Archive - Mar 2014

Dispassionate analysis of Russia/Crimea and the threat of Russia dumping its dollar holdings.  Much posturing.  Many point to US bluster have tough time identifying Russia's bluster.  Let me help.  

Truth, propaganda, or outright lies? Nobody knows anymore, but if an ICBM launch, which apparently the US had been aware of yet which came at the worst possible time even though Putin could have easily delayed, can barely dent the stock surge, who cares anymore.

As the markets push once again into record territory the question of valuations becomes ever more important.  While valuations are a poor timing tool in the short term for investors, in the long run valuation levels have everything to do with future returns. The current levels of profits, as a share of GDP, are at record levels.  This is interesting because corporate profits should be a reflection of the underlying economic strength.  However, in recent years, due to financial engineering, wage and employment suppression and increase in productivity, corporate profits have become extremely deviated. This deviation begs the question of sustainability. As we know from repeatedly from history, extrapolated projections rarely happen.  Could this time be different?  Sure.  However, believing that historical tendencies have evolved into a new paradigm will likely have the same results as playing leapfrog with a Unicorn.  There is mounting evidence, from valuations being paid in M&A deals, junk bond yields, margin debt and price extensions from long term means, "irrational exuberance" is once again returning to the financial markets.

This one should be intuitive: with Ukraine scrambling to load up on natgas ahead of the price surge once Gazprom ends its discount pricing, and unclear what if any access it will have to Russian gas in the future and at what cost, it was only a matter of time before the Ukraine stepped up the protection of its only true energy asset: its 15 nuclear power plant, which supply nearly half of the country's energy needs. Ukraine told as much to the U.N. atomic watchdog on Tuesday, although it framed it as a result of the "grave threat to the security" of the country posed by the Russian military. "Illegal actions of the Russian armed forces on Ukrainian territory and the threat of use of force amount to a grave threat to security of Ukraine with its potential consequences for its nuclear power infrastructure."

What Hagel proposes is not cuts, but instead a shift in spending away from personnel and toward new high-tech weapons which are favored by and profitable to the military-industrial complex. Welfare spending is bankrupting the country. But military spending is also welfare: it is welfare for the well-connected military-industrial complex, which enriches itself manufacturing useless boondoggles like the F-35 fighter. A proper foreign policy would mean a strong national defense, but a huge reduction in interventions and commitments overseas. Why are we stirring up trouble in Ukraine? In Syria? In Africa? Why are we defending South Korea and Japan when they are wealthy enough to defend themselves? A proper sized foreign policy would defend the United States instead of provoking the rest of the world.

UPDATE: EU is suggesting it will help Ukraine pay its $2bn Russian gas bill (to keep its spice flowing)

The question many are asking this morning is what is the iron-first of Putin thinking? With his "military exercise" over, does he believe it enough to have shown the world his potential for disruption? We suspect another reason may have been weighing on his mind. As we noted previously, Europe accounts for around a third of Gazprom's total gas sales, and around half of Russia's total budget revenue comes from oil and gas... and whatever Putin's geo-political ambitions, we suspect he did not want to jeopardize that source of revenue - no matter how much sabre-rattling and Gazprom-fear-mongering. As the following chart shows, Europe should be sighing a huge relief this morning - but remain cognizant that this, we suspect, is far from over.

Because BTFWWIII is so yesterday, we present BTFICBMD:

RUSSIA TEST FIRES INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC MISSILE: INTERFAX
RUSSIA TEST FIRED MISSILE FROM RANGE IN ASTRAKHAN REGION: IFX
RUSSIA MISSILE LAUNCHED AT 10:10PM IN SOUTHERN RUSSIA: INTERFAX
INTERFAX CITES RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY ON MISSILE TEST

But, the talking heads said Ukraine was fixed and Putin had folded?

She who lives in a gas house, shouldn't use tapped phones...

The magical thinking highlighted in two charts, as WaPo reports; in his budget request, Obama projects public debt as a percentage of gross domestic project falling to 69% by 2024, while the CBO has it rising to 79% - a difference of 10 percentage points, or roughly $2.7 trillion. As WaPo notes, the likelihood of this scenario unfolding... zero.

It appears, given comments from Foreign Minister Lukashevich, that things are about to get ugly again...

"we will have to respond...if provoked by rash and irresponsible actions by Washington... and not necessarily symmetrically."

First it was Amazon, now it's Facebook's turn. As was reported previously, hot on the heels of its $19 billion purchase of Whatsapp, Facebook announced the purchase of New Mexico-based Titan Aerospace for $60 million. Who is Titan? It is a maker of solar-powered drones which can reportedly stay airborne for five years and which many have suggested can help Facebook achieve its goal of providing global Internet access, especially in places where the "organic" growth of its audience may be otherwise limited by the lack of infrastructure.

Volume is around 35% below yesterday's pro-rata but none of that matters. The S&P 500 is at record highs but it is the "most shorted" and most notably the Russell 2000 that is just exploding higher with a massive gap. Up over 3% on the day, smashing to new record highs, this is the best day in over 26 months. This is the biggest rise in stocks since October 2011 (when global central banks came to a co-ordinated rescue). Bear in mind that the Fed already noted small-cap multiples were over-extended (5% below here)... but BTFATH anyway.

Take Ray Selent, a 30-year-old former retail clerk in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was unemployed in 2012 when he enrolled as a part-time student at Broward County's community college. That allowed him to borrow thousands of dollars to pay rent to his mother, cover his cellphone bill and catch the occasional movie...  Tommie Matherne, a 32-year-old married father of five in Billings, Mont., has been going to school since 2010, when he realized the $10 an hour he was making as a mall security guard wasn't covering his family's expenses. He uses roughly $2,000 in student loans each year to stock his fridge and catch up on bills. "We've been taking whatever we can for student loans every year, taking whatever we have left over and using it to stock up the freezer just so we have a couple extra months where we don't have to worry about food,"... Mr. Selent, of Fort Lauderdale, knows he is getting himself deeper in a hole but prefers that to the alternative of making minimum wage. In his 20s, he earned a bachelor's degree in communications from a local for-profit school but couldn't find a job.... He is now taking courses for a degree in theater so he can become an actor.

Is anyone surprised that the poorest and least credit worthy of Americans are being saddled with piles of debt in order to buy new cars? It’s not enough that a generation of our citizens will toil pointlessly to pay off more than $1 trillion of student loans, we may as well add some other form of debt burden on top of it. It’s hard to even imagine this is happening so shortly after the last credit bubble train wreck, but happening it is. Creative ways for people to purchase cars they can’t afford have been on our radar screen for some time now... Well the dancing has continued, and now we have Americans borrowing at all-time record levels to buy cars.

Having destroyed any credibility that this budget could possibly have yesterday, President Obama has outdone himself with the predictions in this $3.9 trillion budget...

• *OBAMA BUDGET PREDICTS FASTEST GDP GROWTH THIS YEAR SINCE 2005 (US GDP estimates collapsing)
• *OBAMA BUDGET SAYS ECONOMY MOVING FORWARD, HOUSING `COMING BACK' (home sales plunge at fastest pace since 2011)
• *OBAMA BUDGET CITES 'ENCOURAGING SIGNS' ACROSS INDUSTRIES (US Macro worst start to year since 2008)

But apart from that, yeah, "nailed it"