Bond sentiment now stands at 20-year extremes of bearishness.

Last week we were the first to raise the very real and imminent threat of a default for a Chinese wealth management product (WMP) default - specifically China Credit Trust's Credit Equals Gold #1 (CEQ1) - and its potential contagion concerns. It seems BofAML is now beginning to get concerned, noting that over 60% of market participants expects repo rates to rise if a trust product defaults and based on the analysis below, they think there is a high probability for CEQ1 to default on 31 January, i.e. no full redemption of principal and back-coupon on the day. Crucially, with the stratospheric leverage ratios now engaged in such products, BofAML warns trust companies must answer some serious questions: will they stand back behind every trust investment or will they have to default on some or potentially many of them? BofAML believes the question needs an answer because investors and Trusts can’t have their cake and eat it too. The potential first default, even if it’s not CEQ1 on 1/31, would be important based on the experience of what happened to the US and Europe; the market has tended to underestimate the initial event.

Overview of the major forces shaping the investment climate.

Altogether, of the 1881 days starting on November 25, 2008 and continuing through January 19, 2014, the Fed has directly and unambiguously intervened in the markets for a total of 1592 days. It was not been directly involved in the market for a tiny 289 days. In sum: the New Normal is best characterized by a Federal Reserve which has been actively manipulating the equity "market" 85% of the time.

Did you know the war on drugs is founded on racist principles? Prof. Stephen Davies shows the historical thought process behind banning drugs. One of the main reasons drugs were banned initially is because people were concerned drug use would lead to interracial relationships. Can you imagine someone making that argument today? Yet it was a principle reason for some of the laws banning drugs that we still have. Other reasons for banning drugs included fear of conspiracies and the misguided notion that the government somehow has a right to the productivity of its citizens. All three of these reasons are truly absurd, but all three were historically used as arguments that contributed to the war on drugs. If these are the arguments on which the drug war is founded, can we be sure it's a war worth fighting for?

On this day in 1980, after more than doubling in the prior month, gold prices peaked amid "trading that reached delirious proportions" at a record $820. Between The Hunt Brothers precious metals miasma and rumors that the Soviet Union had invaded Iran, one trader at the time described gold's bull run as "like going to a strip show knowing the place is about to be raided." The exuberance described in the WSJ's headlines below echo so strongly forward into the current "buying opportunity" that any dip represents in the US equity market... and just as it is never different this time, the WSJ reported, "no one wants to leave until they're sure the party is over."

"When I talked to the head of deliveries, and I said what if like 4% of the people want delivery? -- He says oh Kyle, that never happens"

President Obama has recently promoted inequality as a fundamental threat to our way of life, saying, “The combined trends of increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to the American Dream, our way of life, and what we stand for around the globe.”  You can read the rhetoric here.  Let’s look at the reality.

Nothing to see here, move along...

With your local friendly asset-gatherer constantly promoting the cheapness of stocks of the TINA (there is no alternative) to BTFATH, TV talking-heads jabbering over 'stock-pickers' markets (infuriating Cliff Asness), and CEOs trotted out day after day to espouse how bright the future looks (even if outlooks in the immediate future are down-down-down-graded); it is hardly surprising that sentiment among the sheeple is so extremely bullish. So, when we saw the chart below... we could only ask - what do the insiders know that the average-joe-investor doesn't?