Archive - Mar 2014

If the current pace of reductions continues it is reasonable to assume that the Fed will terminate the current QE program by the October meeting. If we assume the current correlation remains intact, it projects an advance of the S&P 500 to roughly 2000 by the end of the year. But... the question is, can the US economy can stand on its own when QE completely winds down, not to mention when the Fed actually hikes rates? Amid such weak levels of economic growth does not leave much wiggle room to absorb an exogenous event, or even just a normal downturn, in an economic cycle. If the Fed is indeed caught in a liquidity trap, then the current withdrawal of support will quickly show the cracks in the economy pushing the Fed back into action. It is at the point of "monetary impotence" where the word "risk" takes on a whole new meaning.

#Selfies!

We GET the Joke … It’s Just Not Very Funny

"Either way you look at it, it's time for the Fed to stop inflating housing assets, and stop buying mortgages" is how Alex Pollock introduces the following live streamed event by AEI. With speakers such as Chris Whalen we suspect, as the moderator explains, they will explain why "financial markets never seem to grow smarter when it comes to real estate."

The short-end of the Treasury curve continues to reprice higher in yield (3Y +2bps) as the term structure bear-flattens with 30Y yields rallying further after the aggressive 7Y auction. 30Y yields just broke below 3.5% (-4.5bps) - the lowest level intraday since early July 2013. 2s10s are now at 2.21% - near 10-month lows - and 5s30s has plunged to 1.80% - its flattest since September 2009.

Bear markets are punishment for over-exuberance and greed, notes ConvergEx's Nick Colas, teaching investors to be more careful next time around. That’s a pretty popular narrative in capital markets, and with two tough bear markets over the past 15 years, Colas suggests you’d think that there’s no way investors would be guilty of blowing bubbles again.  Right?  Well, as Nick explains, if the evidence from actual crime and punishment is any guide, this moral narrative is actually quite wrong.

The intricate and convoluted connections between Germany and Russia exude a peculiar aroma.

With Scotland moving ever closer, Crimea having chosen their own path, and Venice overwhelmingly voting for secession from Italy, the Spanish government has put its foot down on the Catalonia's planned independence referendum. As Time reports, In a Tuesday ruling, Spanish judges found Catalonia’s planned independence referendum to be unconstitutional. Of course, just as in Crimea, this is being ignored by the Catalan government - a region seen as the powerhouse of the Italian economy - who exclaimed "this will have no effect on the process."

The central premise of the Keynesian Cargo Cult is that this mechanism of making it cheap and easy to borrow money will work a kind of magic that can only be manifested by dancing around a fire at night waving dead chickens and chanting "humba-humba." The Keynesian cargo Cult calls this magic "animal spirits." Unfortunately, waving dead chickens while dancing around a fire doesn't do anything in the real world, and neither does making it cheap and easy to borrow more money. You poor, dumb, deluded fools. You've destroyed our economy, our values and our ability to deal with reality. Your faith is as boundless and disconnected from the real world as your policies.

The US Senate is more than happy to hand over a few billion and confirm sanctions:

• *SENATE PASSES UKRAINIAN AID BILL WITH RUSSIAN SANCTIONS
• *HOUSE PASSES VERSION OF UKRAINIAN AID, RUSSIAN SANCTIONS BILL

But, it seems the IMF's requirements for Ukraine's bailout are too much for the locals to bear:

• UKRAINE PARLIAMENT FAILS TO SUPPORT FIRST BID TO PASS ANTI-CRISIS LAW REQUIRED FOR IMF DEAL

Lawmakers will continue to work on the bill as it seems they approve the top-line budget but not the taxes required to get there... beggars can be choosers again maybe?

Yesterday we reported that in an attempt to unclog Europe's broken credit and monetary piping, European regulators are preparing to get their hands dirty by easing rules on, and unleashing, an asset class once labelled toxic sludge, i.e., all the worst of the worst debt that was the reason why Europe is in a 6 year-old depression, and hope and pray it somehow fixes itself. Today, the ECB reported the latest data on European credit creation in the private sector. Or rather lack thereof. Because at -2.2%, this was essentially an all time low private sector loan "growth" (rather, credit destruction). Which means Europe will have to throw all the toxic sludge it can find in its desperation to reignite yet another credit bubble, something Bernanke's cronies appear to have done far more admirably.

A patented idea whose time has come...

Making friends and mending fences and reinforcing his 'promise' noto to spy on friends and to have NATO's back... in Rome with Italy's newest Prime Minister Renzi...

• *RENZI SAYS OBAMA'S MESSAGE TO EUROPE SOUND, CLEAR
• *RENZI SAYS EU, U.S. SHARE VIEW ON UKRAINE
• *RENZI SAYS OBAMA'S CHALLENGE TO EU IS 'FASCINATING'

Fascinating indeed?

The more the West attempts to "isolate" Russia and pushes it away from its "core values" and of course the US Dollar, the more Russia will seek the safety of a non-dollar based system. We have previously described how Putin has been scrambling to enmesh Russia in tight bilateral commodity-based trade with both China and India, and now it is Russia's turn to announce it would seek its own "national payment settlement system" following last week's surprising and unmandated service halts by both Visa and MasterCard, which as Vladimir Putin said earlier today, will be a "bid to reduce economic dependence on the West."

A week ago, we wrote that "Turkey Set To Block YouTube Momentarily, After Google Refuses To Yank Clips Exposing Prime Minister." As of minutes ago this too prediction appears to have come true based on reports from inside the country that Google's popular video service is now also blocked.