Archive - Dec 9, 2015

Do you need a bit of comic relief this Wednesday morning? Tune in live as Ash Carter explains to lawmakers how The Pentagon intends to fight Islamic State in the year ahead.

As of today, with Glencore stock once again trading near all time lows sliding as low at 75p, the company's default risk just hit 54%, the highest in 6 years, as a result of its CDS blowing out past 900 and wider than the intraday spreads hit in September as the following chart from Markit shows.

For the second day in a row, European stock markets have broken. Today, it is even more serious as Euronext warns of a "data issue" which means no levels are being disseminated for AEX, CAC40, BEL20, and PSI20.

Since laste June, "local investors" have been restricted to only being allowed to buy shares and disallowed from withdrawing cash from accounts. Those restrictions did not stop the stock market from collapsing further and today authorities have decided to lift those capital controls... the result - ASE has plunged below mid-Summer lows to its lowest since June 2009...

The USD is getting pummeled this morning (following China's 'devaluation' to the weakest Yuan since 2011 overnight) as all the majors are bid against the greenback. USD Index is now below the post-ECB lows from last week... The USD is now at its weakest since early November.

Government interference by both central banks and regulators (the latter are desperately fighting the “last crisis”, bolting the barn door long after the horse has escaped, thereby putting into place the preconditions for the next crisis) has created an ever more fragile situation in both the global economy and the financial markets. As the below charts and data show, price distortions and dislocations have been moving from one market segment to the next and they keep growing, which indicates to us that there is considerable danger that a really big dislocation will eventually happen.

When Time magazine announced the short list of its Persons of the Year for 2015, there was some consternation that the winner could be ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi or, maybe even worse according to the US press, Donald Trump. Instead, according to the just announced final results, the two gentlemen are in positions #2 and #3 respectively, with the winner being Germany's iron chancellor, Angela Merkel, whose position however in the aftermath of Europe's historic refugee crisis, has been downgraded from "iron" to quite shaky in recent weeks.

FCX announced today that its Board has suspended its annual common stock dividend of $0.20 per share. This action will provide cash savings of approximately $240 million per annum and further enhance FCX’s liquidity during this period of weak market conditions. FCX’s Board will review its financial policy on an ongoing basis and authorize cash returns to shareholders as market conditions improve.

• Gloomy mood prevails despite calmer commodities (Reuters)
• A Strong Dollar Hurts China More Than the U.S. (BBG)
• China Sets Yuan at Four-Year Low in ‘Stress Test’ (WSJ)
• Dow Chemical and DuPont Are in Advanced Talks to Merge (WSJ)
• Yahoo scraps plan to spin off Alibaba stake (Reuters)

"I think it was really a massive failure of market analysts," Nowotny told a news conference, adding that those analysts should have paid more attention to economic fundamentals.  The comedy continued when Nowotny said that "the ECB can and will not let itself be pushed by the markets," adding that "it’s not our job to correct wrong expectations of individuals” and “it wasn’t the view of the whole market." Which, of course, was a lie.

Overnight market action has largely been a continuation of Tuesday's key themes with European stocks falling as a selloff in mining companies extended to a 7th day, even as metals prices rose and crude oil rallied modestly from a six-year low after yesterday's API crude inventory draw. U.S. equity futures have rebounded from modest declines, as emerging-market shares extended their losing streak to a 6th day while Asian stocks dropped to 2 month lows.

Why does most brand-name beer taste like swill? Why has the standard of living across most of the Western world fallen by more than half over the past 40+ years?