Archive - Apr 1, 2014

Suddenly the world is a buzz with the revelations that High Frequency Trading (HFT) may be doing more than actually harming the markets, it might be destroying the illusion they still are markets. This past Sunday the world at large was introduced that maybe, just maybe, something was amiss in the financial markets. Between the Federal Reserve's massive QE experiment amplified by the arms race of algorithmic technologies (aka HFT) to shave off a piece of that pie for themselves, the last few years have been nothing less than breathtaking. The only good thing that has come out lately on this whole issue of HFT is maybe for the first time in years the cover has been thrown off exposing the parasitic beast that’s been living just beneath the surface passing itself off as a symbiotic entity, rather than the pernicious monster its grown to be. Now the only question left to ask is: Can they invoke the death penalty for this creature... Without killing the patient?

Just last week we asked "Is college waste of time and money?" It appears, based on the latest data from the BLS, that for all too many, it absolutely is. As CNN Money reports, about 260,000 people who had a college or professional degree made at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 last year.

With Goldman's Thomas Stolper having gone the way of JPMorgan's Tom Lee, we thought it worth tracking the performance of the other market "seer" that reared his ugly head recently. Since the Crimea Referendum, Russian stocks are up over 16% (greatly outperforming US) but as investors began their great rotation back into EM, The White House's Jay Carney issued a "strong sell" recommendation on Russian stocks... since his suggestion, Russian stocks have risen over 6%...

Considering that Europe’s problems took years to unfold, despite the clear evidence that its banking system was virtually insolvent, the fact that things appear calm in Europe today doesn’t really say much about the true state of affairs over there.

According to The White House, 7,041,000 people have signed up for Obamacare (though it's unclear how many have paid as of yet and what the mix of enrolees actually is). While this will be proclaimed as mission accomplished and spun for all it's worth, wasn't Obamacare supposed to reduce the ranks of the 45 million uninsured in America? Still, it seems like a long way to go to meet CBO projections, as WaPo notes, "the CBO and Joint Congressional Committee on Taxation in February projected that 13 million previously uninsured people would gain coverage in 2014." We suspect the President will be over the moon and blame Republicans, Twitter, and YouTube for the number not being higher...

Japanese data (double) miss, check! Chinese data miss, check! US data miss, check! Investor trust in US equity at record lows, check! All-time record highs for US equities - you betcha! Stocks broadly pumped and dumped once again today but the start-of-the-month exuberance over April's seasonality was enough to leave gains that accelerated into the close as the long-bond sold off and short-end rallied (biggest 2-day steepening in 5 months). USDJPY was in charge for much of the day but when it went limp in the last hour, it was VIX-clubbing time (to 10-week lows ahead of the ECB and NFP?)  Oil prices slumped intraday (back below $100) as gold slipped but copper and silver flatlined. Wondering what fueled today's panic buying spree? "Most shorted" stocks tripled the market's performance on the day...

While the topic of HFT-assisted "price discovery" has been beaten to death on these pages, and courtesy of Michael Lewis is now a household, and soon FBI, topic, what is more notable is that in addition to a better than expected jump in March car sales, GM also confirmed that the post-bankurptcy company has never had a greater difficult in liquidating warehoused inventory. As the chart below shows, dealer inventory of GM autos on US lots, aka Channel Stuffing, just rose to a new all time high, of 815,492 units, up from 805,769 last month, and up 15% from the 743.8K units parked at dealer lots a year ago. So 15% increase in unpurchased inventory vs a 4% increase in sales. Someone smarter than us can probably do the math here.

The purpose of Quantitative Easing is to support the balance sheets of a few over-sized banks and to finance the federal budget deficit at an artificially low rate of interest. In other words, QE supports failed banks and federal fiscal irresponsibility. In order to successfully carry off this blatant misuse of public policy, the price of gold, a measure of the dollar’s value, must be suppressed. The Federal Reserve’s lack of integrity speaks volumes about the corruption of the US government.

JP Morgan blocked money transfer from #Russia diplomatic mission in Kazakhstan "under pretext" of sanctions, says Foreign Ministry

— Thomas Grove (@tggrove) April 1, 2014

The clearly agitated BATS CEO came out swinging, blasting Katsuyama and Lewis "Shame On You," for apparently telling the truth of what occurs in the stock 'market and letting everyone in on it'. The tension grows when he presses Katsuyama on whether he really believes it is rigged... who then erupts "I believe the markets are rigged.. and that you are a part of the rigging." Then the gloves come off "you wanna do this, let's do this!" and then it got worse (or better)...

So, to summarize... mere months after Mary Barra took over the reins of GM from a somewhat surprising Dan Akerson exit, she is faced with record high inventories of unsold vehicles of dealer lots, a sales halt, a recall of 2.53 million vehicles (some of which have been alleged to be responsible for at least 12 deaths), potential bankruptcy fraud inquiries (from non-disclosures), and now a Congressional hearing that is rather uncomfortably titled "The GM Ignition Switch Recall: Why Did It Take So Long?" The phrase "under the bus" comes to mind though we wonder just how many times the so far entirely plain-spoken Barra will 'plead da fif' today.

CNBC's last hour is likely the most-watched in a decade (perhaps because after 5 years of delays HFT is finally getting the exposure it has deserved from day one... and covered right here on this website since April 2009). From the HFT lobby explaining that "there is no front-running going on in HFT," to Michael Lewis explaining the "skimming" amd why "HFT is a tax on your investment dollars," the following clips are stunning in their total failure to calm an uneasy investing public. Howevere, when asked by the CNBC anchors whether his comment on the market being rigged was exaggeration he summed it all up perfectly... "Are you really under the illusion that the individual investor trusts Wall Street... the financial crisis wiped out any residue of trust for Wall Street even if they ever had it."

Considering the rancorous debate currently going on between Michael Lewis (we will have more to say about it shortly), DirectEdge CEO William O'Brien and IEX employee and latest HFT whistleblower, Brad Katsuyma, on CNBC, we decided that this would be an opportune moment to remind readers how BATS, which currently owns DirectEdge, IPOed, or rather how it failed to IPO, when it crashed and burned in its attempt to go public on March 23, 2012, when a rogue algo destabilized the order book and promptly sent the indicative price from around $16 to 0... in less than a second - perheps the perfect testament to just what HFT really does.... and just so readers have an objective perspective of how "unrigged" the market truly is.

Quiz - 1. How much natural gas is the United States currently extracting?

(a) Barely enough to meet its own needs
(b) Enough to allow lots of exports
(c) Enough to allow a bit of exports
(d) The United States is a natural gas importer

Quite frankly, we are stumped...

• *WAL-MART SUED BY TRINITY CHURCH WALL STREET OVER GUNS, MUSIC

And rock'n'roll?