Archive - Apr 2014

The woman at the center of the IRS-Tea-Party-Targeting debacle is back in the limelight once again as the House Ways and Means Committee voted 23-14 to formally ask the Justice Department to investigate the ex-IRS official. As Fox notes, this appears to be an escalation by the Republicans to confront Lerner over her role in the agency's controversial practice of singling out conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status for extra scrutiny. On another front, a separate committee will vote Thursday on whether to hold her in contempt of Congress for twice refusing to testify on the scandal. Democrats called the move "unprecedented." The question, of course, is just how more 'da fifs' can she plead.

For the first time since the 'recovery' began, Gallup reports that consumer's average daily spending flatlined year-over-year. As Gallup concludes, at a daily rate of $87, Americans' average daily spending in March looks positive by comparison to spending over the past five years. But the stall in spending, both month-over-month and compared with a year ago, most likely signals a continuation of the lackluster retail sales seen so far in 2014. While government data suggested that retail sales rebounded in February (though still the weakest YoY since Nov 2009), the Gallup data appears to confirm the post-weather pent-up-demand has failed to arrive.

The Fed sacrificed the foundation of middle class wealth - stable housing values - to boost bank profits. Middle class wealth was Fed to the sharks. As the current housing bubble deflates, the investor-buyers who fueled the rally are exiting en masse: what's the value of an asset when the bid vanishes, i.e. there's nobody left who's willing to pay today's prices? The Fed has failed to restore middle class wealth with its latest housing bubble, and the costs of the bubble's collapse will fall not on the Fed but on those who believed the recovery was more than Fed manipulation.

Another day another dismal headline of some killing spree and while the American people is becoming almost numb to these dreadful occurrences, this one was different. As Reuters reports, twenty people were injured, at least nine seriously, when a student at a Pittsburgh-area high school went on a stabbing rampage early on Wednesday. We are sure the administration is closely watching the events and considering what actions to take to ensure this does not happen again. The good news, for now, is that no one has died but indications are that these are very serious injuries.

If you listen very carefully, you will still hear absolutely nothing from any talking-heads of the utter collapse that the last few weeks have witnessed in the Baltic Dry shipping index. The Baltic Dry has dropped 12 days in a row and plunged back to $1061 - its lowest since August 2013. This is the worst start to a year on record... must be the weather.

The market has had a rough start of the year flipping between positive and negative year-to-date returns. However, despite all of the recent turmoil from an emerging markets scare, concerns over how soon the Fed will start to hike interest rates and signs of deterioration in the underlying technical foundations of the market, investors remain extremely optimistic about their investments. It is, of course, at these times that investors should start to become more cautious about the risk they undertake. Unfortunately, the "greed factor," combined with the ever bullish Wall Street "buy and hold so I can charge you a fee" advice, often deafens the voice of common sense. "Not surprisingly, lessons learned in 2008 were only learned temporarily. These are the inevitable cycles of greed and fear, of peaks and troughs."

Wholesale inventory growth slowed to 0.5% (for Feb) from a revised 0.8% pick up in January but met expectations as it seems the much-hoped for weather recovery remains missing in action. This is the 2nd slowest rate of inventory increase in 7 months. Wholesale Sales did bounce back from the utter collapse last month but not as much as expected - rising 0.7% vs 1.0% expectations - missing for the 3rd month in a row. The combination leaves inventory/sales overall at its highest in 16 months.

Oops. Another day, another failed IPO. Private equity group Blackstone's darling La Quinta IPO'd at $17 last night raising $650 million (at a multiple of 47 times last year's earnings). This was already below the low end of the range ($18 to $21) but this morning's open shows it seems the 'public' is not buying the hyper-growth story anymore....

Russia's Gazprom and China are poised to conclude a gas supply contract in coming weeks, the first in a series of energy projects planned between the two countries. "We’re working now to sign a gas contract in May," said Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich. "Consultations are continuing and Gazprom's leaders are holding talks with Chinese partners on the contract terms. We hope to conclude the contract in May and believe it should come into effect by the year end.

For the first time since the bailout/restructuring, Greece will issue long-term debt to the public markets. These 5 year-term English Law bonds (which is entirely unsurprising given the total lack of protection local-law bonds suffered during the last restructuring) are expected to yield between 5 and 5.25%. That is modestly higher than Russia, below Mexico, and one-sixth of the yield investors demanded when the crisis was exploding. The secondary market has rallied to this entirely liquidity-fueled level leaving onlookers stunned (and likely Draghi et al. also). Greece must be 'fixed' right? Just don't look at the chart below...

The top 1% of 825,000 individual medical providers accounted for 14% of the $77 billion in medicare billing in 2012, according to new federal data reported by the WSJ. The data shows a very small number of doctors and medical providers account for a huge amount of the costs for treating the elderly and, as WSJ notes, suggest in some cases, may be enriching themselves in the process. As Bloomberg notes, one doctor, who treats degenerative eye disease in seniors, was paid $21 million (twice the 2nd highest paid doctor on the list) with some top earners making 100 times the average for their respective fields. One researcher summed it up, "There's all sorts of services that are low-value for patients, high-revenue to providers," and leaves us wondering, once again, how the government will manage as Obamacare's "success" washes ashore.

With the pending release of the FOMC minutes today, whet else is there but to lift JPY a little (just enough to break 102), spark a momentum run in US equity futures and dump precious metals like the status-quo-hating barbarous relics they are.

Symbolism is important and Putin may be sending the U.S. a message, in the aftermath of JP Morgan unilaterally deciding to block an official Russian wire transfer, regarding how they might use gold as a geopolitical weapon should economic and currency wars deepen ...

On April 1, as was widely known, Japan raised its sales tax from 5% to 8% - a move many dread could unleash a recession as happened the last time Japan hiked a consumption tax in 1997. A week later the verdict on just how much consumption was frontloaded ahead of the hike is in, as we get the first sales data on the ground. The result is, in short, a disaster: overnight the Nikkei reported that Japanese department store Takashimaya’s revenue in April 1-7 period crashed 25%!

Another week, another Chinese default. A month after Chaori Solar's default turned on its head a long-held assumption that even high-yielding debt carried an implicit state guarantee, yet another Chinese firm has succumbed to the inevitable logic of lack of cash flows. As a reminder, a technical default late last month by a small construction materials firm, Xuzhou Zhongsen Tonghao New Board Co Ltd, was the first in China's high-yield bond market. However, in that case the guarantor of that bond eventually agreed to fund the required interest payment, resulting in the first bailout of the first high yield default. Still if Xuzhou doesn't want the distinction of the first Chinese HY default, many are lining up for that particular prize - such as a small manufacturer of polyester yarn based in China's wealthy Zhejiang province has declared bankruptcy, threatening its ability to meet an interest payment on a high-yield bond due in July.