Archive - Nov 2015

If you like your pipeline, you can keep it (unless Warren doesn't like it)...

As we noted previously, for the first time ever, primary dealers' corporate bond inventories have turned unprecedentedly negative. While in the short-term Goldman believes this inventory drawdown is probably a by-product of strong customer demand, they are far more cautious longer-term, warning that the "usual suspects" are not sufficient to account for the striking magnitude of inventory declines... and are increasingly of the view that "the tide is going out" on corporate bond market liquidity implying wider spreads and thus higher costs of funding to compensate for the reduction is risk-taking capacity.

Having told the world that it will borrow billions (and cut capex) to "return all free cash to investors," it appears ratings agency S&P just needed to remind McDonalds that Shareholder-friendly releveraging no longer comes for free...

*S&P LWRS MCDONALD'S RTG TO 'BBB+' ON SHR BUYBACK PLANS

Who could have seen that coming?

Once again we feel the close tug of systemic illiquidity as it transcends the usual noise about assurances to ignore or trivialize all this growing uncertainty. Even though stocks and other assets have been trading in their own world mostly free from all this more hidden esoterica, the full weight of this analysis suggests that can’t be more than a temporary deviation. Since it is the angle of economy that is ultimately driving all of this, everything depends upon a global economy that has already been beaten down far past anticipation.

"The Department disagrees with the Fifth Circuit’s adverse ruling and intends to seek further review from the Supreme Court of the United States."

Venezuela is at a political crossroads, with an all-important parliamentary election set to take place in December. Meanwhile, the Venezuelan economy continues to deteriorate as the state seeks to stave off default and a brewing financial crisis. Late last month, Brazil withdrew its involvement in election monitoring after Venezuela rejected the officials Brazil put forward. Maduro is doing his best to keep international observers from scrutinizing the election. The election will take place just as the OPEC meeting will be wrapping up in Vienna, which is expected to yield few benefits for Venezuela. All signs point to OPEC continuing its market share strategy, keeping a lid on any substantial price rebound in the short-run. That does not bode well for Venezuela as it teeters on the brink of catastrophe.

While FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google) has become ubiquitous among the retail investing public still 'trading stocks', now it is time to meet NOSH (Nike, O'Reilly, Starbucks, Home Depot). The reason is simple - without these 8 stocks, the S&P 500 would be down year-to-date... "solid foundation" for the next leg in the bull market? Or teetering inverted pyramid scheme?

Believers in "technology always creates more jobs than it destroys" never address the knotty issues of taxpayer subsidies, secular trends of higher labor costs, the eradication of low-skill jobs that pay enough to live on without taxpayer subsidies, or the structural surplus of conventional labor and capital--the scarcity value of both are dropping to zero. While many hope that every low-skill person can become a high-skilled worker, training people doesn't create jobs for them.

Following yesterday's abysmal 3 Year auction, many rates investors were on edge ahead of today's 10 Year auction in the aftermath of the weakness across the curve seen since the "stellar" jobs report which had dragged yields higher across the curve. It turned out fears were premature, and moments ago the $24 billion reopening of 10 Years priced at a yield of 2.304%, which while highest since June, priced 0.8bps through the When Issued showing surprising demand for paper.

Get ready Angela Merkel, because you're about to face another anti-austerity push, only this time, the country "matters"...

First it was Dropbox. Than it was Jack Dorsey's "other" company, Square. Today, it's the turn of Snapchat, the fourth most highly valued private tech start up: "Fidelity, the only fund manager to have invested in the four-year-old company best known for disappearing photos, wrote down the value of its stake by 25 per cent in the third quarter."