Archive - Aug 2014

While there have been many suggestions, some of very dubious nature others not so much, that the ISIS video showing the execution of James Foley may have been staged, faked or otherwise fabricated (especially after Scotland Yard warned that sharing or merely viewing the infamous YouTube clip of Foley's murder is a crime and is punishable under anti-terror laws, stunning virtually everyone), it wasn't until today that an actual forensic expert opined - apparently one who isn't afraid of the criminal charges headed their way - that something may be wrong with the 4 minute 40-second clip. The Telegraph reports that an "international forensic science company which has worked for police forces across Britain, suggested camera trickery and slick post-production techniques appear to have been used."

Today, the world economy is in uncharted territory. Never before has the developed world carried this much debt. Never before have the central banks of those same countries expanded their balance sheets so much. Never before has so much sovereign debt been outright monetized. Never before have major financial institutions been officially designated as “too big to fail” and thereby been granted special license to assume gigantic risks. Dr. Lacy Hunt, economist and current executive vice president of Hoisington Investment Management Company, expects the macroeconomic situation to get worse from here...

Whether Detroit's slumping population was cause or effect (or both) in its demise remains up for discussion; either way, in the ever-more-entitled and ever-less-working world in which we live, a declining population in the face of increasingly promised benefits has only two ends - death (bankruptcy) or taxes. In spite of almost record-low Muni market yields (and spreads), risks remain - just ask the HY market... and these 25 cities have the highest rate of population decline in America.

Over the past week a new geopolitical mystery emerged: an "unknown" party was launching airstrikes against Libya, which is already reeling in its latest political crisis. The strikes puzzled various media outlets, such as Reuters which over the weekend reported that "Unidentified war planes attacked positions of an armed faction in the Libyan capital Tripoli on Saturday." This follows a similar report when on Monday, the government said unknown fighter jets had bombed positions from armed factions in Tripoli, an attack claimed by a renegade general in Benghazi. Turns out the renegade general was lying, and merely trying to take credit for another party's intervention. That party, or rather, parties has been revealed as Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which "have secretly teamed up to launch airstrikes against Islamist-allied militias battling for control of Tripoli" And sure enough, "US diplomats were fuming about the airstrikes" as the US was never given advance notice of these attacks.

What's the opposite of 'limited' air-strikes? As The WSJ reports, The Pentagon is preparing to send surveillance aircraft, including drones, into Syrian airspace to gather intelligence on Islamist targets, laying the groundwork for a possible expansion of the limited U.S. military air campaign beyond Iraq, senior U.S. officials said. The 'Nobel-Peace-Prize-Winner-In-Chief' appears to have suddenly gone full hawk-tard - one wonders which little birdy whispered in his ear that, with the Fed pulling out, the whole ponzi is up unless the US undertakes a populist deficit-bursting war...

Climate change continues to drive energy policy, despite the fact that there is no way to reconcile eradicating energy poverty in much of the world with reducing carbon dioxide emissions. This is one of the many conundrums of the climate change debate - a debate that has been taken over by social media and propaganda, while scientists struggle to get back into the game and engage the public.

Looks like the herd has turned... (most hated rally?)

A few days ago when we commented, somewhat in jest, on the seemingly impressive strategic planning behind the Islamic State Jihadists becoming a "commodities trading powerhouse" (when it was revealed that ISIS had sold the grain it had stolen from the Itaqi government back to the government), we described just how well-versed in the ways of the modern world ISIS was. Now, thanks to Bloomberg we can quantify this particular strategy, and put top-line numbers with the ISIS faces, so to speak: "The Islamic State, which now controls an area of Iraq and Syria larger than the U.K., may be raising more than $2 million dollars a day in revenue from oil sales, extortion, taxes and smuggling, according to U.S. intelligence officials and anti-terrorism finance experts."

When the majority of Americans examine the world around them, they see a stock market at record highs and modest apparent improvement in the economy, but, as John Hussman notes, they also have the sense that something remains terribly wrong, and they can't quite put their finger on it. QE-induced speculation misallocates resources that might otherwise contribute to long-run growth, and while conditions could certainly be worse, the benefits of this economic recovery have been highly uneven. The economy is starting to take on features of a winner-take-all monoculture that encourages and subsidizes too-big-to-fail banks and large-scale financial speculation at the expense of productive real investment and small-to-medium size enterprises.

Just a month ago, Germany's powerful business lobby threw its weight behind tougher sanctions against Russia (dropping its previous objections). It appears they are now regretting that decision. As The Federation of German Industry (BDI) reports today, exports to Russia in H1 2014 dropped 15.5% from 2013 and "may drop by as much as 25% - posing a risk to 50,000 German jobs." We are sure, as Zee Germans look across the pond at the S&P 500 hitting record highs, BDI's conviction that Russia's action must face significant consequences may just fall apart again.

As we noted early on, by the time the cash markets opened this morning, the narrative of compliant Kuroda and drug-peddling Draghi had been painted as worth more than a yellowing Yellen's hawkish comments. And so it was that stocks, despite weak macro data this morning in the US - bad news is great news - surged as cash markets opened and tagged S&P 2,000 for the first time ever. However, once Europe closed, that exuberance faded in stocks. Treasuries rallied (30Y closed -2bps) with the front-end weakening very modestly. USD strength (on notable EUR weakness) sent oil and precious metals modestly lower on the day but Copper had a good day (+0.6%). Today was the lowest S&P futures (non-holiday) trading of the year as the Nasdaq rose for the 9th day in a row.

Are people dumber than they used to be? Were previous generations mentally sharper than us? You may have suspected that people are getting stupider for quite some time, but now we actually have scientific evidence that this is the case.

Last week we were intrigued when the Ukraine Central Bank announced its FX market intervention plans not via 'trader sources" or Bloomberg but through its Facebook account (which later failed as the Hryvnia pushed on to record lows). Today, we hear perhaps even more important news - that Ukraine President Poroshenko has dissolved parliament. This was not entirely surprising news given recent political breakdowns but his chosen medium to disseminate this crucial (and potentiall detsabilizing) news... his Twitter account.

According to the 1990s Japan script, European QE is just what the doctor ordered to raise growth and inflation expectations... oh wait...

The advent of computer generated trading algorithms heralded a quantum leap forward in the quest for 24/7 control of markets. No longer were humans beings required to do such unseemly things as man trading desks or worry a whit if free markets were, if even infrequently, attempting to function. Algo precision has made even the blackest of black swan events seem to turn lily white in their utter non-eventfulness. No more significant Dow or bond crashes, and best of all, no gold rallies exceeding (exactly) 1.00%, or the occasional 2.00%.