Archive - Mar 2014

Sprinkled in between Herbalife promotion and eBay board decimation, CNBC's favorite crowd-pleaser Carl Icahn offered a few pearls of wisdom that the TV anchors were un-prepared for:

• *ICAHN SEES MAJOR SELL DOWN OF MARKET COMING
• *ICAHN CALLS MARKET ARTIFICIAL BECAUSE OF FED POLICY

Of course, Icahn did not specify the timing which provided just enough cover for the talking heads to confirm their "but stocks are a buy" perspective. We wonder whether the "sell-down" is as big a "no-brainer" as many of Carl's other ideas.

KEYBOARD WARNING...

I bet you the Turkish government can explain the intrinsic value of Bitcoin to Krugman and Roubini very soon as they systematically lose the ability to censor information due to Namecoin and affiliated technologies.

It has been a while since well-known Russian nationalist and spotlight-grabbing politician, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, made headlines. The recent flame up of Cold War 2.0 is precisely the cover the flamboyant individual needed to reemerge once more, scandalous as ever. Because while the west scrambles to find a way to punish Russia for openly flaunting its relentless hollow threats by annexing Crimea, Zhirinovsky is back and has a "modest proposal" for Ukraine, and the countries neighboring the troubled former USSR territory: namely dividing the country along the lines of an infamous Nazi-Soviet pact, suggesting that regions in Western Ukraine hold referendums on breaking away from Kiev. In a letter sent to the governments of Poland, Romania and Hungary, Vladimir Zhirinovsky also suggested those countries hold referendums on incorporating the regions into their territory. The question is whether Zhirinovsky, who traditionally has been just a bit of a loose cannon yet whose nationalist Liberal Democratic party largely backs President Vladimir Putin in the Russian parliament,speaks only for himself, or whether Putin is using him the way the Fed uses Hilsenrath.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron stated that it is "absolutely clear" that the G-8 Summit scheduled for June in Sochi, Russia will not go ahead. But it is President Obama that appears to be pressing the hardest for major changes:

• *OBAMA SAID TO PRESS ALLIES TO SUSPEND RUSSIA FROM G8: WSJ

This comes at a time when Ukraine forces are being withdrawn from Crimea and deployed to North, South, and East borders of the region.  Meanwhile, Ukraine is taking its soldiers pulled from Crimea and deploying them along all other borders.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned or, it seems, like a Chinese real estate speculator who is losing money. After four years of talking (and not doing much) about cooling the hot-money speculation that is the Chinese real-estate bubble (mirroring the US equity market bubble since stock-ownership is low in China), the WSJ reports that the people are restless as the PBOC actually takes actions - and prices are falling. With new project prices down over 20%, 'homeowners' exclaim "return our hard-earned money" and "this is very unfair" - who could have seen this coming... "We aren't speculators. We just want an explanation from the developer," said one 35-year-old home buyer, who said he had bought an apartment and gave his surname as Wu. "This is very unfair." Unfair indeed. How long before we hear they are "entitled" to a fair return on their housing (non) speculation investment? Alas for China's "non-speculators", as we reported last week in "The Music Just Ended: "Wealthy" Chinese Are Liquidating Offshore Luxury Homes In Scramble For Cash" the real anger is only just beginning.

With the list of high-ranking US officials running dry, it appears Russia has turned its attention, in the tit-for-tat sanction battle, to Canada. Following Canada's sanctions against 10 top Russian an Ukrainian officials last week, Russia has placed travel bans on 13 Canadian lawmakers and officials.

• *RUSSIA SETS SANCTIONS AGAINST 13 CANADIANS IN RETALIATORY STEP

The list includes aides to PM Harper and the head of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, and is, according to Russia's foreign minister, a response to the "unacceptable action by the Canadian side that has inflicted serious damage to bilateral relations."

Despite Pope Francis' recent attempts - mostly for media and public consumption, if not so much in actuality - to clear out decades of corruption at the Vatican including shady financial backroom dealings, involving countless global banks, some very odd things continue floating up to the surface. Like condoms filled with cocaine.

Palladium is like the Rodney Dangerfield of precious metals. It never gets any respect. If you ask someone about precious metals, in fact, just about everyone has heard of gold and silver. And occasionally platinum. But palladium is one of those obscure precious metals that few people think about, or even know about. Palladium is widely used in a variety of industrial applications, from spark plugs to catalytic converters to hydrocarbon ‘cracking’ to electronic components. And here’s something most people don’t know: most of the world’s palladium is mined in Russia.

Despite the ubiquitous pre-open ramp by USDJPY, equity markets resumed Friday's weakness out of the gate led by the best of the worst. Biotechs are being battered (-13% from highs) and momentum-high-flyers are being monkey-hammered (led by NFLX and TSLA). This is weighing most heavily on Nasdaq for now but the dive in JPY crosses is dragging all stocks lower. Treasuries are rallying and the USD is rising modestly.

Malaysia Airlines: deeply regret that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that #MH370 was lost and none of those on board survived

— Sky News Newsdesk (@SkyNewsBreak) March 24, 2014

Last month's exuberance-filled, and instantly extrapolated, Markit US PMI print at the lofty levels of 57.1 (proving that the weather-delayed pent-up-demand was truly back) has been dashed on the shores of ugly reality. March's print dropped to 55.5, missing expectations by the most since Feb 2013 as jobs grew at a slower pace and factory orders declined. This slowing in the US economy's growth adds to last night's weakness in Chinese growth. Given weather was not a majr issue in March, what excuse can we find for this?

For Gmail...

With the world particularly sensitive to any news involving stray and/or missing Boeing 777 airplanes, especially if said massive stray airplane is heading toward the Nuclear security summit taking place at the Hague, it is no surprise that the news which appeared about an hour ago that two Dutch F-16s were scrambled to intercept a unresponsive Boeing 777 in Dutch airspace, received such a prompt response.

In the glorious game of pin the 'explanation' tail on the 'manipulated market' tail, this morning, we suspect traders wil be hard-pressed to find a fun-durr-mental trigger for the 830ET trigger pull to dump gold and silver and buy USD against JPY in size... but then, since when did explanations matter?