Archive - Jul 2014

With "recoveries" like these who needs staged, false flag conflicts and wars covering over 10% of the globe? Well, socialist France for one which moments ago announced that total jobless rose from 3.389 million to 3.398 million, a new record high. Surprisingly, while the year-over-year unemployment change for people under 25 declined by 3.1%, it was workers 25-49 which saw a material 3.3% increase in joblessness, but it was workers aged 50 and older that saw a veritable surge in unemployment, rising by 11.5% from a year ago. Surely, just like in the US, this is due to young people retiring in droves.

Curious why Brent just spiked by over 1% (and the S&P500 took a leg lower)? The reason is headlines from Reuters citing Europe's unellected dictator, Van Rompuy who has said that sanctions should include Oil technology. However, in a hilarious twist, the unellected muppet of Europe's insolvent banks, hopes to get his sanctions cake and snort Russia's gas too, adding that Europe's sanctions should exclude the gas sector.

• LETTER FROM EU COUNCIL HEAD VAN ROMPUY TO MEMBER STATES SAYS RESTRICTIONS ON SUPPLYING TECHNOLOGY TO RUSSIA SHOULD INCLUDE OIL, BUT EXCLUDE GAS SECTOR-EU SOURCES

Here it appears that Europe's unelected leaders are somehow deluding themselves that if faced with escalating sanctions, Russia will not unilaterally cut off the gas to Europe.

Miss Chernobyl 2014...

If NYS Superintendent of Financial Services Lawsky's proposed BitLicense was applied to the Internet in 1994, Goldman Sachs & JP Morgan would be controlling your ability to read this post right now and Google, Facebook and Twitter would not exist

You can be forgiven for thinking that the world is a pretty terrible place right now, exclaims JPMorgan's Michael Cembalest. With 11.7% of the world's population currently at war (and a considerably larger percentage seemingly on the verge), it seemed an appropriate time to summarize the main geopolitical risk points in the world.

Bloomberg carried out a study and it has just been published. It covers conference calls from 2004 to 2014 and it analyzes how American CEOs speak and what words they use.

If you shorted CYNK at the all time highs well over $20 several weeks ago, just before the stock was halted after the SEC finally woke up to its duty of protecting investors from pump and dump ponzi schemes (such as the broader market for example) congratulations: you are now up a lot to quite a lot, as the stock has just reopened for trading some 86% lower (on the usual volume of virtually no shares, even though the FT just told us that illiquidity is bullish), a price at which it still has a market cap of over $500 million! The only question: how does this company, which technically doesn't exist, still have any equity value left?

The EU and global drive toward bail-ins continues unabated. Bail-ins are coming to financial institutions and banks in the EU, UK, U.S. and much of the western world - with painful consequences for unprepared investors and savers.

In an effort to make the MH17 crash site safer, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has announced that he will be sending 40 unarmed military police. As AP reports, the military police will help the investigators (along with forensic experts) "to look for remaining remains and personal belongings" and "to try to piece together exactly what happened." While pro-Russian separatists have ensured the site is a safe place for the Dutch investigators (who have been given the lead role since Holland was so hard hit), Rutte acknowledged that it "remains a risky place to work," and "will constantly reassess the situation."

The S&P500 has now gone nearly 800 days since a correction of more than 10 percent – the “meaningful” level for many analysts. The more extended the market becomes, the larger the eventual decline may be. Over the last 50 years, the longer the time between market corrections, the steeper the drop once the correction does occur.

Q2 manufacturing is now in the books, and despite all those euphoric manufacturing surveys, it was a big dud. And as it goes, so does that CapEx rebound that is always just around the corner, but never actually here. Bring on the latest round of downward Q2 GDP revisions...

According to Reuters, key measures suggested by the Commission include:

• closing EU capital markets to state-owned Russian banks,
• an embargo on arms sales to Moscow,
• restrictions on the supply of energy and dual-use technologies.
• a list of 15 individuals and 18 entities, including companies, subject to asset freezes for their role in supporting Russia's annexation of Crimea and detribalization of eastern Ukraine.

Of course, since France would blow a gasket if its Mistral ship was impacted by the sanctions, and since this really is just another populist measure not intended to really punish Russia (as that would mean a prompt shut off of European gas and an even prompter slide into a triple dip recession if not outright depression), Europe promptly "detoothed" the sanctions by announcing that they would not affect current supplies of oil, gas and other commodities from Russia, diplomats said.

Think only the US can engage in the farce known as "sanctions" (why theater, because until Obama sanctions Gazprom, yeah right... crickets... it is nothing but populist theater)? Think again. Overnight Russia's consumer protection agency, filed a lawsuit in a Moscow court - which clearly has nothing to do with recent geopolitical bickering between the former Cold War enemies - seeking to ban some of McDonald's Corp's burgers along with its milk shakes and ice cream, a court spokeswoman said on Friday. The reason for the ban: as Reuters reports, a regional branch of the consumer protection agency Rospotrebnadzor asked the court to declare production and sales of some products illegal due to "inappropriate physical-chemical parameters."  The lawsuit's list of contested products named the fast-food chain's Royal Cheeseburger, Filet-o-Fish, Cheeseburger and Chicken Burger but not its Big Mac burger.

• Argentine holdout NML says government "choosing" to default (Reuters)
• Crunch time for Gaza truce talks as death toll passes 800 (Reuters)
• Don’t Tell Anybody About This Story on HFT Power Jump Trading (BBG)
• U.S. Accuses Russia of Shelling Eastern Ukraine (BBG)
• France’s Wheat Exports in Question as Rain Spoils Quality (BBG)
• Tapering in action: Lower printer sales hurt Xerox's revenue (Reuters)
• No liquidity? No Problem, there's an ETF for that: Bond ETFs Swelling in Europe as Trading Debt Gets Tougher (BBG)
• Herbalife hires ex-Biden chief to fend off regulators (NYPost)
• GM recalls far from calamity for some dealers who find new customers, business (Reuters)
• Bad weather likely cause of fatal Air Algerie crash: French officials (Reuters)