Archive - Feb 5, 2014

It’s now clear that the spate of positive economic data coming out of Europe prior to the German Federal Election in September 2013 was just political gaming to get Angela Merkel back into office.

Apparently squeezed by an internal party split, The Hill reports that House Republican leaders have concluded that they cannot pass an increase in the debt ceiling without help from Democrats, abandoning plans to tie legislation either to ObamaCare or the Keystone pipeline. Having initially planned on these negotiation points, Boehner discovered he would not have enough votes to pass the bill... and folded. That left Republican leaders with no clear alternative to addressing the debt limit, which, as we noted is rapidly approaching at the end of February, as a combination of Republicans and Democrats will be needed to get a debt-limit boost through the House - leaving some Reps describing a clean debt-ceiling bill as "Capitulation."

With reporters stunned by Sochi's unreadiness and athletes now quitting individual events on the lack of preparedness of the snow, the Winter Olympics in Russia is off to a less than stellar start. The last time Russia hosted the Olympics – the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow - the Soviet Union was a superpower, stagnant but stable. Not so today, notes Nina Khruschcheva; Putin’s Russia is weak, tawdry, and corrupt – and underserving as an Olympic host. The atmosphere surrounding the Sochi Games reflects many of Russia’s worst traits. In the immortal words of former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, describing the country’s economic transition of the 1990’s: “We hoped for the best, but things turned out as usual.”

Once again the smell of NAPALM is in the air

What goes up (via free money and practically infinite leverage and rehypothecation) must come down (when the flow slows)... the dominoes are falling...

Just when you thought the "creativity" of this country's central planners couldn't get any greater, here comes the US Department of Agriculture with a brilliant plan to "mitigate the impact of a changing climate" - Climate Hubs. No really: Ag Sec Tom Vilsack announced today the creation of the first ever Regional Hubs for Risk Adaptation and Mitigation to Climate Change at seven locations around the country. "Climate Hubs" will address increasing risks such as fires, invasive pests, devastating floods, and crippling droughts on a regional basis, aiming to translate science and research into information to farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners on ways to adapt and adjust their resource management. Why is this being announced? "Today's announcement is part of the President's Climate Action Plan to responsibly cut carbon pollution, slow the effects of climate change and put America on track to a cleaner environment."

If readers ignore the rest from the latest monthly insight from Bill Gross of PIMCO, they should at least read the following insight which we agree with wholeheartedly: "our PIMCO word of the month is to be “careful.” Bull markets are either caused by or accompanied by credit expansion. With credit growth slowing due in part to lower government deficits, and QE now tapering which will slow velocity, the U.S. and other similarly credit-based economies may find that future growth is not as robust as the IMF and other model-driven forecasters might assume. Perhaps the whisper word of “deflation” at Davos these past few weeks was a reflection of that.... don’t be a pig in today’s or any day’s future asset markets. The days of getting rich quickly are over, and the days of getting rich slowly may be as well. Most medieval, perhaps." Where have we read this recently? Why in An “Austrian View” Approach To Equity Prices in particular and the bulk of Austrian economics in general. Which means that following the TBAC, i.e. the committee that really runs the US, none other than the manager of the world's largest bond fund has now moved over to the Austrian side. Welcome.

Even before the new myRA program was announced, there had been whispers about the need for the US government to assume some risk for US retirement accounts. That's code for forced conversion of private retirement assets into government bonds. As bad as it is to deceive naïve Americans into trading their hard-earned retirement savings for garbage (i.e., Treasury securities), the myRA program potentially represents something far worse... the first step toward the nationalization of existing private retirement accounts.

The following chart of Spain's housing market really speaks for itself, and certainly conflicts with Rajoy's promises that not only is the recession in the country over but it is recovering.

The Primary-dealer intermediated US Treasury issuance model is well-known to virtually everyone (and if it isn't, today the TBAC has released a convenient presentation explaining all the nuances for those who may not be familiar with all the aspects of just how the US Treasury auctions off bonds). But how does the rest of the developed world fund its budgeting needs? The following table from the TBAC presentation provides all the answers.

Those following the ever encroaching progression of the US welfare state will hardly be surprised by the latest data on US government spending broken down by the 11 largest outlays: spending on almost everything was down or unchanged in the first fiscal quarter of 2014 compared to a year ago except for healthcare and, of course, social security, which has finally caught up with the government's medicare and medicaid outlays. The good news: as a result of still low interest rates, and the Fed's check-kiting remittance of interest on monetized debt, Treasury outlays have tumbled to less than $100 billion in the quarter. This number will not stay this low for long.

Asia outperformed emerging market peers in Europe and Latin America during the recent selloff, which coincided with a drop in China’s PMI below 50. As Bloomberg's Tamara Hendereson notes, that was partly due to 'smoothing' by Asian central banks to temper volatility and partly because of the region’s reputation for strong growth and ample current-account cushions. Still, she warns, emerging market investors may in time focus more on Asia’s vulnerabilities, including higher valuations, lower real yields and greater sensitivity to Fed tapering and China’s rebalancing.

Presented with no comment...

Bad (ADP) news was good news but good (ISM Service) news is devastating and stocks are collapsing to fresh 2014 lows this morning as high-beta hope trades unwind en masse. The small-cap Russell is underperforming. All indices are now notably negative from the December taper. The Dow is down 7.4% in 2014! VIX is back over 20.5%

When Reuters reported earlier today that Anil Prasad, the global head of foreign exchange at Citigroup, the world's second largest currency trader, is leaving the bank, our ears perked up. The reason is the news overnight that according to the British financial watchdog, Martin Wheatley, the allegations for FX manipulation, "are every bit as bad as they have been with Libor" which supposedly means they are taking them seriously. Could this departure have anything to do with a probe that has already snared head FX trades at JPM, Deutsche and countless other banks? Well, Reuters promptly clarified that Prasad's departure is not related to the global investigation into allegations of currency market manipulation, a source familiar with the matter said. "Anil's decision is his own and entirely unrelated to the on-going FX investigations," the source said. So we had little reason to believe that Prasad's departure is tied to the probe... Until we read this: GOLDMAN SACHS HEAD OF FX TRADING STEVEN CHO TO LEAVE, DJ SAYS