Archive - Sep 29, 2014

With the revelations of systemic, widespread corporate criminality of banking institutions in recent years, it is clear that global Bank CEOs are becoming the new Drug Lords.

• This is why the locals are furious at the US: U.S-led raids hit grain silos in Syria, kill workers (Reuters) explaining this
• Billions Fly Out the Door at Pimco: About $10 Billion Is Withdrawn After Departure of Gross (WSJ)
• Pimco’s Ivascyn Takes on Gross With Unconstrained Fund (BBG)
• Revealed - the Troika threats to bankrupt Ireland (The Independent)
• Private Bad Debt Build-Up Casts Shadow on Greek Rebound (BBG)
• Fed Questions Bank Maneuver to Reduce Hedge Funds' Dividend Taxes (WSJ)
• Yuan-Euro Direct Trading Begins Tomorrow as China Promotes Usage (BBG)
• Geneva Report warns record debt and slow growth point to crisis (FT)
• Greenberg Team to Grill Bernanke, Geithner on AIG Bailout (BBG)... sadly only metaphorically

While the bond market is still reeling from Friday's shocking Bill Gross departure, and PIMCO has already started to bleed tens of billions in redemptions (see "Billions Fly Out the Door at Pimco About $10 Billion Is Withdrawn After Departure of Gross"), stocks which may have been hoping for a peaceful weekend after Friday's ridiculous no volume ramp in the last two hours of trading, got hit by a double whammy of first Catalan independence fears rising up again after Catalan President Mas signed a decree committing Catalonia to a referendum bid on November 9th, leading to a move wider in Spanish bond yields, and second the sharpest surge in Hong Kong violence in decades, which led to a 2% drop in the Hang Seng, are now solidly lower across the board, with the DAX dropping below its 50 DMA, while US equity futures are printing about 9 points lower from Friday's close despite another epic ramp in the USDJPY which flited with 110 briefly before retracing to 109.50, and also threaten to push below the key technical support level unless the NY Fed's "Markets group" emerges out of its new Chicago digs and buys up enough E-minis to restore confidence in a rigged market.

The Hong Kong protests, which we covered over the weekend, and which took a dramatic turn for the worse overnight when thousands of students camped out and demand universal suffrage on the city streets and were in turn tear-gassed and arrested en masse by the local riot police demanding students disperse or else, and where the leader of the student protest, Joshua Wong - who had been previously arrested and was released on Sunday night - has openly called for the resignation of Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying in an interview with Hong Kong Cable TV, have done the unthinkable: they have impacted financial markets and the "wealth effect" transmission mechanism of the local billionaires.