Archive - Nov 2015

Although NYMEX prices are about $46 per barrel, realized wellhead prices in the Bakken are only $30 per barrel according to the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources. At that price, only approximately 125,000 acres of the drilled play area of 10,500,000 acres is commercia.

Despite all the other asset classes pushing at the extremes of the post-payrolls moves, US equities are suddenly being panic-bought at the open and are now unchanged since the jobs data...

In the last 24 months, Canada, New Zealand, the US, the UK, and now Germany have all implemented legislation that would allow them to first FREEZE and then SEIZE bank assets during the next crisis.

If there was any doubt if the Fed would hike rates in December, it is gone now: October payrolls soared by 271K, smashing not only consensus of 184K, but the highest expected print. This was the highest monthly print since December 2014 when the gain was 329K and pushed the YTD average monthly gain from 199K to 206K.

"Barring disaster, this makes December liftoff a lock. It won’t stop the FOMC from being very dovish sounding and reiterating the commitment to a very slow path, as Evans did on TV a few minutes ago. The question is whether the market believes them if the numbers keep coming in on the strong side."

The USDollar Index is soaring (hitting its highest since early April and approaching 2015 highs) as the probability of a December rate hike hits 74%. This is not unequivocally good for a large number of American firms..

In another sign that the labor market slack, at least from the Fed's perspective, is now reaching a peak, the Household survey reported that while the civilian labor force rose by over 300K in October, the number of people not in the labor force actually declined by 97K to 94.5MM (as those employed rose by 320K), following a surge of over half a million in September. Despite this headline improvement, however, the participation rate remained at 62.4%, same as the prior month, and at a level last seen in 1977.

"Everything is awesome." The Fed got just what it wanted... surge in jobs and a surge in wages - which has sent December rate hike odds from 56% to 74%. This appears to be a problem for everything else. The dollar has soared (EURUSD almost a 1.06 handle), Bond yields have exploded (though the long-end is notably outperforming), stock prices plunged, and commodities across the board are getting hammered.

"Valeant stated today that 1,297,399 shares pledged to Goldman Sachs to secure loans made to chairman and chief executive officer J. Michael Pearson were sold by Goldman Sachs on November 5, 2015.  Goldman Sachs held the shares as collateral for loans extended to Pearson."

"We are expecting that to happen. It would be normal, and that would not indicate poor macroeconomic performance.”

• Bank of America 150K
• BNP Paribas 150K
• Morgan Stanley 165K
• Deutsche Bank 175K
• JPMorgan 175K
• HSBC 175K
• UBS 180K
• Goldman Sachs 190K

• Dollar at three-month high as payrolls paralysis sets in (Reuters)
• 5 Things to Watch in the October Jobs Report (WSJ)
• China to Lift Ban on IPOs (WSJ)
• ArcelorMittal Is Latest Victim of China's Steel-Export Glut (BBG)
• 'Hope to see you again': China warship to U.S. destroyer after South China Sea patrol (Reuters)
• Giants Tighten Grip on Internet Economy (WSJ)
• Questions Surround Valeant CEO Pearson (WSJ)

"Before September we'd only ever seen negative 10y swap spreads for a period in 2010 although they did turn negative intra-day 3-years ago. It’s not quite up there with the flash rally/crash in Treasuries 13 months ago but it’s a very strange occurrence and one to watch and likely another product of regulation and liquidity."

As DB so well-puts it, "Welcome to random number generator day also known as US payrolls." Consensus expects 185k jobs to have been added in October but it’s fair to say that the whisper number has edged up this week with slightly firmer US data. It is also fair to say that even if one knew the number beforehand, it would be impossible to know how the market will react.

History tells us that empires are rarely defeated, by any external rival.