Archive - Apr 17, 2014

Everyone knows that the half-life of these pointless diplomatic summits aimed at "de-escalating" geopolitical tensions is measured in days if not hours... But minutes? Moments ago from RT, and literally minutes after the final Geneva "agreement" was blasted, we get this: "Kiev says Military operation in Ukraine southeast to go on despite Geneva agreement." The agreement, which as a reminder, said "All sides must refrain from any violence, intimidation or  provocative actions." That's right: not just "pro-Russian separatist terrorists", but all sides.

I got into a Twitter debate with Marc Andreesen of Netscape (the inventor of the commercial web browser) and Andreesen Horowitz (the VC fund that financed Facebook, Twitter, Skype & Zynga) fame.

He spit out what was mostly common sense, yet still flew in the face of what is taught in school, most text books and by most B school teachers. Here's how it went down...

1/A few common fallacies about valuation of public and private technology companies:

Krugman: "There's zero evidence that the kind of extreme inequality that we have is good for economic growth. In fact, there's a lot of evidence that it is actually bad for economic growth. Nobody wants us to become Cuba." Ah yes, inequality, the same inequality that the Fed - Krugman's favorite monetary stimulus machine - has been creating at an unprecedented pace since it launched QE. Just recall: "The "Massive Gift" That Keeps On Giving: How QE Boosted Inequality To Levels Surpassing The Great Depression." So while Krugman is right in lamenting the record surge in class divide between the 1% haves and the 99% have nots, you certainly won't find him touching with a ten foot pole the root cause of America's current surge in inequality. And, tangentially, another thing you won't find him touching, is yesterday's revelation by Gawker that the Nobel laureate is the proud recipient of $25,000 per month from CUNY to... study inequality.

Geneva Statement on Ukraine

Representatives of the European Union, the United States, Ukraine and the Russian Federation issued today the following statement...

Those munificently rising stock prices and options cash-outs owe much to the Fed’s campaign to suppress interest rates and fuel stock market based ”wealth effects”, but the CEOs are doing their part, too. They have become full-time financial engineers who use the Fed’s flood of liquidity, cheap debt and soaring stock prices to perform a giant strip-mining operation on their own companies.  That is, through endless stock buybacks and M&A maneuvers they create the appearance of “growth” while actually liquidating the balance sheet equity and future asset base on which legitimate earnings growth depends. The poster boy for this deformation is IBM which for all intents and purposes has become a stock buyback machine on steroids. It had a bad hair day yesterday, reporting still another year/year decline in sales, but that goes right to the heart of the matter. During the last seven years IBM has been a stock traders dream, climbing an almost picture perfect chart from $94 per share in March 2007 to a recent peak of $212.

First it was Lavrov announcing the "roadmap" to de-escalate Ukraine tensions. Now it is the turn of John Kerry.

Considering how successful diplomatic "solutions" to the Ukraine crisis have been in the past, it is no wonder almost nobody was paying attention to Geneva where today the four parties were holding talks to resolve the Ukraine situation, and moments ago they released, via Russia's Lavrov, a joint statement on "de-escalating the situation." From Bloomberg:

• LAVROV SAYS DOCUMENT APPROVED ON UKRAINE
• 4 PARTIES CALL FOR ILLEGAL ARMED GROUPS TO BE DISARMED: LAVROV
• UKRAINIANS MUST RESOLVE CRISIS THEMSELVES, LAVROV SAYS
• PARTIES URGE AMNESTY FOR PROTESTERS IN UKRAINE'S EAST: LAVROV

And, approrpiately enough, the Easter Egg:

• UKRAINE NEEDS DECENTRALIZATION, MORE REGIONAL POWERS: LAVROV

In other words, more referendums? For now stocks aren't reacting bullishly (perhaps because as UBS recently suggested, war may be bullish for US stocks), however, oil is lower on the news.

They’re not even trying to blame the weather this time.

Moments ago Weibo opened at a price that shocked pretty much everyone following the story of China's twitter, which had already cut overnight the number of shares it was taking public:

WEIBO CORP OPENS AT $16.27, IPO AT $17.00

However, within moments of opening the underwriters did everything they can to avoid another Facebook and defended the IPO price, promptly sending the stock above $17.00 where it was trading as of this second. Will they succeed, or will the Chinese social networking invasion also be Candy Crushed? The next few hours will likely give the answer.

Moments ago, in a show of continued solidarity with the people of (West) Ukraine, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced the latest batch of "non-lethal" aid to Ukraine. Among the items that would be shipped are:

• Sleeping mats;
• Water purification systems;
• Medial supplies; and
• Helmets

Why no healthcare plans? Hagel added that while US actions are "provocative" and "heighten tensions", the US supply of equipment to non-NATO member Ukraine is not meant to "provoke or threaten Russia" and will review providing Ukraine with more support, also saying that the US is offering "planners" to help NATO update plans. The same NATO which as we reported yesterday, is preparing to expand its air and water presence around Russia... also obviously in a way that is not meant to threaten provoke Russia.

  No, not the S&P 500.

As it turns out, in their euphoria to lower EPS estimates, the sellside lemmings forgot all about revenues.  Oops.  Because according to the Deutsche Bank Q1 earnings tracker, while two thirds may have beat earnings, a stunning 51%, or a majority of the reporting companies have missed Q1 revenue estimates.

World War O

The Philly Fed Business Outlook survey surged to 16.6, beating expectations by the most since September and rising to 7-month highs. Most subindices rose with shipments surging and new orders rising but prices paid flat. The big worry though is that this six-month forward expectations collapsed to their lowest since April 2013. So the pent-up-weather-demand is being seen as entirely unsustainable by the survey respondents...