Archive - Jan 13, 2015

It was less than 48 hours ago when Turkey’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, joined millions marching in Paris to pay tribute to the 17 people killed by ISIS-supporting extremists. Then, almost the moment he got back, things changed, and as the FT politely paraphrases what transpired, the "country’s president struck a much more confrontational tone." That's one way of putting it. Another is that the former PM and current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of NATO-member Turkey did the unthinkable: accused the west, and French citizens in particular, of staging the Charlie Hebdo murder in order to blame Muslims, even as the mayor of Ankara said "Mossad is definitely behind such incidents . . . it is boosting enmity towards Islam."

Do you know what an “extremist” is? In the wake of the horrible terror attacks on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in France, Barack Obama is speaking very boldly about the need to win the war against “extremists”, and he has announced plans to host a major global summit on “extremism” next month. And on the surface that sounds great. But precisely how are we supposed to determine whether someone is an “extremist” or not? What criteria should we use?

The quaint notion that the U.S. political system remotely resembles either a Republic or a Democracy should have been abandoned long ago. Any lingering illusions were surely extinguished last year, when an academic study empirically proved that the USA is nothing more than a corrupt oligarchy...

The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing.

President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has held a meeting with founder of the Open Society Foundations, international philanthropist George Soros. President Poroshenko has expressed gratitude to George Soros for his support of Ukraine, particularly for urging the international society to increase the level of support to Ukraine...

In comparing pre-collapse USSR to Russia today, commentators and analysts showcase their ignorance. Recent events, such as the overthrow of the government in Ukraine, the secession of Crimea and its decision to join the Russian Federation, the subsequent military campaign against civilians in Eastern Ukraine, western sanctions against Russia, and, most recently, the attack on the ruble, have caused a certain phase transition to occur within Russian society, which, I believe, is very poorly, if at all, understood in the west. This lack of understanding puts Europe at a significant disadvantage in being able to negotiate an end to this crisis.

By now, it is no secret that the one state that conventional wisdom expects to suffer the most as a result of the crude collapse is the one state that through the Great Recession was the primary provider of (well-paying) job creation, the same state which is now expected to enter into a full-blown recession.  But is it really Texas that will be impacted the most? The answer, at least according to a recent Pew report, is a resounding no.

When an accounting 'fudge' accounts for $300 billion of a nation's Balance of Payments, you might suspect something is amiss. And sure enough, as Goldman notes, the growing 'error and emission' items in China’s balance of payments may reflect a pickup in hidden cash transfers as China's anti-corruption probes encouraged  the corrupt oligarchs to get their money out of dodge. As Goldman warns, "such outflows may be harder to contain with regulations, a continuation of their recent acceleration could start posing tangible financial stability concerns."

COMEX Copper crashed to as low as $242.35 (from $261.70 before China's open). The catalyst for the move is unclear but between technical level breaks at $250 (and support at 2010 lows), World Bank global growth forecast cuts, and capitulation on CCFD rehypothecation deal hedges... massive volume is pushing through futures markets...  LME prices are as low as $5,500/mt... Crude prices are also tumbling (WTI back below $46)

When 90-year-old Saudi King Abdullah was hospitalized two weeks ago, the local stock markets crashed and oil volatility expectations surged as we noted at the time, a new king could do almost anything he wants (including changing oil policy). As Reuters' Mohammad Bazzi explains, Abdullah's 79-year-old half-brother has his own health issues and leaves larger questions over the line of succession in one of the world’s most important oil producers remain unanswered.

The possibility of the ECB announcing sovereign asset purchases on 22 January already led Switzerland’s SNB to move pre-emptively last month and introduce negative interest rates. As SocGen's FX Research group notes, as disinflationary pressures spill over from the eurozone to trading partners in the north and east of Europe, we parse over the central banks that stand ready to act should the ECB announce QE.

We see far too much complacency out there when it comes to interest rates, in the same manner that we’ve seen it concerning oil prices. We live in a new world, not a continuation of the old one. That old world died with Fed QE. Just check the price of oil. There have been tectonic shifts since over, let’s say, the holidays, and we wouldn’t wait for the ‘experts’ to catch up with live events. Being 7 weeks or two months late is a lot of time. And they will be late, again. It’s inherent in what they do. And what they represent.

A week ago, we were surprised to learn that one of the most prominent critics of HFT, Joseph Stiglitz, had been barred from an SEC Panel that will "advise regulators on issues facing U.S. equity markets."  Today, a day after the SEC busted DirectEdge for failing to "accurately describe the order types being used on the exchanges" namely the infamous Hide not Slide, even after said order had repeatedly made the front page of the WSJ, the SEC finally announced the full list of members of the "New Equity Market Structure Advisory Committee" which will focus on the structure and operations of the U.S. equities markets. Alas most of the committee members are, sadly, placeholding figureheads. Because there is only one person on the list whose participation matters, and whose presence is not at all surprising...

we re-did Krugman’s chart for advanced countries with independent monetary policies.  Lo and behold, Krugman’s spending-growth relationship collapses, as Sumner would have expected. This is not to say that austerity is good.  But it does undermine the empirical basis for Krugman’s claim that reducing government spending lowers growth, and that increasing government spending raises growth, at least in countries that can use monetary policy as well as fiscal policy.