Archive - Jan 14, 2015

When the citizenry cease to believe the lies, the nation suffers a nervous breakdown.

US equity prices and US Treasury yields are tumbling after the disappointingly narrative-destroying retail sales data for 'gas tax cut'-based December. The Dow is now down almost 600 points from yesterday's highs  At 2.39%, 30Y Yields have never been lower...ever! US stock indices are down 3% year-to-date, testing the lows of the year. Crude is rolling back over, gold is surging, and the USDollar is fading...

Are we beginning to see the true impact of lower OIL?

But but but... US retail advanced sales dropped a stunning 0.9% MoM (massively missing expectations of a 0.1% drop). The last time we saw a bigger monthly drop was June 2012. Want to blame lower gas prices - think again... Retail Sales ex Autos and Gas also fell 0.3% (missing an exuberantly hopeful expectation of +0.5% MoM) and the all-important 'Control Group' saw sales fall 0.4% (missing expectations of a 0.4% surge). Boom goes the narrative.

"I am concerned that a sizable equity market correction looms. In order to justify general equity market over-weights, either risk premiums needs to fall further, or the economy and financial markets need to have reached a level of ‘escape velocity’ powerful enough to push them forward, even in the face of Fed rate hikes. I find such a ‘soft landing’ scenario improbable at best."

• U.S. Index Futures Decline on Commodities Slump, Growth Concerns (BBG)
• Al Qaeda claims French attack, derides Paris rally (Reuters)
• Charlie Hebdo With Muhammad Cover on Sale With Heavy Security Precautions (BBG)
• How an Obscure Tax Loophole Brought Down Obama's Treasury Nominee  (BBG)
• ECB’s bond plan is legal ‘in principle’ (FT)
• Charlie Hebdo fallout: Specter of fascist past haunts European nationalism (Reuters)
• DRW to acquire smaller rival Chopper Trading (FT)
• Oil fall could lead to capex collapse: DoubleLine's Gundlach (Reuters)

Looks like the Jefferies earnings harbinger were right, because with another quarter down, and here is another painful report by JPM, which just launched the Q4 earnings season for financials with a miss on both the top and bottom line, reporting $1.19 in EPS, well below the $1.32 consensus, and just barely above the lower estimate of $1.16. This was a decline from both the previous quarter (by 17 cents) and from a year ago (by 11 cents). Revenues missed as well, with JPM reporting $23.552 billion in top line, a decline of $560 million from a year ago ($1.6 billion lower than Q3), and below the $24.0 billion consensus. And while JPM's latest recurring, non-one time "one-time, non-recurring" charge came as a surprise to most (although how over $30 billion in legal charges can be considered one-time is beyond us), at the same time JPM once again resorted to the oldest trick in the book, taking the benefit of some $704 million in loan loss reserve releases, nearly offsetting the entire negative impact of the legal charge.

'After two days of sharp intraday and vicious reversals, the BTFD algos are suspiciously missing overnight, when as reported earlier, a bout of margin calls and stop loss selling meant not crude but copper would crash in today's episode of "guess the crashing commodity", on what Goldman dubbed a Chinese demand collapse which for those confused is different than an OPEC supply glut, and is also the reason why the entire commodity complex is trading at a decade plus low. As a result copper plunged to a five and a half year low, in the process halting the market due to the severity of the plunge. But the big event overnight was the farcical announcement by the European top court, which as everyone expected, rejected the German rejection of the OMT as illegal, stating it was not only legal (with certain conditions) but greenlighting the way for the ECB's QE in one week, a move which sent the EURUSD crashing to a fresh 9 year low!

Giorgio Napolitano, Italy’s longest-serving president, resigned before the end of a second 7-year presidential term. Napolitano accepted 2nd term in 2013 after parliament failed to elect his successor for days, had signaled from start he wouldn’t have served another full mandate. Here, courtesy of Bloomberg, is what happens next.

Moments ago, the Advocate General Pedro Cruz Villalon of the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg delivered the non-binding opinion on issue of Mario Draghi's "unconditional" OMT. Here are the details from Reuters and Bloomberg:

• EU COURT ADVISER SAYS OMT PROGRAMME IN LINE WITH EU LAW SO LONG AS CERTAIN CONDITIONS MET
• EU COURT ADVISER SAYS OMT LEGITIMATE SO LONG AS THERE IS NO DIRECT INVOLVEMENT IN FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAMME THAT APPLIES TO STATE IN QUESTION
• EU COURT ADVISER SAYS ECB MUST OUTLINE REASONS FOR ADOPTING UNCONVENTIONAL MEASURES SUCH AS OMT PROGRAMME

In other words, Draghi's "unconditional" bazooka just became conditional, but it is still a bazooka, albeit one that will never actually be used since well over two years after it was revealed following Draghi's famous "whatever it takes" speech, it still has no legal termsheet or basis, and no definition on its pari passu or burden-sharing status. And it never will: after all it was merely meant as a precautionary device designed to scare away the bond vigilantes, and never to be actually implemented.

Today's prime time event hasn't even arrived, that would be the European Court of Justice (ECJ) delivering its final opinion on the legality of the ECB’s previously announced OMT program, in less than an hour, and already the fireworks have begun, most notably out of Asia where after yesterday's epic commodity drubbing many were caught with their pants down and margin calls up, and what followed was a classic liquidation puke, when Copper prices crashed over 8% on the LME, to fresh 5 year lows and below USD 5,500/T in London.