Archive - Oct 2015

There are few political hacks in Washington more deserving of everlasting ignominy than retiring speaker John Boehner. So here’s a vehement good riddance to the man who has single-handedly destroyed whatever pathetic semblance of fiscal responsibility that remained in Washington.

With just about one hour until the FOMC statement, and the market in a general state of panicked, if bullish, disarray which had seen a material selloff in the Treasury complex, nobody was expecting a strong sale of $35 billion in 5-Year paper which just concluded moments ago. However, nobody expected it to fare this poorly either.

Europe has unleashed yet another monetary panic, and nowhere is it more visible than in what happened today across the short end of Europe's government curve.  As the table below shows, more than half of European sovereign issuers just saw the yield on their 2 Year Notes trade not only below zero, but hit never before seen negative yields!

In order put an end to the "Greek outrage" that Yanis Varoufakis may be doing what Hillary and Bill Clinton have been so good at, namely engaging in a "self-enrichment drive" and profiting from speeches made after his political departure (which in the Clintons' case was merely a tacit way of purchasing influence and future favors, i.e., bribing), and laid out all his public speeches and the associated fees since August 2015.

In the latest, and perhaps most unexpected, twist in Europe's refugee crisis, at least seven hundred of the roughly 4,000 asylum-seekers who had initially been accomodated by the German state of Lower Saxony have "mysteriously disappeared" according to a survey in the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung (NOZ).

Nigel Farage unleashes another of his must-watch rage-fests aimed at the collapse of democracy in Europe. Amid the stunning "democracy crisis" in Portugal, where, as we detailed here, the government has lost its majority but the anti-EU opposition is being prevented from attempting to form a coalition, Farage fumes "this is the modern day implementation of the Brezhnev Doctrine. This is exactly what happened to states living inside the USSR."

If you still haven’t heard of the psychotic violence perpetrated on a high school girl by Senior Deputy Ben Fields, it’s time to get up to speed (before he is fired this afternoon). If you want a gauge as to how far this society has fallen, this is all you need to see.

Something very unexpected happened: the world quietly hit a tipping point when, according to Reuters, China ran out of space to store oil. According to a senior trader familiar with Sinochem's oil trading and cited by Reuters, the tankers "are both for SPR (strategic petroleum reserve), but no tank space is available to take that oil in."

We live in an era of illusion: the illusion of understanding, and the illusion of control. The net result is nonsensical policies that fail to achieve their stated objectives.

If there's no risk of a systemic event, why are regulators moving to implement rules that would make it so firms and funds can freeze your money in the event of a crisis?

Following last night's API reported 4 million barrel inventory build (against 3.75mm bbl expectations) and Cushing draw, DOE confirms a build (but smaller, at 3.38 million barrels) and Cushing saw a draw of 785k barrels (th elargest in 4 weeks). Crude reactiopn was to extnd gains from the earlier knee-jerk and break back above $45, even as crude production rose.

Did someone leak the Fed statement (again)?

Earlier today, Ferrari reported a great quarter. There was just one problem: Ferrari announced that while sales across the rest of the world were solid, rising by 114 and 159 units in Europe and America, to 815 and 682 units respectively, unexpectedly sales in China tumbled by 24% in the third quarter, or down 50 units Y/Y to 157