Archive - Apr 16, 2014

Secretary General Scooby Dooby Do!

Here’s a guy you want to bet on - Li Ka-Shing. Li is reportedly the richest person in Asia with a net worth well in excess of $30 billion, much of which he made being a shrewd property investor. Li Ka-Shing was investing in mainland China back in the early 90s, way back before it became the trendy thing to do. Now, Li wants out of China. All of it.

There is a disturbing push by the FBI to create an extensive facial recognition database. The information received by the EFF via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, demonstrates that the feds may have a mugshot database with up to 52 million photos by 2015. The program is called Next Generation Identification (NGI), and the aspect of it that bothers the EFF most is the fact that non-criminal and criminal photos will be combined in the same database. So someone who has no criminal record can suddenly be flagged as a suspect just because an algorithm says so. What’s worst, research shows that the potential for false positive identification increases as the dataset increases.

"We have been cheated by CCB," exclaimed one Chinese investor who invested 1 million yuan ($160k) in China Construction Bank's Songhuajing River No.77 Trust (which offered returns of 9.8 to 12% per annum). It appears that a 12% yielding financial instrument was not hint enough of the risk to the dozens of investors who confronted police in troubled Sanhxi province yesterday demanding their money back from the trust which has missed 6 monthly payments in a row. People wearing white masks with the words "despicable bank" and "pay back our money" were among at least 30 investors facing special-forces officers in dark uniforms and the group dispersed soon after the bank had asked for more time, adding "the bank said they wouldn't risk their reputation."

Not every person in the world has the same relationship with the taxman as Americans do. Let’s look at taxing throughout the globe, including what people pay and some of the more bizarre taxes around the world.

"We have been warning that 2014 is the beginning of a new cycle that will see a highly unusual convergence between our domestic (civil unrest & revolution) data and our international war model. Both converge for the first time since the 1700s when there were US and French Revolutions and the fall of monarchy." The civil unrest will develop first outside the USA and turn up more aggressively in the USA after Q3 2015. Nonetheless, it still begins in 2014 for the USA as well. We are starting to see this in the West where memories of previous events still linger deep wounds from 1992.

The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) have made significant progress in setting up structures that would serve as an alternative to the IMF and the World Bank (which are dominated by the U.S. and the EU), according to RBTH. As WSJ reports, the U.S. would lose its veto power on the International Monetary Fund's executive board under a plan being considered by some emerging economies. The countries are fed up with the United States' failure to ratify a four-year-old deal to restructure the emergency lender. Yet more loss of credibility on the global stage and, as Brazil's FinMin Mantega sums up, "the IMF cannot remain paralyzed and postpone its commitments to reform."

Five years into the "recovery" and The Atlanta Fed thinks it's time to figure out where jobs come from (spoiler alert: there is no job tree). The Atlanta Fed has investigated trends in a variety of firm types to better understand why labor market progress continued to be slower than hoped for in 2013... the findings - when it comes to job creation, there is no simple solution. But Ben and Janet said?...

Yesterday we reminded those who fear the dreadful deflation ogre and its extreme monetary policy supporting fantasy that food inflation was in fact soaring. Of course, for those that do not eat Beef, Pork, Eggs, or Shrimp - everything's fine... except today we add yet another 'staple' to the extreme inflationary dilution of the average consumer's pocketbook... ORANGE-JUICE FUTURES RISE AS MUCH AS 1.5% TO TWO-YEAR HIGH

Despite Janet Yellen's meet-and-greet with the unemployed and criminal classes, the absence of Ben Bernanke has seemingly empowered several Fed heads to be just a little too frank and honest about their views. The uncomfortable truthsayer this time is none other than Dallas Fed's Fisher:

*FISHER SAYS FED POLICIES HAVE MADE THE RICH 'MUCH RICHER' (but...)
*FISHER: UNCLEAR IF FED POLICIES WILL BENEFIT THE MIDDLE-CLASS

We wonder how President Obama, that crusader for fairness, equality and all time Russell 2000 highs, will feel about that? In the meantime, just like the Herp, QE is the gift that keeps on giving.. and giving... and giving... to the 0.001%.

The potential geopolitical, economic, and asset implications of the tensions between Russia and the West over the crisis in Ukraine are weighing on growth hopes around the world (and not just in Russia). Russia's promising outlook for 2014 is fading fast but a worst-case scenario that includes a disruption in energy flows would likely wreak more economic and asset damage. However, some context at the growth of the Russian 'empire' is worthwhile before extrapolating Putin's demise too soon...

If there is was one way to assure a certain escalation in Ukraine hostilities beyond what has already happened, it is for NATO to do precisely what Russia warned it should not do: build up its presence in the surrounding countries. Which is why we find it somewhat puzzling that NATO announced it would do just this when as the Guardian reported, the military alliance said it would step up its presence around Russian borders to "reassure eastern European member states." And in case Russia fails to notice all of the Netherlands announced it is looking into the deployment of F16 fighter jets as Ukraine crisis air support "to try and ease the conflict around Ukraine, defence minister Jeanine Hennis told a television talk show on Tuesday night.  Asked specifically what form Dutch air support could take, the minister said 'it could mean sending an F16.'

Curious why after nearly touching $200 in early trading IBM is down 4% in after hours trading? Perhaps this has something to do with it: as the chart below shows, in Q1 IBM reported only $22.5 billion in sales, well below the $22.9 billion expected by the street, and down 3.9% from a year ago. In fact, this quarter's revenue was the lowest for IBM since the first quarter of... 2009. Net Income (non-GAAP of course), which was $2.6 billion and which met reduced estimates, was down a whopping 22% from a year ago. But the punchline, one which Cisco is very familiar with, was this:"Revenues in the BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China — decreased 11 percent."

While Fed's Fisher explains how Fed policy has benefited the rich, President Obama (and Joe Biden) are in front of the teleprompter to explain how great it all is for the rest of Americans...

*OBAMA SAYS STOCK MARKET SOARING, TOO MANY AMERICANS STRUGGLING

cue class warfare...

Following yesterday's significant volume and major short-squeeze ('most shorted' ramped 4% off the lows), today saw neither with volumes light and equity performance prety much balance across the board. Most of the strength occurred overnight with stocks dumping off the open, ramped on Europe's close, modestly sold on Yellen's speech, then ramped into the close. The Dow and Trannies made it all the way back up to unchanged from the March FOMC statement/press conference.  Every status quo hugging asset-getherer heard what they wanted from Yellen - except that Treasuries sold off at the short-end and flattened dramatically to near 5-year lows (not exactly the dovish hype headlines are made of). Copper jumped and oil dumped with gold and silver treading water on the day. VIX was monkey-hammered lower and stocks tracked it. Bottom line, while stock bulls hear dovishness, bond traders are calling Yellen's bluff.