Archive - Dec 2015

If you said just more of the same, with corporate management teams buying back their own stock in near record quantities (boosting their own stock-linked compensation in the process) and serving as the biggest marginal buyer in the market, then give yourself a pat on the back.

The number of radical Salafists in Germany has more than doubled over the past five years, according to a new estimate by German intelligence officials. And now, Salafists disguised as aid workers are canvassing German refugee shelters in search of new recruits from among the nearly one million asylum seekers who have arrived this year from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Some Salafists are offering gifts of money and clothing, with literature saying "Come to us. We will show you Paradise."

"... a default cycle in commodity-related areas at this point is unavoidable, and the only real question here is whether it stays contained to those areas or extends itself to other sectors."

With prices below $50, what is a stripper to do?

After yesterday's 3 Year auction saw a blistering surge in Direct bidder demand (as a result of a substantial negative rate in repo), we were not at all surprised to see that today's 10 Year reopening auction of $21 billion was a likewise solid (even if tailing fractionally to the When Issued 2.232%) issue printing at 2.233% with 23.93% allotment, with the bid to cover rising from 2.58 to 2.64, the highest since September.

With global freight costs collapsing, as China trade dries up, status-quo-hugging talking heads have point to America's car sales and picture some islandic isolation that means investors in US equities are immune. Well that little dream just burst. Rail freight carloads tumbled 5.1% in October, dramatically accelerating the 1.6% drop in Q3 as a strong dollar crimps exports, retailers whittle down excess inventory and energy investment stalls. Until recebtly, the one bright spot in rail traffic was auto shipments... but even that just plunged and is now at the seasonally weakest since 2008.

 The analogy is as if you notice an ember smoldering in a combustible forest you might be only somewhat cautious, perhaps even rationalizing it away.  But if you then notice a second ember smoking up...

We all need to work together to create an environment that is hostile to bad guys.  We don't need more gun-free zones like San Bernadino...

The “war on drugs” costs Americans a staggering amount of money every year that it persists. Despite the billions they receive, federal, state and local law enforcement have a proven inability to stem the flow of drugs on the nation’s streets.

Well that escalated quickly...

“I don’t think we’ve seen the last of this trend. When I trained as an economist, negative rates weren’t in the textbooks. But that’s the world we live in now, and it hasn’t stopped turning."

Who could have seen that coming?

Andy Hall's Astenbeck hedge-fund lost 9.7% in November, bringing 2015 losses to more than 26%. As a result of capital losses and mounting redemptions, Astenbeck’s assets under management fell to $2.4 billion, down from $3 billion at the start of the year and nearly $5 billion less than three years ago.

People understand nothing lasts forever. The bottom does not last forever. You want to buy low and sell high. Not only are we skipping along the lows, perhaps we can go lower but there is true value  here - in all aspects - not only in the gold and silver but also in the natural resource sector. as a whole with bargains all over the place.

Following a roudy session in Congress that nearly dissolved into "chaos," the Brazilian Supreme Court suspended impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff until December 16. Meanwhile, annual inflation rose to 10.5% in November, the highest in 12 years as the country's stagflationary nightmare continues unabated.