Archive - Sep 2014

Russia-Iran Oil-for-Goods Contracts
Representatives of the Russian and Iranian governments met in Tehran yesterday for the 11th meeting of the Iran-Russian Trade Council, where details of a ground breaking oil-for-goods swap between the two heavily sanctioned countries were revealed.

With both countries now sanctioned by the West, Russia and Iran have been in extensive negotiations on how to facilitate Iranian oil exports without breaching the UN Security Council nuclear deal that was agreed between Iran, Germany and the five UN Council permanent last January.

Mission Accomplished, military-industrial complex scaremongers...

While Europe appears to have blown it load prematurely, with the latest round of Russian sanctions leaked before Europe actually has the consensus to implement them, Russia has no such moral quandaries and three days following our forecast, here comes Gazprom confirming once again that it is perfectly happy to play the "mutual defection" strategy in the ongoing and ever escalating game theory between Europe and Russia. From Bloomberg:

RUSSIA LIMITING EU GAS TO RESTRICT REVERSE SUPPLY TO UKRAINE

This follows news earlier today from Poland’s PGNiG which said Gazprom lowered supply by 20%-24% in past 2 days.

So what they're doing is requiring medical marijuana dispensaries...........to set aside a portion of their cannabis............to give away free............to poor people

When we exposed the shift in Russia's military doctrine towards one of nuclear deterrence and pre-emptive strikes, many eschewed it as fantastical thinking of extremists. They were wrong. Speaking at a defense meeting this morning, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared he is taking charge of Russia's military-industrial complex:

*PUTIN SAYS NEW MILITARY DOCTRINE READY BY DEC, CALLS ENSURING NUCLEAR DETERRENT TOP DEFENSE TASK TO 2030

This does not seem like de-escalatory conversation as NATO continues to push - to justify its existence - and Putin now prepares an increasingly Cold-War-esque response threat (following an overnight nuclear missile test).

While we fully understand that when selling institutionally-priced newsletters to institutions (not retail for one simple reason: lack of "other people's money" to spend) one will have a far more lucrative career as a bull than as a bear simply because insecure (that would be most of them) institutional "strategists" prefer to surround themselves in cognitive bias-reinforcing groupthink just to convince themselves they are right, as the rating-agency era confirmed, one thing we are very confused by is whether David Rosenberg, who famously flipped from bear to bull a little over a year ago (recall David Rosenberg: Here’s why I’m bullish on the US economy), preaching a "wage-inflation" driven bout of economic growth which has not only not materialized, but the 10 Year recently hit 2014 lows, is now back to being a bear.

No, this is not from The Onion. Bloomberg reports that six U.S. army helicopters landed in a rapeseed field in northern Poland to ask for directions after veering off course on their way back from military exercises. Locals were alarmed and explained, "we know that security is the most important thing right now... But thank God it was the Americans." We wonder how long before Sikorski proclaims this an invasion and demands NATO react...

As AAPL surges back today, it appears the market is more sensitive than many thought to what is happening in Scotland - as we overheard yesterday how meaningless Scottish GDP is compared to America's. However, a flashing red headline on Bloomberg from a Survation poll in Scotland of 1000 people showed 53% No and 47% Yes - the widest margin in over a week... and stocks jumped. It seems that since nobody cares about any newsflow out of Ukriane any more since it is all fabricated, the algos have turned their attention on any "de-escalation" out of Scotland.

While the just concluded 10 Year auction was hardly exciting, pricing at 2.535%, which was slighly higher than last month's 2.44% if still the second lowest yield for a 10Year auction in 2014, and a 0.2 bps tail to the When Issued of 2.533%. The Bid to Cover of 2.71 was slightly below last month's 2.83, and right on top of the TMM average. But it was the internals where there was some fireworks, with the Indirects taking down well over half of the auction, or 53%, the first time that Indirects have received a majority of the auction since June 2013 and the highest Indirect bid since December 2011. The flipside was that Dealers were left with just 33.6% of the auction, the lowest since May, and Directs left holding 13.5% of the final allotment, below the 18.5% TTM average. All in all, a snoozer of an auction.

"We are “uncomfortable” about the prospects for the broad market here in the US and abroad and we’ve bought derivatives sufficient in size to bring our net exposure to the equity market back to neutral once again. With 9/11 upon us, and with the very real possibility of al-Qaeda or the ISIL or some other “radical” fundamentalist, Muslim terrorist group… or some fanatic lone wolf… to wreak havoc upon the West seems uncommonly high. It is better to err upon the side of neutrality than to make large, or even modest, bullish bets at this point." - Said otherwise, Dennis Gartman does it again.

Current finance minister Sapin, perhaps unsurprisingly, has admitted that France will miss EU deficit targets and needs more time to rein in public finances - proclaiming, as Reuters reports, that it may take until 2017 to bring it in line. Germany's response "nein, nein, nein" with Merkel demanding EU nations stick to commitments (rejecting any plans to 'bend rules') and Schaeuble blasting that Germany is "certain France is aware of its responsibilities." But the real stunner is that as France shows its utter ineptitude in managing an economy, EU President Juncker has placed former French finance minister Moscovici in charge of Europe's taxes and finances. German lawmakers exclaimed this is "not a wise personnel decision." The core splinters...

There are some people, who if they don't already know, you can't tell em' --Yogi Berra

I would like to open a pass book savings account......................

For the terrorist group known as the Islamic State, Syria and Iraq were a good place to start their campaign, but in order to survive and prosper it knew from the outset that it had no choice but to set its sights on the ultimate prize: the oil fields of Saudi Arabia.

Well, I am profitable on this latest move up in 10-year yields, and I expect yields to continue rising through the 10 and 30 year bond auctions later this week ...