Archive - Nov 2015

In the latest example of Washington playing catch up in the global "war" on terror PR battle, “officials familiar with the matter” have told WSJ about a concerted effort to cut off the flow of dollars to ISIS. Allegedly, the US became concerned about the amount of hard currency being shipped to Iraq over the summer. The problem: the requested amounts didn’t seem to be consistent with the country’s economic fundamentals and so, the US cut off Iraq’s access to dollar funding, nearly plunging the country into crisis.

• S&P 500 Futures Slip as Aussie Gains on Rate Outlook; Oil Rises (BBG)
• Xi Says China Needs at Least 6.5% Growth in Next Five Years (BBG)
• Ben Carson Vaults to Lead in Latest Journal/NBC Poll (WSJ)
• World's Biggest Banks Still Not `Truly Resolvable,' FSB Says (BBG)
• Keystone XL's builder faced darkening prospects (Reuters)
• Merkel Says Germany Must Step Up World Role in Refugee Crisis (BBG)

"U.S. intelligence analysts believe it could have been some kind of explosion on the aircraft itself, either a fuel tank or a bomb."

Call it an example of an abbreviated public lifecycle. After IPOing at $22.50 just last March and then promptly tumbling, Candy Crush maker King Digital was stuck in no man's land: demand for its products was promptly waning and the organic growth its underwriters had promised was nowhere to be found. The fundamentally savvy hedge funds sniffed this out and promptly jumped on board what seemed like a royal flush slam dunk to zero. And then, overnight, out of nowhere Activision decided to crush the Candy Crush shorts, who had built up a short stake amounting to 25% of the float, when it announced it would acquire the company for $5.9 billion or $18/share, a 16% premium to the previous day closing price... and also a 20% discount to the IPO price.

So far today's trading session has been a repeat of what happened overnight on Monday, when following a weak start on even more weak Chinese data, US equities soared on the first trading day of the month continuing their blistering surge since that dreadful September payrolls report, which as we showed was mostly catalyzed by a near record bout of short's being squeezed and covering, which accelerated just as the S&P broke the 2100 level.

"This industry has committed “hari kari” as far as I'm concerned."

Two months ago, Tim Cook reportedly wrote Jim Cramer that everything was awesome with iPhone sales in China. Days later, channel checks appeared to call Cook's statement into question. Several day ago, one of Apple's component makers - Dialog Semi - issued cautious guidance strongly suggesting iPhone sales momentum was weakening. Apple's earnings produced disappointment as China sales rather notably fell (but was quickly dismissed by analysts as US sales rose) and now, perhaps most worrying of all, Taiwan’s Pegatron Corp - maker of Apple's next-gen iPhone 6S and iPad - has halted hiring in its Shanghai factory as workers note "sales of iPhone 6S have been disappointing."

It's a busy night in AsiaPac. The ubiquitous Japanese stock buying-panic at the open quickly faded. China weakened the Yuan fix quite notably and injected another CNY10bn of liquidity but news of the arrest of the President of China's 3rd largest bank and a graft investigation into Dongfeng Motor's general manager sparked greater uncertainty and Chinese stocks extended the losses from yesterday. Commodities had started to creep lower, with Dalian Iron Ore pushing 2-month lows with its biggest daily drop in 3 months, were extended when the Aussie central bank kept rates steady (as expected) but sparked turmoil in FX markets with forward guidance of th epotential for more easing.

First the good news for Bill Ackman: as of October 31, it appears that Pershing Square has not had a spike in redemption requests (or if it has, it hasn't granted them yet). We know this because as of October 31, Pershing Square's AUM was $15.1 billion. The bad news is that at $15.1 billion, this is the lowest AUM for Bill Ackman in over a year and his current net performance for October and YTD is a deplorable -7.3%, and -19.0% respectively.

While understandably all eyes have been fixed on every monthly capital outflow update from China (even the ones that the Politburo is clearly massaging), few have noticed that one of the biggest total outflows currently in the global developed economy is taking place right in America's own back yard.

Our ancestors were wiser and far more educated than modern Americans about the dangers posed by a centralized, monopolistic system charged with the creation and distribution of money, and our society and economy have paid a very heavy price for its ignorance. Indeed, some of today’s Fed critics aren’t even aware that the U.S. Central Bank originally had far less power than it does today. As concerned as they were, its early critics could never have imagined how perverted its mandate would become in the subsequent 100 years. A mandate that has now made it the single most powerful and destructive force on planet earth.

“Some Chinese traders are expressing a view on the CNY exchange rate after the last devaluation and you have interest by mainland speculators to move to other assets after the stock market fallout.”

We found something unexpected when skimming through the website of China's finance ministry.

The recent Catalonia vote in favor of secession from Spain is great news for libertarians the world over, as, to our minds, this is a clear step forward for those who seek greater freedom from governments worldwide; and, of course, any blow against the present trend toward empires is a step in the right direction. However, this is not the whole picture and, if we’re going to look at the greater truth instead of the truth that we’d like to see, things get a bit more complicated.

"While traditional bank loans are not Chu’s prime focus -- she looks at the wider picture, including shadow banking -- she says her work suggests that nonperforming loans may be at 20 percent to 21 percent, or even higher."