Archive - Oct 12, 2015

"In the nuclear arms race, the acronym was MAD—mutually assured destruction—which kept everything nice and tidy. Here you have the same acronym, but it’s ‘mutually assured doubt,’ because you can never be sure what the attack will be." Fortunately, the US has the most advanced operations and the NSA is "the crown creator of cyberespionage." Which is great. Unless they're spying on you...

News That Matters

"It's really beginning to 'feel' close. The first major event could happen anytime now." The coming storm promises to be the largest of our lifetime. We shall all be affected by it. A few will profit from it. Some will be mildly negatively impacted; most will be hit hard, due to being unprepared.

Presenting the Middle East's very own "dot plot"

Between a convoluted, self-referential reaction function and a cacophony of Fed speakers, the market simply can no longer process the FOMC's message and with that in mind, we bring you RBS’ Alberto Gallo who asks if perhaps we have reached “peak Fedspeak”.

"The killing and the mayhem will continue through the process of economic collapse that we have entered. And when we reach the destination of all that, probably something medieval or feudal in make-up, it will be possible once again for boys to develop into men instead of monsters."

The following table attempts to provide a simple composite measure of which commodities are most exposed to China demand, and which stand to lose (or gain) the most in case of a Chinese economic collapse (recovery).

Just before the first credit bubble burst, Fortress' Macro hedge fund, then known as Drawbridge as well as several other castle-related terms, peaked at just over $8 billion. Together with Phil Falcone's Harbinger, it was one of the most desired venue to work among the young hedge fund crowd. It has been downhill ever since, and unfortunately for the hedge fund run by Michael Novogratz, which reported $2.5 billion in AUM as of June 30, a number which plunged to just $1.6 billion two months later according to HSBC, as a result of a terrible year, down 13.4% YTD after losing 1.6% in 2014, and having suffered its biggest ever drawdown the macro hedge fund, which does not file an equity 13-F, is liquidating.

Today, FINRA proposed a rule change that could have the greatest impact on private markets in over 80 years. 

If we don't prepare for the coming high tide, we may all drift out to sea.

Don't look at their corporate bonds...

The US is in decline. The US government is overloaded with debt. The US financial system is losing is dominance. And even the banking institutions themselves are losing relevance. This isn’t bad news. It’s tremendously exciting.

Wwith oil volatility surging in recent months, oil producers needed to take advantage of a rally, technical or otherwise, and an oil vol lull to reestablish hedges, even if it meant at far lower prices than recent benchmarks.  This is precisely what happened in the past week following one of the most torrid surges in the price of oil seen in recent years.

Since the mid-July peak, when Jim Cramer warned the market's "last shred of hope was the freight index holding up," The Baltic Dry Index has been in free fall (at a time with very positive technicals). In fact, today's drop to 809 is the lowest in over 3 months and the lowest for this time of year since 1986!!