Archive - Nov 2015

If Angela Merkel wants to get rid of one of her major headaches, we suggest she should tell Volkswagen to move its operations from Wolfsburg to China. It may seem a strange thing to do at first blush, with 750,000 German jobs on the line, but bear with us here, because this could well be the only way to preserve at least some value for VW’s stock- and bondholders.

While the Thai/Malay practice of using monkeys to harvest coconuts dates back hundreds of years, landing in the crosshairs of activist vegans and SJWs (Social Justice Warriors) is a new phenomenon. In a perfect world, Thai farmers would have machines and monkeys would have unspoiled wilderness. But, for the world we have — one in which habitat destruction wipes out entire populations — coconuts and farmers in need may be all that keeps the macaques in the trees and off the dinner tables.

- Workers aged 55 and over: +378,000
- Workers aged 25-54: -35,000

"After many years of ultra-accommodative polices, it is clear that ongoing interventions have failed to boost actual economic growth and only exacerbated the destruction of the middle class. It is clear that employment growth has only been a function of population growth, as witnessed by the ongoing decline in the labor-force participation rates and the surging levels of individuals that have fallen out of the work-force. While we will continue to operate to foster maximum employment and price stability, the reality is that the economy overall remains far to weak to sustain higher interest rates or any tightening of monetary policy."  

“We want to make it completely clear to voters that there’s absolutely no reason - none at all - why we couldn’t shell out another $10 billion between now and next November,”

We will let readers decide if the 1.3% increase in total employment, less than half what it was last October,  is the answer.

"This is essentially the result of very low export prices out of China that are impacting prices worldwide. It is obvious that we are operating in a very challenging market."

If there was any confusion where all those soaring new car sales are coming from, we now have the definitive answer: moments ago the latest consumer credit data for September was released, and surging by $28.9 billion - a 4.9% jump Y/Y - not only did this smash expectations of a "modest" $18 billion rise, this was the biggest monthly increase ever!

The self-inflicted wounds of Hillary Rodham Clinton just keep manifesting themselves. She has two serious issues that have arisen in the past week; one is political and the other is legal. Both have deception at their root.

One tech company realized today just how big the second "private" tech bubble, one we profiled first in January of 2014, truly is. That company is Jack Dorsey's Square, which earlier today filed a prospectus in which it said that the "initial public offering price per share of Class A common stock will be between $11.00 and $13.00." Assuming a mid-point price of $12 and applying the 322.9 million shares outstanding after the offering, it means a valuation of $3.9 billion.  The problem is that in its last private fundraising round, Square was valued at about $6 billion according to ReCode.

2015 has been an 'odd' year. Typically this time of year sees demand picking up amid holiday inventory stacking and measures of global trade such as The Baltic Dry Index rise from mid-summer to Thanksgiving. This year, it has not. In fact, it has plummeted as the world's economic engines slow and reality under the covers of global stock markets suggests a massive deflationary wave (following a massive mal-investment boom). At a level of 631, this is the lowest cost for Baltic Dry Freight Index for this time of year in history.. and within a small drop of an all-time historical low.

Presented with no comment, not even one.

If you think you're having a bad day (amid the post-payrolls turmoil), consider "America's richest woman" Christy Walton - the widow of Wal-Mart's John Walton. According to newly-released documents, her $32 billion wealth is actually around $5bn (as the assumption that John passed on the bulk of his wealth to his wife was wrong) plunging from 18th richest person in the world to just 280th. However, today biggest winner is her son, Lukas Walton who vaults to 103rd richest in the world as his fortune is revealed at $11 billion. Now those are first-world problems...