Archive - Jul 22, 2014

Day after day, headlines from Argentina implore Judge Griesa to do the "fair, responsible" thing and lift his judgment that holdouts get paid before current bondholders receive their payments... and day after day Argentina's demands are met with silence or denials. Today, though, with 1 week left until Argentina must put up or shut up, Judge Griesa has come out swinging...

*U.S. JUDGE SAYS OF ARGENTINA RULINGS: 'JUDGMENTS ARE JUDGMENTS'; ARGENTINA'S 'INCENDIARY` RHETORIC `UNFORTUNATE,'
*U.S. JUDGE URGES 'SENSIBLE STEPS' TO AVOID ARGENTINA DEFAULT

While CDS spreads have surged once again, bonds trade with default probabilities around only 50% which, according to Jefferies "are expensive on underestimating the risk of default."

Message to Main Street: "The only sensible way to live in this world is as greater fools..."

Update: U.S. FLIGHTS TO ISRAEL HALTED BY FAA

About two hours ago, and in the aftermath of the public outcry regarding flights in conflict zones, first Delta then most other major international carriers announced they would suspend flights to Israel "until further notice" amid concerns that a rocket landed near Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv. The list of confirmed airlines that have halted such flights is shown below.

Remember when IEX' Brad Katsuyama swept the floor with BATS CEO Bill O'Brien, exposing him as a liar on national TV in his spirited defense of HFT and an "unrigged market"? Well, Bill has just left the building: as BATS reported moments ago he is no longer with the firm.

Then comes the moment when the hot money evaporates.

The 'information war' is hotting up. On the heels of yesterday's 30-minute detailed presentation of Russia's 10 awkward questions for Ukraine (and the US), CNN reports that the US government has released a satellite trajectory map of what it says was the flight's path and the site from which the missile was shot. Of course, the epicenter of the MH17 launch is Snizhne, in pro-Russian separatist-held territory. Rebel leader Alexander Borodai responded, "we don't have the technical ability to destroy this plane. Ukrainians are not interested in the truth."

The situation in Gaza has crossed beyond the rabbit hole (or perhaps in this case, tunnel) and has entered the surreal zone.

Depending on blowing the next bubble to temporarily prop up the economy is the height of foolhardy shortsightedness.

As usual, Europe is talking out of both sides of its mouth (or other orifices). On the one hand, we are told:

• EU foreign ministers failed to agree new sanctions against Russia at a Brussels meeting

And on the other hand:

• Dutch minister says EU imposing new sanctions on officials over Russia

So - which is it Europe?

Moments ago, in what NBC classified as a "potentially lethal blow to Obamacare" a federal appeals court has ruled that the federal government may not subsidize health insurance plans bought by people in states that decided not to set up their own marketplaces under Obamacare. The law clearly says that states are to set up the exchanges. But 34 states opted not to, and the federal government took over in those states. The court ruled that federal government may not pay subsidies for insurance plans in those states. As the Hill reports further, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Affordable Care Act does not permit the IRS to distribute premium subsidies in the federal ObamaCare exchange, meaning those consumers must bear the  full cost of their insurance.

For all the talk about "noisy inflation" this and "rising prices are good for the economy" that, what the Fed's cheerleading squad continues to ignore is the one most important inflation the US economy needs in order to actually have a sustainable recovery instead of centrally-planned stagflation: wage inflation. And while bullish pundits keep reffering to some mythical CEO survey promising wage will increase any day now, just not today, the BLS released its most recent real wage (adjusted for inflation) report today showing that not only did the average real hourly wage remain flat for the second month in a row at $10.29, the lowest level since September 2013, but posted the first annual decline since October 2012.

Sure, why not...

The question on everyone's lips... how many slides? And where's Carl Icahn?

As reported yesterday, at 9:30 am this morning the permanent subcommittee on investigations will hold a hearing in which it will expose the latest tax-evasion loophole used by select high-frequency trading hedge funds which has the technical name "basket options", but which, thanks to Carl Levin's mnemonic of fictional derivatives" will be better known as such (read the full story How RenTec Made More Than $34 Billion In Profits Since 1998: "Fictional Derivatives"). It will be interesting to learn, although we doubt it will be discussed, how in light of collapsing trading volumes for underlying securities, how much of the record derivative and future trading volume in recent years is directly related to this kind of tax-evading trading, and perhaps just as important, whether Congress and the IRS will crack down on such practices in the future.

For those just waking up and looking to catch up on all the latest news out of Ukraine and the MH17 crash response in particular, here is the latest news roundup.