Archive - Jul 22, 2014

In the Golden Age of the Central Banker it is impossible to distinguish fundamental economic reasons for asset class price movements from politically-driven strategic reasons. When words are used for strategic effect rather than a genuine transmission of information you create a virtual stalking horse. It’s a focus on how something is said as opposed to what is described. It’s a focus on form rather than content, on truthiness rather than truth. It’s why authenticity is as rare as a unicorn in the public world today.

"It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion."--Joseph Goebbels

The bulls will ignore it, shrugging that it's merely over-supply of ships that the resurgent world economy will quickly soak up as it 'recovers'... However, World GDP growth expectations are collapsing, trade volumes are slowing, and the Baltic Dry Index has continued to slump to its lowest since the start of January 2013 (a holiday period). For some context, this is the lowest July level for the Baltic Dry since 1986... "noise"

The highlights from Apple's just released third quarter ended June 30: beat on EPS, margins and Mac sales, miss on revenue, iPhone sales and weaker Q4 topline guidance. Additionally, AAPL generated $10.3 billion in cash flow from operations and returned over $8 billion in cash to shareholders

As Turkey's graft probe continues (which the Prime Minister believes is a conspiracy - fact or not - created by The West), AP reports that Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he no longer holds "direct" telephone conversations with U.S. President Barack Obama, suggesting a rift between the leaders who were once close. What is perhaps even more concerning is Turkey's recent de-dollarization discussions with Russia to move to settlement in local currencies. It appears 'allies' are falling by the way-side quicker than many thought...

A hot CPI and better-than-expected home sales was all that was needed (aside from USDJPY and VIX pumps) to send the S&P 500 and Trannies to new all-time intraday record highs. Escalating sanctions threats and death tolls be buggered... this is going to the moon, Alice. Treasuries were less than exuberant and rallied 4bps off their high yields of the day (i.e. totally disconnecting from stocks) and even USDJPY decoupled through the middle of the day. The USD rose 0.3% (biggest jump in 3 weeks) testing up towards 5-month highs. Gold and silver were dumped, pumped, and then dumped as CPI and housing data hit to end the day mixed. Credit rallied but diverged again this afternoon and remains wider post-MH17. VIX closed back below 12. Only the Dow remains modestly red since MH17 headlines hit last week and in spite of all this exuberance The Russell 2000 remains -0.5% year-to-date.

Proof? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Proof!

(+24%!! WTF) - The market has spoken: the only thing that can destroy Herbalife now is if Ackman buys a minority stake, joins the board and "fixes it"

August WTI Crude Oil futures expired at 230pm today... a fact that has been known for years... and yet, in the minutes before the 'last trade' settlement, the 'efficient' markets in which traders trade saw August futures flash smash higher by over $1 (running stops to the upside) and then crash to the day's lows (running stops to the downside) before closing modestly lower on the day. "unrigged"

?Economics is like a Monet painting. Stand too close and all you see is a bunch of seemingly random paint strokes. Back up a few steps and an image emerges. The painting of bubblenomics started with the Plaza Accord, September 1985, where five nations agreed to manipulate the dominant currencies at the time. Japan enjoyed a 50% devaluation of the US$ vs the yen, artificially enriching its citizens so they could travel the world in busloads with eighty pounds of cameras around their necks. The consequences of that bubble have yet to be corrected. Based on healthy guidelines, the price of real estate is far too expensive today, or, more precisely, the cost of housing is too high but we may need another crisis before the market will wake up to the needed changes. In the meantime, money printing and hype will continue.

As RioForte joins its parent ESI in bankruptcy, in a strangely honest turn of events from a European leader, Portugal's President Anibal Cavaco Silva warned on Monday that fallout from the financial troubles of the founding family of Banco Espirito Santo (BES) could affect the wider economy. With Portugal's hope-strewn GDP growth expectations at only 0.9% for 2014, they do not have much room for disappointment before the nation (whose yields remain near record lows) double- or triple-dips back into recession. Silva concluded, "We cannot ignore that there will be some impact on the real economy," which is odd given every talking-head has explained it is "contained" and "priced-in."

UPDATE: This is now the biggest single-day rise in HLF's history...

Bill Ackman's "most important presentation of his career" is not going so well. The 'Death Blow' expectations Ackman created yesterday (that sent the stock down 13%) have been entirely wiped away as a 2-hour presentation, 100s of slides, and nothing really new sent stocks 16% higher today... It appears time is running out for Mr. Ackman as his massive put position (bleeding value every day that passes) is set to expire in six months... and we suspect Carl Icahn can outlast Ackman's view of market 'irrationality'.

It is quite clear that Bernanke achieved his goal of inflating asset prices by expanding the Federal Reserve's balance sheet by 371.64% since the end of the financial crisis. However, was he as successful in fulfilling his other objectives? The following charts perform the same cost/benefit analysis on real economic health... Did the Fed's monetary intervention programs keep the economy from sliding into a much deeper recession?  Probably. Have the programs been effective in achieving Bernanke's stated goals? Not really.

Now that the black boxes from flight MH-17 have been handed over by the Ukraine separatists to Malaysian authorities (somewhat denting the credibility of the fabricated Ukrainian YouTube clip in which the rebels were "instructed" by Moscow to hide the black boxes), there was one question: which impartial entity and/or country would be tasked with an objective retrieval and analysis of the contents. A little while ago we got the answer courtesy of none other than UK Prime Minister David Cameron. "We've agreed Dutch request for air accident investigators at Farnborough to retrieve data from #MH17 black boxes for international analysis." This is the same Cameron who at the same time called on Europe to impose “hard-hitting sanctions” on Russia and "invoked the spectre of the Second World War and compared Russia’s aggression to that of Nazi Germany."

History is replete with the total failure of Central Planning. Whether one look to China or the USSR or the US today, Central Planning has never successfully worked.  It creates the illusion of stability in the short-term, but eventually the truth comes out: that it is a TERRIBLE means of deploying capital (both human or monetary).