Archive - Apr 2014

Courtesy of Abenomics, all Japan managed to do is import the bad "non-core" inflation, which has sent food and energy prices through the rood (confused why the rest of the world is suffering from an episode of acute deflation? look no further than deflation-exporting Japan) and made "non-core" purchases like food and gas increasingly more unaffodrable to the ordinary Japanese consumer. Today it just went from bad to worse, because as Nikkei reports, gasoline prices at the pump surged to a 5-year high in Japan this week, due to tax increases. The Oil Information Center says the average retail price was 164.1 yen, or about 1.6 dollars, per liter, as of April 1st. That's an increase of about 4.9 cents from the previous week.

While we fail to see any occupations listed for "insider trading hedge fund managers" or "high frequency market manipulators" in the just released list by the BLS listing the number of workers and wages earned for all official US occupations, we supposed it will have to do, incomplete as it may be.

As the Ukrainian crisis festers and other dangers in the Pacific and the Mideast grow, an odd consensus among alternative analysts is taking hold — namely the belief that President Vladimir Putin and Russia represent some kind of opposition to globalization and the rule of corporate financiers. Perhaps moments in Putin’s rhetoric have seduced elements of the Liberty Movement into assuming that Russia is a “victim” in the grand schemes of Western oligarchy and that Russia is truly the "white knight", the underdog willing to stand up against the New World Order. We're sorry to say that nothing could be further from the truth. Russia is just as much a tool of the global elite today as it was after the Bolshevik Revolution, and Vladimir Putin is just as much a socialist puppet as Barack Obama.

So, they might be on the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean, but the Europeans and the Americans have one thing very much in common.

This week the state legislature of Michigan became the 34th state to demand a “Constitutional Convention” in the United States.  Pursuant to Article 5 of the US Constitution, if 2/3rds of the states call for such a convention, (meaning 34 states) it must take place. In such a convention, the entire Constitution is subject to review and can be altered and changed.

Just in case escalating tensions along Russia's western border - and one can be certain Estonia and Latvia will scream bloody murder any second - here is a retired Chinese general who just told SCMP that a "war with Japan over territorial disputes is becoming increasingly likely" and that China is more than capable of defending itself.

One has to wonder why we are dodging this truth about what we've become: a nation that turns a blind eye to skimmers, scammers and legal looting. As in the story of the Emperor's new clothes, the onlooker who declares the obvious - in this case, that the stock market is rigged - shatters the consensus lie.

Despite te best efforts of a late-day ramp, the total collapse in Biotechs and high-growth momentum stocks was just too much for the Dow to manage its first green close for 2014. A late-day panic-buying scramble, sparked by an initial bounce off Nasdaq's 50DMA, was leveraged higher at 330ET once again by a JPY-based momentum-ignition (whocouldanode?) and managed to get the Dow into positive territory for th eyear - but it failed by the close. Draghi's early promises sparked EUR weakness and that USD strength held all day. Oil prices surged back over $100 as gold and silver stabilized post-Draghi (after falling overnight). Treasuries rallied shortly after the US open (on weak data) and then ebbed back higher in yields (30Y -3bps).

Wall Street has come a long way from Jesse Livermore's "money is made by sitting, not trading", "It takes time to make money", and "nobody can catch all the fluctuations." Now we have HFT "flash boys" who only make money 'trading', in milliseconds of time, capturing every fluctuation...

The bitter battle between a spied-upon Senate panel and the sanctioned spiers (CIA) over interrogation techniques and deleted files just escalated...

• *SENATE PANEL VOTES 11-3 FOR DECLASSIFYING INTERROGATION REPORT
• *FEINSTEIN SAYS CIA REPORT CHRONICLES 'STAIN' ON HISTORY
• *FEINSTEIN SAYS CIA MADE 'SERIOUS MISTAKES' THAT HAUNT U.S.
• *SENATE INTELLIGENCE VOTE ASKS OBAMA TO ISSUE REDACTED REPORT

Of course, some might see this as a distraction pre-elections (a baffle 'em with Bush-shit moment) but that would be a conspiracy 'theory'...

“At some point in time the chickens are going to come home to roost on the HFT game,” said one Goldman insider.

"Hitler took over the Sudetenland with such methods," warned German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble over the weekend, drawing parallels between Putin's push into Ukraine and the start of the Nazi occupation of Europe. This did not go down well in Moscow and German Ambassador Ruediger Freiherr von Fritsch was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry as the Russians lodged an official protest. Merkel was quick to distance herself from the remarks (which Russia calls a "trick") demanding that "a high-ranking official should take more responsibility for his words."

From Goldman's just released annual shareholder letter:

The quality and breadth of our client franchise are a direct by-product of our ability to attract and retain high-caliber professionals. As an investment bank, our main asset is our people and the advice and solutions that they provide to our clients. Great people build great relationships. And, we are fortunate to have a diverse group of young people from around the world who continue to view Goldman Sachs as a great place to begin and sustain their careers. For our latest analyst class, more than 43,000 candidates applied for 1,900 positions. We accepted about four percent of those applicants and of those receiving offers, more than 80 percent accepted.

Or a lower acceptance ratio than Harvard with 23 applicants for every open position. Something tells us the hourly wage offered at Goldman is higher than that for line cooks, or for anesthesiologists for that matter.