Archive - Feb 2014

Civil rights are often lost in societies by politicians scapegoating unpopular minorities. This happened with jews, gypsies, etc in Nazi Germany and we must be very careful the same does not happen here. One human being should be able to voluntarily give food to another in all cases, without exception. The concept of a permit needed that costs $120 per week is fascist, anti-human and downright evil. Gandhi famously noted that: The greatness of a society and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.

We all know that money doesn’t exist and that it’s nothing more than virtual movements from one bank to another, but where is it all going exactly? Is it just fuelling the stock market, going round in circles and coming back to the original place it was in? 

It is almost remarkable that it was a few short weeks ago when the Turkish Lira was crashing to new daily record lows against all reserve currencies, and when Erdogan, embroiled in a bitter political corruption scandal, was firing judges and police officers left and right. Since then, things have quieted down, on the back of the return to surface calm across the broader Emerging Markets (even if nothing has actually been resolved fundamentally in the post-Taper era), however the Turkish graft scandal refuses to go away. As a result, today the Turkish Lira soared by over 200 pips following the release of a new recording which is allegedly a leaked telephone conversation in which the premier discusses plans how to hide at least $1 billion in cash (an amount which would buy about 20 Yanukovich-style presidential palaces) in the period when the Police was raiding various affiliated venues as part of a corruption investigation.

It’s like 34 drunken sailors holding each other up. That’s the best way I can think of to describe the latest product from the good idea factory that is the OECD. Over the weekend in yet another cushy five-star hotel, representatives from this unelected supranational bureaucracy announced plans for world governments to exchange all their citizens’ tax and financial data with one another. It’s a pathetic display of exactly the sort of tactics that governments embrace when they go broke. And most of these OECD countries ARE broke – Italy, Japan, the US, Spain, Greece, etc.

US equities tagged new highs early in the day-session sparked by USDJPY ignition and rotating to support from AUDJPY as stops were run and exuberance over shitty data reigned. "Most shorted" stocks dramatically outperformed early on providing the sacrifice required but while bond yields rose from their open last night, they end the day practically unchanged (10Y +1bps); The USD rallied into the open but EUR and AUD strength cracked it back to practically unchanged by the close. Copper flailed (on slowing China construction fears) but oil, silver, and gold all rallied around 1% on the day (though rolled over in the afternoon). VIX dropped but held 14% and remains notably divergent. Credit rallied but remains a laggard compared to equity exuberance. Stocks tanked into the close; catching down to VIX, credit, and USDJPY - what a "market" with the S&P losing its highs and closing red for 2014 once again.

Those tracking the developments in the Ukraine, and specifically the Russian response to this weekend's coup, will be interested to note that according to the Russian flot.com website, the large landing ship Nikolai Filchenkov, previously known for its participation in the Syrian naval arms build up, is expected to arrive in the Crimean port of Sevastopol carrying 200 armed soldiers, sent from the nearby Black Sea town of Temryuk.

The MSM won't touch this topic, nor will the Fed. But it caused 2008 and it hasn't been fixed.

"If you like your bailout, you can keep your bailout," is the message from the latest Troika mission to Greece; but there is one (or two) big 'but's... As ekathimerini reports, Greece is "very close" to a deal with the Troika for the next EUR8.8 billion with negotiations hanging on a few final things including... the troika wants Greece to extend the shelf life of fresh milk! Maybe they should just rename it 'greek yoghurt'.

Having sold his 7-bedroom NY mansion, the CEO of Virtu Financial (the high-frequency-trading firm that accounts for 5% of US equity trading volume) appears to believe investors are ripe for him to IPO his firm. As The FT reports, New York-based Virtu is aiming to raise between $250-$350m from a listing that would make it the first electronic trading business that trades with its own funds to launch an IPO. The question, of course, is, will Virtu be the top-ticking, greater-fool-finding IPO of this bubble that Blackstone was for the last one?

It would indeed be supremely ironic if the "strong" foreign law bond indenture would be tested, and breached, not by Greek bonds, as so many expected in late 2011 and early 2012, but by one of the last contries in Europe which is still AAA-rated. We would find it less ironic if the next leg of the global financial crisis was once again unleashed by an Austrian bank: after all history does rhyme...

Debt is the great palliative that has enabled the US and other major economies to escape reality, at least for a time. Ayn Rand described such behavior:

You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.

It is possible to steal from tomorrow to improve today but only at the cost of having less of a future. That is what both nations and citizens have been doing. The ability to continue doing so has about run its course.

Russia represents over 25% of Ukraine's exports and is the divided nation's largest trade partner. As Ukraine remains deep in its self-described "pre-default" state, the economy languishes vainly in the hopes of a trade deal with 'someone' and a bailout from 'someone' else. However, the IMF's first move to bail the nation out has now been met by a subtle punch to the country's kidneys as Interfax reports that Russia threatens to limit food imports on the basis of "veterinary and phytosanitary risks."

A 65-mile stretch of the Mississippi near New Orleans remained closed Monday after two vessels collided and caused an oil spill on Saturday in foggy conditions about 30 miles west of New Orleans. As NBC news reports, the Lindsay Ann Erickson crashed with the Hannah C. Settoon, which was pushing two barges carrying barrels of light crude oil that spilled into the river. Clean-up efforts are underway.

The usual interventionists in the US have long meddled in the internal affairs of Ukraine. In 2004 it was US government money that helped finance the Orange Revolution, as US-funded NGOs favoring one political group over the other were able to change the regime. These same people have not given up on Ukraine. They keep pushing their own agenda for Ukraine behind the scenes, even as they ridicule anyone who claims US involvement. If you asked most Americans how they feel, my bet is that you would discover they are sick and tired of the US government getting involved in every crisis that arises. And I bet if we asked the Ukrainians, a vast majority of them would prefer that the US — and Russia and the European Union — stay out their affairs and respect their sovereignty. So let’s keep our hands off of Ukraine and let them solve their own problems!

This is a headwind we shouldn't ignore.