Archive - Mar 2014

London’s cobbled and quaint streets are no longer paved with gold as their fictitious character, Dick Whittington might have once believed in fairytale land. But, they certainly do attract the golden billionaire boys from around the world these days as London gets to the top position in the places to have a pad; but you don’t necessarily need to live there!

Have you noticed the avalanche of IPOs in recent weeks? Remember the avalanche of IPOs in early 2000 and early 2007? John Hussman points out the inconvenient fact that 75% of the shitty recent IPOs lose money. Wall Street is dumping this crap on the muppets as fast as possible. They know it is late in the game and the party is just about over, but they will be dancing until the punchbowl is empty and everyone is puking in the bathroom. The lesson of history is that people never learn the lessons of history. Profits and cash flow matter in the long run. Accounting fraud and currency debasement have never sustained an economic system before and they won’t this time. Keep dancing if you choose, but you know the game is rigged and you aren’t part of the privileged rigger class. 

The disappointment on the faces of talking-heads everywhere is writ large as it appears Q1 2014 will be a flat quarter - the worst quarter in a year and a down one for the Dow. After promises of "as goes January" failed, and "it's just the weather", the promise of a magnificent H2 recovery remains firmly in traders' minds in spite of the total collapse in fundamentals during the last few months. Just how bad? Top-down economic data has plunged to its lowest in 19 months and bottom-up earnings forecasts... well, take a look...

Another day, another disaster for GM. Moments ago, on top of the already previously reported numerous recalls by the car marker bailed out by the US government at a loss (but with so many votes for Obama won that who's counting), here is the latest.

GM TO RECALL MORE THAN 1.3 MILLION VEHICLES IN THE U.S.; GM EXPECTS TO TAKE A CHARGE OF UP TO APPROXIMATELY $750M

And the punchline: "GM SAYS VEHICLES MAY EXPERIENCE SUDDEN LOSS OF POWER STEERING."  Alas, as a result, hedge fund hotels may experience sudden loss of P&L, because as we reported previously GM just happens to be the most widely held hedge fund stock in the US currently, with some 194 brand name hedge fund holders according to Goldman Sachs, more than even Apple.

It was almost excatly five years ago to the day, on April 10, 2009, that Zero Hedge - widely mocked at the time by "experts" - began its crusade against HFT and the perils of algorithmic trading (which of course were validated a year later with the Flash Crash). In the interim period we wrote hundreds if not thousands of articles discussing and explaining the pernicious, parasitic and destabilizing role HFT plays in modern market topology, and how with every passing day, markets are becoming increasingly more brittle, illiquid and, in one word, broken. Or, as Michael Lewis put it most succinctly, "rigged." With Lewis' appearance last night on 60 Minutes to promote his book Flash Boys, and to finally expose the HFT scourge for all to see, we consider our crusade against HFT finished. At this point it is up to the general population to decide if this season's participants on Dancing with the Stars or the fate of Honet Boo Boo is more important than having fair and unrigged markets (obviously, we know the answer).

Value stocks handily outperformed Growth stocks by the end of Q1 but the window-dressing pump of the last 2 days rescued all but the blue-chip Dow from ending the quarter in the red. This is the worst quarterly performance for stocks since 2012.  Despite disconnects all over the place today, stocks managed to hold onto gains today. Thanks to some dovosh comments by Yellen (that apparently "some time" is interpreted as more than 6 months), bonds and stocks ripped today leaving long-bonds best quarter since Q2 2012. Gold is the best performing asset of the quarter and HY bonds worst as the USD ended unchanged.

There’s nothing like a nice cup of reality 'tea' first thing on Monday morning. Periodically, we like to scan headlines for phrases like “record high” or “all time high”... in today's case, the results can often given an interesting big picture perspective of what’s happening in the world.

As expected, the Federal Reserve has released its Permanent Open Market Operations (POMO) non-monetizing-of-the-debt schedule for April with $30 billion of Treasury purchases (and $25 billion MBS). This is a 33% reduction from the 'normal' $45 billion Treasury purchase of last year. The POMO schedule very generously allows traders 3 days of non-money-printing potential shorting opportunities (Friday 4th, Thursday 17th, and Wednesday 30th)... however, this Friday is non-farm payrolls day and we will not be allowed a red day after that...

Just over an hour ago the Fed disclosed that as part of its most recent reverse repo operation, it had handed out to 93 dealer banks and other financial intermediaries, both foreign and domestic, some $242 billion in Treasurys in what is now the biggest reverse repo operation in history, a privilege for which the collateral-starved banks paid the Fed the king's ransom of 0.05% in annual interest, i.e., nothing.

"The US reached a peak in prosperity and influence in the world in the 1950s or 1960s," Marc Faber explains to an Australian audience at the recent World War D conference; but since the 70s the superpower has been locked into a cycle of bubbles, busts and growing debt. "There are some people who claim to be economists who will tell you debts do not matter," but the real story is different, he warns. "When you drop dollar bills into the economy... it won't lift all prices and assets equally at the same time," Faber explains, "in the 60s and 70s, extra money flowing through the economy inflated wages; in the early 2000s, money printing inflated commodities;" but, the Gloom, Boom, & Doom Report editor points out, this price and asset growth is never equal, warning that "we live in a new word... where the old world order is largely bypassed."

Given the pump-and-dump revelations of last night (that we have been vocierfously explaining to an unwilling to hear public for five years), the question today is - who you gonna trust? The bond market or the stock market...

When one reads stories such as the following report from the FT, in which we learn that former Chinese president Jiang Zemin "has urged the current leadership to rein in an anti-corruption campaign that is proving the harshest in decades and is seen as threatening the interests and networks of some Communist party elders", or said otherwise - his cronies, aside from being utterly speechless at the rapid unravelling of the bizarro world, all one can say is - expect such developments in the US in a few years time, when then former president Obama asks Clinton, Christie or whoever the then-reigning dictator of the totalitarian states of America is, to take it easy on the Corzines of the world.

Despite months to plan and an early morning failure today already, the Obamacare wesbite Healthcare.gov is down once again...

*AP SAYS HEALTHCARE.GOV WEBSITE NOT ACCEPTING NEW APPLICANTS, TECHNICAL PROBLEMS PREVENTING HEALTHCARE.GOV APPLICATIONS: AP

Of course the frequency of visitors is having some effect and the adminstration has once again extended the deadline for enrolment as long as participants are in line today. Perhaps, Obama should ask the HFTs how they cope with the volume?

Looks like someone didn't pay their annual "cost of conducting criminal business" bribe:

You can expect that before long a significant financial institution will be charged with a felony or be made to plead guilty to a felony

— SDNYnews (@SDNYnews) March 31, 2014

So who is it? In other news: free Jon Corzine already!

While French finance minister Moscovici embarrassingly losing his council seat in this weekend's muni elections is bad enough, we we warned earlier, the dismal loss for Hollande has claimed its first victim. As WSJ reports, French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault tendered his resignation and that of his government to President Hollande.