Archive - Dec 18, 2015

Moments ago, the House of Representatives just passed the $1.15 trillion spending bill that includes a $680 billion package of tax-break extensions, in a 316 to 113 vote, and will now move to the Senate, where its passage is likewise assured and will be signed by the president over the next few days. For those wondering what are the main components of the spending bill, here is a quick summary.

Yellen and her cohort have no clue, however, that all of their massive money printing never really left the canyons of Wall Street, but instead inflated the mother of all financial bubbles. So they are fixing to blow-up the joint for the third time this century. That was plain as day when our Keynesian school marm insisted that the Third Avenue credit fund failure this past week was a one-off event - a lone rotten apple in the barrel. Now that is the ultimate in cluelessness.

For CAT the global manufacturing depression just turned 3 years old as the company has now suffered through 36 consecutive months of declining annual retail sales - something unprecedented in company history, and set to surpass the "only" 19 months of declining during the great financial crisis by a factor of two!

Another data point to ignore... Kansas City Fed's business survey has crashed from a hope-full bounce. Dumping from a +1 print in October, Kansas collapsed to -9, the weakest since May 2015 as across the board components were abysmal. Production, Prices Paid, Employees, and inventories all cliff-dived with New Orders falling the most YoY since the Great Recession.

"Unequivocally terrible."

The Fed's hubris has led it to the Dark Side.

When last we checked in on Puerto Rico’s seemingly intractable debt debacle, Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla was busy using an absurd revenue clawback end-around to avoid defaulting on $273 million in GO debt. On Friday, we get the latest out of Puerto Rico and the news is ... well, good we suppose. PREPA - Puerto Rico’s power authority - has reached a restructuring agreement with bondholders and insurers to refinance some $9 billion in debt via securitization.

Just in case yesterday's weakness was mistaken for "well, it's just stabilizing before the next leg higher," US equity markets are pooping the bed this morning with the Dow down over 500 points from its post-Yellen highs, FANGs plunging red, credit collapsing, and bond yields slumping. Between the widely watched quad-witching, Fed policy error concerns, and the utter failure of the Bank of Japan's efforts to save the world, global stocks and bonds are flashing red warnings for the end of centrally planned markets.

“I have a feeling that they will not pay us back because they are crooks.”

While correlation is not causation, one would have to be an ignorant unicorn-worshipper to believe that a collapse in America's manufacturing would not have some follow-through. Following the crash in Manufacturing, Markit reported America's Services economy massively missed expectations and plunged to 53.7, lowest since Dec 2014. New orders plunged to the lowest since January 2015 and employment tumbled. As Markit reports, this is "disappointing  news  for  an  economy which  has  seen the first  US  interest  rate  hike  for almost  a  decade."

On Friday we get still more evidence that the West is begrudgingly coming to terms with the fact that Assad will be sticking around for the foreseeable future in Syria, as Bild (citing anonymous sources) says German spies have been "cooperating" with Assad for "some time" and are set to establish an intelligence cell in Damascus.

Weak earnings performance in marketing operations below the current EBIT guidance of $2.4-$2.7 billion could place negative pressure on the Baa3 ratings in the absence of any mitigating measures. A weakening of the company's liquidity position, delays with the planned divestments in 2016 or a material reduction in its working capital funding capacities by the banks, as well as sustained high leverage with adjusted debt/EBITDA exceeding 4x, will also put negative pressure on the Baa3 ratings."

"The interest of firms in both borrowing and spending continues to decline, suggesting it’s past time the ‘stimulus mafia’ rethinks its Pavlovian responses. Reform or bust."

Not since December 2013 have Canadian Consumer Prices dropped by such a large amount. November CPI dropped 0.3% MoM, dramatically worse than expected to the largest drop since Dec 2013. The largest YoY drop in Canadian CPI, amid a surge in inventories relative to a collapsee in wholesale sales sent the loonie crashing above 1.4000 for the first time since August 2003.