Archive - Jul 2014

Averaging over 20% gains per day since the IPO, and set for options trading on Monday, GoPro has now managed a 100% gain from its $24 IPO 3 days ago... Is camera-on-a-stick the new Pets.com?

Recall that about a month ago we reported that shortly after France was stunned to see its largest bank slammed by its bestest buddy, the US, with a record $9 billion fine, "France responded to the fine by announcing it will train hundreds of Russian seamen to operate the French-Made Warship", the Mistral. In other words, for all the angry rhetoric of sanctions against Russia, France was merely the latest country to admit that it too can't exist without Russian business (not to mention natural gas) even if, or especially if, it means incurring US wrath which is taken out on its banking institutions. After all, if the US is engaging in scorched earth tactics France needs a stable trade partner, especially if it is one who turns on the gas, so to speak. However, it turns out that was only a small part of the story.  Earlier today, when speaking to Russian diplomats in Moscow, Vladimir Putin accused the U.S. of blackmailing France to scrap a contract to sell Russia Mistral warships by offering to cut a record $8.97 billion fine against BNP Paribas.

Day after day we are told that stocks are the place to be and that bonds are a disastrous bet as "rates must rise" but it appears that, increasingly, the world's developed (and debt-laden) economies are turning Japanese (with German 2Y rates at 2bps for example). But, for some context as to how low rates really are, Deutsche's Jim Reid unveils 500 years of Dutch (European) interest rates... and we have never been lower. Are bonds wrong? Or do they see a world where growth is permanently stifled by the drag of interest expense?

In summary: the actual, and unreported, New Orders number dropped from 60.5 in May to 57.5 in June, which also was the weakest print since January...  some improving trend. Compare that to the seasonally adjusted New Orders number of 58.9, the highest of 2014. That's right: thanks to seasonal adjustments what was otherwise a downward sloping trendline, and a print that was the weakest in 5 months, magically was transformed to the best print of the year!

It would appear that the exuberance over today's better-than-expected car sales data should be tempered significantly. Confirming our warnings, as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) explains, across the industry, auto lenders are pursuing growth by lengthening terms, increasing advance rates, and originating loans to borrowers with lower credit scores. With average loan-to-value rates above 100%, they have an ominous warning: "risk in auto-lending is beginning to emerge." We are sure this will be dismissed (just as the BIS' warning has been), but with surging charge-offs and increased repackaging (CLOs), and banks holding a lot of this debt, this 'bubble-financing' has all the ingredients for subprime 2.0 contagion.

Treasury yields are up 1-2bps; the USD is flat; gold and silver are up modestly; but stocks are screaming higher to all-time highs in the Trannies and S&P. All of this is occurring as PMI and ISM missed expectations this morning and the US Macro Surprise index in the US (worst of all nations year to date) is at 2-month lows. What's behind it? FOMO, POMO, YOLO? All we can say is the S&P has never been this far above the Fed balance sheet (over 50 points rich) since QE began.

The bottom line is the Fed can only keep the machine duct-taped together by suppressing the market's pricing of risk. Suppressing the market's ability to price risk is throwing common-sense fiscal caution to the winds; when risk arises from its drugged slumber despite the Fed's best efforts to eliminate it, we will all reap what the Fed has sown.

In case there is still any confusion on whose behalf the US regulators work when they "fine" banks, the latest announcement from Finra should make it all clear. Recall the spectacle full of pomp and circumstance surrounding NY AG Scheinderman's demolition of Barclays after it was announced that the bank had lied to its customers to drive more traffic to Barclays LX, its dark pool, and allow HFT algos to frontrun buyside traffic. Yes, it was warranted, and the immediate result was the complete collapse in all buyside  Barclays dark pool volume, meaning predatory HFT algos would have to find some other dark pool where to frontrun order flow. Such as Goldman's Sigma X. Which brings us to, well, Goldman's Sigma X, which moments ago, in a far less pompous presentation, was fined - not by the AG, not by the SEC, but by lowly Finra - for "Failing to Prevent Trade-Throughs in its Alternative Trading System."  The impact: "In connection with the approximately 395,000 trade-throughs, Goldman Sachs returned $1.67 million to disadvantaged customers." The punchline, or rather, the "fine": $800,000.

On the heels of Markit's US PMI missing expectations but rising to its highest since May 2010 (with notable inflation signals and domianted by weakness in small business) despite new export orders tumbling; ISM printed at 55.3, down from May and missing expectations. Only 50% of survey respondent s expect to increase jobs - the lowest number in 2014. New export orders also fell in ISM. Following last month's utter SNAFU, we are not exactly sure whether this is real yet. So far the market reaction is positive to this bad news so we do not expect a revision...

Some basic suggestions for those who are seeking shelter from the coming storms of global financial crisis and recession.

GM sold more cars in June 2014 than any other June since 2007. Just imagine if GM had killed more people, recalled more cars, been busted for more lies, and had more congressional hearings. As GM's head of sales exudes, this was "the third very strong month in a row for GM... in fact, the first half of the year was our best retail sales performance since 2008, driven by an outstanding second quarter." We can only imagine the depths of FICO scores, terms of financing, and margin-crushing incentivization that dealers were subsidized into offering to sell this many 'kevorkianesque rolling sarcophagus." How did they do this? Government (+14%) and Fleet sales (+48%) - sound sustainable?

There has been a growing number of defaults since China first broke its non-payment cherry earlier this year. Names like Chaori Solar have "promised" to pay back the money they owe, only to falter on that promise mere months after a temporary reprieve. Wide-scale panic has for now been avoided by liquidity provision to banks (not shadow-banks) and mini-stimulus which many assumed was targeted at keeping the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) alive no matter what. That 'hope' all changed this weekend... As Bloomberg reports, Qilu Bank's annual report shows that Licheng district urban construction development company has not paid its loan interest..."To the best of our knowledge, this is the first official disclosure of a LGFV default on a bank loan."

In June there were no POMOs on Friday. In July, when as was revealed yesterday the Fed's monthly POMO operations will add only $19 billion in net liquidity injections (below the $20 billion scheduled due to an extra $1 billion POMOed in June) the lowest since 2012, there are no POMOs on Friday and there is just one Wednesday POMO. The days of the Fed market rigging, or as the BIS called it over the weekend, the "fairy dust of illusionary riches" are coming to an end... at least until the market crashes as it did after the end of QE1 and QE2, and the Fed scrambles right back in to buy it all up again.

Here are the best and worst performing assets broken down by the three key time periods as we leave the first half of 2013 (it's not been a good year for wheat).