Archive - Jun 2014
June 26th
Gazprom Ready To Drop Dollar, Settle China Contracts In Yuan Or Rubles
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/26/2014 19:35 -0500Something very dramatic happened overnight when, in a little noticed statement, Gazprom's CFO Andrey Kruglov uttered the magic words:
- GAZPROM READY TO SETTLE CHINA CONTRACTS IN YUAN OR RUBLES: CFO
In other words just as the US may or may not be preparing to export crude - a step which would weaken the dollar's reserve status as traditional US oil trading partners will need to find other import customers who pay in non-USD currencies - the world's two other superpowers are preparing to respond.
Abe's Worst Nightmare: Household Spending Collapses As Inflation Spikes
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/26/2014 19:23 -0500UPDATE: USDJPY has tumbled to 5 week lows and NKY has retraced all post-Fed gains
Japan is in trouble. Normally the news that a piece of macro data had utterly and completely collapsed would be greeted by thge BFTD mentality as bad news reinforces the printing-press of central planners' put guarenteeing future wealth for all... but not this time. Household spending collapsed 8.0% in May (echoing the plunge following the last tax hike in 1997) - more than double expectations and almost as bad as the month of the tsunami. Great news? That's the problem... the great limiter of central bank largesse is looming as Japanese CPI spiked to 3.7% - its highest in 24 years! (and Core CPI at 3.4% - its highest since 1982) This implicitly hobbles the BoJ from further exuberance and already JPY strength (and NKY weakness) are showing.
The Annotated History Of Global Volatility
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/26/2014 19:11 -0500While Janet Yellen is bust ignoring "noisy" inflation and dismissing low volatility as indicative of any complacency, Goldman is a little more concerned. The decline in economic and asset market volatility this year from already low levels in 2013 has been striking, which as Markus Brunnermeier states, means "the whole system is more prone to a financial crisis when measured volatility is low, which tends to lead to a build-up of risk in the background – the so-called 'volatility paradox'."
You Want to Know the Truth About the World? Ask a Child...
Submitted by Capitalist Exploits on 06/26/2014 19:03 -0500Children display beautiful and at times brutal honesty
Germany's "End The Fed" Protest Organizer Gets Car Fire-Bombed
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/26/2014 18:33 -0500Anyone saying "the Fedeal Reserve Act is bad" in Germany is, according to Lars Maehrholz, looked upon by the mainstream as being a Nazi. The organizer of the widespread "End The Fed" rallies that we discussed previously, explained that he is not only under attack by the main stream media and political system in Germany but also physical threats that resulted in a car he was in getting fire bombed by an anonymous perp.
This Has Never Happened Without The US Falling Into Recession
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/26/2014 17:57 -0500With all eyes firmly focused on yesterday's disastrous GDP report (and ultimately dismissing it as 'weather' and one-off exogenous factors), we thought Bloomberg Brief's Rich Yamarone's analysis of a lesser-known (yet just as key) indicator of the state of US economic health was intriguing. As he notes, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Economic analysis, there has never been a time in history that year-over-year gross domestic income has been at its current pace (2.6 percent) without the U.S. economy ultimately falling into recession. That’s more than 50 years of history, which is about as good as one could ever hope for in an economic indicator.
Guest Post: Proof That Government Economic Numbers Are Being Manipulated
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/26/2014 17:20 -0500How in the world does the government expect us to trust the economic numbers that they give us anymore? For a long time, many have suspected that they were being manipulated, and as you will see below it appears we now have proof that this is indeed the case.
The Great American Economic Growth Myth
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/26/2014 16:15 -0500The end game of three decades of excess is upon us, and we can't deny the weight of the debt imbalances that are currently in play. The medicine that the current administration is prescribing is a treatment for the common cold; in this case a normal business cycle recession. The problem is that the patient is suffering from a "debt cancer," and until the proper treatment is prescribed and implemented; the patient will most likely continue to suffer.
Former Governor Warsh Slams Fed's "Reverse Robin Hood" Policies
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/26/2014 15:41 -0500Isn't it odd that when 'officials' are no longer part of the status-quo-sustainers, how the truthiness flows... As former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh explained this morning, "on the fairness point - if you have access to credit, if you've got a big balance sheet, the Fed has made you richer," concluding rather too honestly for some people's liking, "I would say [Fed policy] has been in some sense Reverse Robin Hood." The bottom line, he chides, "this is a way to make the well to do more well to do because that's all the Federal Reserve can do."
DuPont Cuts Outlook, Blames Weather
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/26/2014 15:19 -0500"The revised outlook also reflects lower than expected crop protection herbicide sales, largely due to weather."
Stocks End Unchanged As World Cup Loss Trumps Bullard Hawkishness & Dismal Data
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/26/2014 15:01 -0500The typically more dovish Jim Bullard unleashed a torrent of "markets are wrong" this morning and along with dismal macro data sent stock reeling out of the gate - catching down to Treasury yields divergence since the Fed last week. Stocks stabilized as the hevay volume dump dried up and staggered sideways after POMO and Europe's close. Then USA went 1-0 down against Germany and VIX was dumped and stocks pumped and then double-pumped again to almost back to unchanged in the last hour. During all this excitment, bond yields slid lower (to 3-week lows); gold and silver pushed higher (though gold ended modestly lower on the day after China gold loans news); and credit entirely ignored the exuberant bounce...VIX closed unch along with stocks as indices were rescued from a notable red day via an epic AUDJPY lift and VIX slam on negligible volume.
Obama Asks For $500 Million To Equip Syrian Rebels As The ISIS Juggernaut In Iraq Spreads
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/26/2014 14:47 -0500As the war in Iraq goes from bad to worse, and as the Obama administration is tired of being humiliated by a bunch of extremist Al Qaeda tribesman, the president is once again pivoting to the place where it all started. It is here where he intends on arming the local Al Qaeda jihadists once again, and will request half a billion dollars from Congress to achieve just that. The good news: Obama will only arm just the "moderate" al Qaeda forces. So there is nothing to fear.
President Obama Answers "The Peoples" Questions - Live Feed
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/26/2014 14:28 -0500Not like there is much to discuss but President Obama is hosting a Town Hall meeting in Minneapolis where "the people" will be allowed to ask questions of his 'little-less-than-omnipotent' self. As he said in his introduction...he's feeling loose and will "make it up as he goes along."
Why Financial Reporters Are Clueless: They Copy And Paste Keynesian/Wall Street Propaganda
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/26/2014 14:11 -0500This morning’s Q1 GDP revision might have been a wake-up call. After all, clocking in a -2.9% - cold winter or no - it was the worst number posted since the dark days of Q1 2009. Well, actually, it was the fourth worst quarterly GDP shrinkage since Ronald Reagan declared it was morning again in American 30 years ago. Stated differently, 116 of the 120 quarterly GDP prints since that time have been better. Even when you adjust for the Q1 inventory “payback” for the bloated GDP figures late last year, real GDP still contracted at a -1.2% annually rate. Still, within minutes of the 8:30AM release, the Wall Street Journal’s news update did not fail to trot out the “do not be troubled” mantra. When the daily narrative is this lame it is no wonder that our happy talk financial system drifts toward the wall. The Cool-Aid drinkers have simply lost touch with reality.
Laugh Along With Darclays "Ongoing Commitment To Transparency" Presentation To Clients
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/26/2014 13:16 -0500Now that any credibility Barclays, pardon Darklays, may have had in the capital markets has drowned at the bottom of its (soon to be shuttered) dark pool, it is time to start making fun of the bank. To do that we bring our readers the British bank's "Ongoing Commitment to Transparency", and specifiically the "Equities Electronic Order Handling." Curiously, nowhere in said book does it say that the bank will route the vast majority of its trades to the most lucrative predatory HFT algos lurking deep in the bowels of LX, which incidentally is co-located in the Savvis NJ2 Data Center in Weehawken, New Jersey, may it rest in piece now that nobody on the buyside will ever use it again. What it does report are the following creative lies, which we reveal to the general public because after all remember: the biggest defense the HFT lobby makes is that "whatever HFT does it never hurt retail investors." We will let retail investors decide for themselves.



