Archive - Apr 2014

The founding principle for this new form of government which emerged in the 18th century, was that the Common Man was the ultimate source of power. Citizen legislators would enact the laws and shape the nation’s destiny. But instead, our republic is now strong-armed by professional politicians. The two dominant concerns of these careerists are to STAY in power and to do the bidding of those who ENABLE them to stay in power. America is no longer a world-wide exemplar of how to sculpt a civilized society. Instead, it is far down the road to becoming a full-blown Corporate Police State. It has fallen so tragically, that it is now just a self-deluded leper strutting about the global stage - unaware that the theater has already emptied.

So much for new GM's transparency... After failing to respond to over a third of NHTSA's requests:

• *NHTSA: GM STILL HAS 'FAILED' TO PROVIDE SUBSTANTIVE RESPONSE

NHTSA has thrown the book at General Motors (kinda)..

• *NHTSA SAYS GM SUBJECT TO CIVIL PENALTY UP TO $7,000/DAY

That will teach them!! There are some teeth there, as NHTSA added that it may refer GM to the Justice department.

This is just getting embarrassing.

While the Nasdaq was unable to get back above its crucial 100DMA, it outperformed today (Biotechs went nowhere) as the S&P 500 dipped-and-ripped off its 50DMA (and the crucial 1840 level for bulls). The problem with all this "the correction is over" chatter... nothing else is buying it... Treasury bond yields slumped lower (7Y -15 bps from Friday highs and back to FOMC levels) with 10Y < 2.70% again. Credit spreads on high-yield debt made new swing cycle wides (did not hold teh dead cat bounce gains). Gold jumped back above $1310 (and on a separate note oil prices surged as "tanks" hit the headlines once again in Ukraine). But perhaps the most notable 'negative' for this being anything but a dead-cat-bounce was the collapse in JPY carry - USDJPY's biggest drop in 8 months. VIX was pegged to the S&P 500 all day - but even there we saw notable steepening (as hedgers termed out protection). S&P 500 futures close perfectly at yesterday's closing VWAP.

The 1900 target for the S&P 500 that Credit Suisse since the start of the year but are seeing increasing signs of a market top with a meaningful correction lower likely to emerge. Volume divergences, DeMark clusters, and reversal days all point to weakness and, as CS concludes, a break of 1844/34 (for the S&P) could lead to a decline to 1800 and then to 1768.

Most Buy Side managers have no idea about the disparate business models of the four largest US banks by assets. 

Corporations continue to push the boundaries of wage and employment suppression, productivity increases and accounting gimmickry to support elevated profit margins. All of these functions are finite in nature, and despite much hope to the contrary, the current set of fundamental variables are more usually witnessed at the end of cyclical expansions rather than the beginning. With corporate profits being driven primarily by "accounting magic" rather than strongly rising revenue, the sustainability of the current level of corporate profits is in question. Fed actions leave a void in the future that must eventually be filled by organic economic growth. The problem comes when such growth doesn't appear.

USDJPY has fallen over 250 pips in the last few days and today is its biggest daily drop in 8 months as stimulus-hope premia is removed from the FX carry trade juicer. USDJPY has retraced all its post-FOMC gains in the last 2 days as the euphoria-to-disaster crowd continues to flood in and out. This dive has driven Nikkei 225 futures down almost 1000 points from Friday's highs, pressuring the Japanese stock market to near its cheapest to the Dow in 15 months.

Due to technical issues, the following CME Globex Futures and Options markets have been halted: 

At the start of 2013, we went 20 weeks in a row without a drop in the Dow on a Tuesday. While that trend broke, the chart below shows that Tuesdays are still a banner day for the bulls (with only 4 down Tuesdays this year)... If it's Tuesday, it must be dead-cat bounce day...

Accounting tricks and manipulation of economic data is taking place globally and will contribute to people being misled regarding the true state of national economies and the global economy. The false sense of security seen before the global financial crisis has returned ...  it can only end in tears ...

The Cyprus bail-in laid the ground for a global wealth tax. The next time a crisis hits, savers will be picking up the tab.

We wonder: why does the truth about the broken system, as witnessed and experienced by individual employees, always wait until said employee is about to depart their employer or just after? Obviously that is rhetorical. However, it is worth mentioning, because in the latest such revelation, a retiring SEC trail attorney veteran, James Kidney, who had been with the agency since 1986 and retired this month, just crucified his now former employer for doing precisely all those thing that outside critics - notably Zero Hedge - have accused the most coopted, clueless, corrupt and criminal regulators of doing. Only he said it in a way that not even we could have phrased. The SEC has become “an agency that polices the broken windows on the street level and rarely goes to the penthouse floors,” Kidney said, according to a copy of his remarks obtained by Bloomberg News. “On the rare occasions when enforcement does go to the penthouse, good manners are paramount. Tough enforcement, risky enforcement, is subject to extensive negotiation and weakening.”