Archive - Jan 2015

The problem, and the source of hope for Eurozone equity investors, is that Eurozone corporate profits have not matched this strong equity price performance. Headline EPS and DPS growth have not advanced since 2012. In fact, aggregate earnings and dividends as measured by MSCI are down by 7% and 5% respectively, whilst the equity index is up 50%."  We'll repeat that again: in the past 2 and a half years, Eurozone earnings are down 7%! So where did this upside come from? "This strength in share prices but not in profits has meant the reported P/E multiple on Eurozone equities has risen from 11.5x to 18.7x today – a multiple expansion of over 60% in 30 months – and now stands at a premium to both the rest of Europe and RoW."

• Obama to focus on middle class in State of Union address (Reuters) - all 4 of them?
• European Stocks Buoyed by ECB Hopes (WSJ)
• China's 2014 economic growth misses target, hits 24-year low (Reuters)
• Federer on Swiss Franc Shock: "Does It Mean I've Got to Win Now?" (BBG)
• First-time buyers help Christie’s reach record sales (FT)
• So it was the NSA? U.S. Spies Tapped North Korean Computers Prior to Sony Hack (BBG)
• Why Chinese Developer Kaisa's Default Risk Has Money Managers Spooked (BBG)
• Morgan Stanley Misses Estimates on Drop in Bond-Trading Revenue (BBG)

Ahead of today's Turkey central bank decision, consensus was expecting no change in either the benchmark repurchase rate (at 8.25%), nor the overnight lending and borrowing rates (at 11.25% and 7.50%, respectively). And then, out of the blue, the Turkish deputy Prime Minister was kind enough to inform markets precisely what non-consensus move the Turkish central bank will do today: TURKEY SEES RATE CUT TOMORROW BY CENTRAL BANK, DEP. PM SAYS.  Sure enough, moments ago we got confirmation that when it comes to "independent" central banks leaking information to so-called heads of state such as France's Francois Hollande, Turkey is not far behind:  TURKEY'S CENTRAL BANK CUTS BENCHMARK REPO RATE TO 7.75%

Hours after the IMF cut its global economic growth forecast yet again (which for the permabullish IMF is now a quarterly tradition as we will shortly show), now expecting 3.5% and 3.7% growth in 2015 and 2016, both 0.3% lower than the previous estimate (but... but... low oil is unambiguously good for the economy) and both of which will be revised lower in coming quarters, and hours after China announced that its entirely made up 2014 GDP number (which was available not 3 weeks after the end of the quarter and year) dropped below the mandatory target of 7.5% to the lowest in 24 years, it only makes sense that stock markets around the globe are solidly green if not on expectations of another year of slowing global economies, which stopped mattering some time in 2009, but on ever rising expectations that the ECB's QE will be the one that will save everyone. Well, maybe not everyone: really only the 1% which as we reported yesterday will soon own more wealth than everyone else combined and who are about to get even richer than to Draghi.

A month ago we asked the following question: who in addition to the Netherlands has been quietly withdrawing their gold from the NY Fed. Was it Belgium? Or did the Dutch simply decide to haul back some more. Or did Germany finally get over its "logistical complications" which prevented it from transporting more than just a laughable 5 tons in 2013? And most importantly, did Germany finally grow a pair and decide not to let "diplomatic difficulties" stand between it and its gold? We now know the answer, and it was, indeed, the latter with confirmation coming from the Bundesbank itself. As the German Central Bank announced earlier today, after withdrawing an embarrassing 5 tonnes of gold from New York in  2013, its rate of repatriation soared, and in what appears to have been just the past two months, has transferred a whopping 85 tonnes of gold from 80 feet below street level at Liberty 33 back to Frankfurt!

Events are moving faster than brains now. Isn’t it marvelous that gasoline at the pump is a buck cheaper than it was a year ago? A lot of short-sighted idiots are celebrating, unaware that the low oil price is destroying the capacity to deliver future oil at any price. The table is set for the banquet of consequences. The next chapter in the oil story is more likely to be scarcity rather than just a boomerang back to higher prices. The tipping point for that will come with the inevitable destabilizing of Saudi Arabia. Next time around, the federals are going to have to confiscate stuff, break promises, take away things, and rough some people up. The question is how much of this abuse will the public take?

In response to the 2008 crisis, the world's major central banks pumped an unprecedented amount of monetary stimulus into the system -- all in the name of kick-starting enough economic growth to pull the planet out of its fundamental sinkhole of Too Much Debt. More than six years and over $4 trillion later, what exactly can we say it did for us? Not enough, as the following short video summarizes...

Below is a chronological progression of the famous Credit Suisse global wealth pyramid showing a dusturbing trend. Try to spot it.

As we noted last week, the Swiss National Bank's decision to un-peg from the Euro (thus strengthening the CHF dramatically) will have very significant repercussions - not the least of which is for Hungarian and Polish Swiss-Franc-denominated mortgage-holders. The 20% surge in Swiss Franc translates directly into a comparable jump in the zloty value of loan principles and and monthly payments for about 575,000 Polish families owing a total $35 billion in mortgages denominated in the Swiss currency which has prompted calls for Poland's government to bail them out. Never mind the FX risk, the low-rates were all anyone cared about and now yet another 'risk-free' trade has exploded, Deputy PM Piechocinski says, if the franc "remains above the 4 zloty level, the government may provide support" to debtors but Poland's Central Bank is not supportive of the bailout.

China's broad stock indices were flip-flopping between gains and losses from the open (although securities firms continued to get monkey-hammered on more tightening by regulators) heading into the avalanche of data that hit at 2100ET. GDP growth - which was estimated at sub-7% based on real-time hard-date - was released/leaked 10mins early - rising 7.3% YoY in Q4 (just beating expectations of a 7.2% rise) but grew only 1.5% QoQ (missing the 1.7% expectation). Then came Retail Sales - beating by the most since May 2014 with a 11.9% YoY gain (against 11.7% expectations). Industrial Production grew at 7.9% YoY (beating expectations of 7.4% by the most since July 2013). Of course the fact that Chinese GDP growth of 7.4% YoY was the weakest since 1990 was entirely ignored as the immediate reaction was Yuan and Chinese equity strength.

for years the big money managers stoically took it on the chin, and whether out of lazyness or some other unexplained motive, allowed their orders to continue being HFT-frontrun on public exchanges and 3rd party dark pools year after year, making VWAP and TWAP orders a cost center, boosting the case that HFTs aren't really bad for stocks. Until now. According to the WSJ, some of America's largest mutual funds and asset managers led by Fidelity Investments "are close to launching a private trading venue designed to let them buy and sell large blocks of stock without the involvement of Wall Street firms and high-speed traders, according to people familiar with the matter." The new venture is the who's who of traditional asset management and includes nine firms, including BlackRock Inc., Bank of New York Mellon Corp. , J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and T. Rowe Price Group Inc., who are saying goodbye to "lit" markets, i.e. public exchanges, "and forming a company that will operate a their own "dark pool”...

Given all the hints, promises, guarantees, and bets that have been made, the ECB better deliver quantitative easing on Thursday or the Swissnado from last week will be like a fart in a hurricane. But while most people believe that this time is different and Draghi will actually deliver more than simple rhetoric, investors are sceptical about its ability to actually reflate the eurozone's economy (and rightly so). "We're not learning from the past," warns RBS' Alberto Gallo, noting that "when 'wealth' increases [via QE reflation of markets], only the richest few people benefit," which means the weakest nations like Greece or Italy (who need QE the most) will not feel the benefits.

As Credit Suisse explains "Despite the Fed ending its purchase programme, an ECB sovereign QE would reduce the available share of G3+ sovereign duration (Treasuries, Gilts, JGBs and European Government Debt) for the market to an all-time low. The ECB has the potential to take out up to 5% of G3+ duration of the market if it embarks on a €1 trillion programme. This could keep interest rates globally at very low levels despite a potential Fed policy tightening in 2015 – particularly in the longer end."

"When we see the results of polls like the one below, we realize there is no chance the majority will do anything to reverse the course of America's terminal decline. It will take a complete collapse and bloody reset before we have a chance at putting this country back on a sustainable rational course..."