Archive - Jan 23, 2015

Yesterday the European Central Bank acknowledged that the currency it manages is being sucked into a deflationary vortex. It responded in the usual way with, in effect, a massive devaluation. Eurozone citizens have also responded predictably, by converting their unbacked, make-believe, soon-to-be-worth-a-lot-less paper money into something tangible. They’re bidding gold up dramatically.

The face of America's unauthorized offshore wars has changed over the years, and these days it can most often be found watching the infrared screen of a terminal in some heavily-guarded air force base on US soil, operating heavily-armed, remote-controlled drones thousands of miles away, tasked with executing a lethal mission which usually involves one or more "collateral" casualties. For almost five years, Brandon Bryant was one of those faces, and worked in America's secret drone program bombing targets in Afghanistan and elsewhere. He was told that he helped to kill 1,626 people, but as time went by he felt uneasy with what he was doing. He found it hard to sleep and started dreaming in infra-red.

No matter what the politicians say about how great America is and how we, as a people, will always triumph, the fact is that the nation seems to be imploding. Despite the dire state of our nation, however, you can rest assured that none of the problems that continue to plague our lives and undermine our freedoms will be addressed by our so-called elected representatives in any credible, helpful way, and certainly not during a State of the Union address.

"War" is back on the minds of the world's richest men (and women). The Global Risks Landscape, a map of the most likely and impactful global risks, puts forward that, 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, “interstate conflict” is once again a foremost concern. As The World Economic Forum notes, these multiple cross-cutting challenges can threaten social stability, perceived to be the issue most interconnected with other risks in 2015, and additionally aggravated by the legacy of the global economic crisis in the form of strained public finances and persistent unemployment. The central theme of profound social instability highlights an important paradox that has been smouldering since the crisis but surfaces prominently in this year’s report. Global risks transcend borders and spheres of influence and require stakeholders to work together, yet these risks also threaten to undermine the trust and collaboration needed to adapt to the challenges of the new global context. Rather ominously, The WEF concludes, the world is, however, insufficiently prepared for an increasingly complex risk environment.

This infographic documents the rise and fall of Bre-X.

From initial private offerings at 30 cents a share, Bre-X stock climbed to more than $250 on the open market. Near the peak of Bre-X share prices, major banks and media were on board:

“No stock-market crash announced bad times. The depression rather made its presence felt with the serial crashes of dozens of commodity markets. To the affected producers and consumers, the declines were immediate and newsworthy, but they failed to seize the national attention. Certainly, they made no deep impression at the Federal Reserve.” - 1921 or 2015?

One is a terrorist organization, the other is America's most revered, oil-exporting ally...

The US Dollar rally, combined with the ECB’s policies are at risk of blowing up a $9 trillion carry trade.

"It isn’t really about interest rates or “inflation”, obviously as gold is rising as inflation “expectations” dramatically sink here, so much as gold is insurance against central banks being wrong. That seems to be the common theme all over the world ever since June when the ECB placed its desperation and impotence on full display. Everything that has occurred since then has only confirmed the monetary illusion being exactly that, including the US and its central bank’s place at really the central point of the miscalculated insanity."

"...I wish to remain alone with the account manager, the risk manager, the fundamental analyst, and the technical analyst... we were using only 20x leverage and you tell me it's all gone!!"

State-owned oil companies that don't slash expenses to align with revenues and boost critical investment in the infrastructure needed to maintain production will suffer financial extinction.

Well you have to laugh really...

Over a month ago we presented a ranking of "America's most levered energy companies." Since then they have all, without exception gotten clobbered, not only in their publicly traded stock but also their debt. Today, long after the liquidation whirlwind has left junk bond owners dazed and confused, Goldman catches up, and lays out a matrix of shale companies sorted not only by leveraged (they see 2.5x as the cutoff; we used 4.0x) but also by shale asset quality. From there, it also lays out the various opportunities, if any, available to the management teams in the resultant 4 quadrants. Readers will be most interested in the "restructuring/bankruptcy" option, most applicable for Group 4, because these are the names which,  all else equal, will file for bankruptcy first.

Well the day has finally arrived that after two years of promises, jawboning and hope - the European Central Bank finally announced they will take the plunge into the Quantitative Easing (QE) pool. Whether or not the ECB's QE program has the desired effect or not will not be realized for a while. However, this week's reading list is a variety of opinions and initial takes on the "ABC's of the ECB's QE."