Archive - Nov 2015

This is the fifth time in the past three years that the VIX rose 2% of more on a day the S&P 500 also rose, and short-term volatility expectations were at least 10% below longer-term volatility expectations. Those dates were: September 14, 2012, January 21, 2014, August 25, 2014, and May 18, 2015. Over the next month, the S&P 500 was not able to gain more than +1% at its best point, and suffered a loss averaging -3.2% at its worst point. Quite a negative reward-to-risk ratio.

At least some very angry Greeks still have not gotten the memo that they are now "fixed"...

If Americans Only Knew ...

With oil exports to Europe having slipped from 13% of Saudi's total to just 10% in the last six months, The FT reports, the de facto leader of OPEC has slashed its Official Selling Price (OSP) to Europe in an effort to regain market share. Saudi lowered its OSP for its Arab light crude grade in Europe by $1.30 a barrel for December, taking its discount to the weighted average of the North Sea Brent benchmark to $4.75 a barrel - the largest discount since February 2009... directly going after Russia's customer base.

On the heels of yesterday's news that an Illinois cop staged his own suicide after being caught stealing money from a kid's fund, today's news is just pouring more fuel on the fire of public faith in America's police force. Late last month, an Arkansas police officer sparked a manhunt and investigation after claiming a motorist shot him during a traffic stop. In reality, the officer shot himself, and once authorities discovered this, he was subsequently fired and arrested for filing a false police report.

There were a few different stories coming out over the last few days that reveal the true nature of government and the apparatchiks who use disinformation, devious machinations, fraudulent accounting, and taxpayer money to cover up their criminality, lies, and the true state of the American economy. The use of government accounting tricks to obscure the truth about our dire financial straits is designed to keep the masses sedated and confused.

Just as one US carrier was leaving the middle east, another widely feared and respected geopolitical superpower was set to replace US carrier presence in the Middle East in the ongoing war against "ISIS" - France.

AAII Bears have tumbled to their lowest level since February, crashing from cycle highs. All it took was a 5-week, short-squeezing, face-ripping 13% surge of the late-September lows.

Collapse begins when real reform becomes impossible.

“TR’s motto was to speak softly but carry a big stick, but the ‘speak softly’ means talk to other people, see what we can do to reach agreement.”

US equity markets have fallen this morning, extending yesterday's losses after the ubiquitous morning ramp. This has driven stocks down to unchanged from the close of last week's "hawkish" FOMC day...

Bitcoin is an easy way for people to swap out of yuan. Goldman Sachs analysts estimated earlier this year that 80% of bitcoin volume is exchanged in and out of the Chinese yuan. Once converted to bitcoin, the owners can then swap back into other fiat currencies and indeed physical gold.

Aa new allegation has emerged in addition to the value of STRP's questionable spectrum valuation: namely fraud, as we read in a report by another "short-focused" research entity, Sinclair Upton Research, whose work we have profiled on numerous occasions in the past. It says "There is overwhelming evidence that the vast majority of Straight Path Communications' ("Straight Path") 39 GHz spectrum licenses' Required Notification of Construction/Coverage Applications were obtained under fraudulent misrepresentation, because the systems were never built on the sites as specified in the filings."