Archive - Jan 2015

Following Congress, The Republican-led Senate just passed The Keystone XL Pipeline Bill - as expected:

*SENATE PASSES BY 62-36 BILL TO APPROVE KEYSTONE, DEFYING OBAMA

Nine Democrats joined all of the Republicans who were present in supporting the legislationNow, it is time for President Obama to unleash The Veto Pen...

The WTF moment has arrived: the moment when the Chair of the "independent" Fed tells an audience of Democrats, away from the public, just what her plans for monetary policy are in private:

YELLEN TOLD DEMOCRATS NO RATE INCREASE `IMMEDIATELY': SCHUMER

We knew some Fed member would speak today to boost stocks but had no idea it would be Yellen herself.

On Monday - after the close - after a big dead-cat-bounce off the post-Greek-election overnight lows, none other than CNBC's Jim Cramer announced to his dwindling audience that "he's calculated that it's actually a remarkably healthy" market... The Dow is now over 300 points lower, despite his showing investors the "eight signs of a healthy market." However, it is his energetic pitch for the looming Shake Shack IPO on the heels of the "home-run" Box IPO (which is now below its release price and down well over 20% from the highs in 3 days) that, we suspect, confirms the utter collapse of his listening or viewing audience (no matter how 'wrong' the surveys are).

At the end of the day, there is nothing behind the curtain at the Eccles Building except for the specious doctrine of wealth effects. Fractional changes in the money market rate are of relevance only to the day traders and robo machines which occupy the casino. Fed policy is designed to keep them dancing. It rests on the delusional hope that the drug of ZIRP or near-ZIRP can keep the stock market averages rising and a trickle down of extra spending by the wealthy flowing into the reported GDP and job numbers. History proves beyond a shadow of doubt that bubbles fueled by bad money ultimately splatter into a world of harm. The Fed is not only ignoring the coming storm, but is actually fueling its intensity with malice of forethought.

The energy market in a nutshell: Either energy sector earnings have to surge by 70%, implying a near doubling of oil prices to $88, for the forward P/E multiple to return to normal, or the Energy sector prices have to crash from 549 today to 323, where it would trade down to its historic forward P/E multiple, suggesting a price drop of over 40%!

Facing what is likely the largest loss in its history, it would seem The Swiss National Bank has undertaken what every good asset manager does nowadays - Month-End window-dressing. The Swiss Franc has collapsed in the last week or so (against the Dollar and Euro) as a mysteriously active seller of Swissy has managed levels up to smooth out the collapse in value of the SNB's balance sheet...

We discovered two more mistakes...

Update: DUTCH NOS SHOWS FOOTAGE OF MAN ARRESTED WITH GUN IN STUDIO

ANP reports a person with gun disrupted Dutch evening news broadcast on live TV, demanding airtime...

*DUTCH BROADCASTER NOS BUILDING EVACUATED, ANP SAYS

UPDATE: The man has reportedly been 'over-powered and taken away'.

For months now we have been discussing that despite the "hopes" that this time is different, there is little chance that the U.S. can remain an island of economic prosperity in the sea of global deflation. The following series of charts all suggest that current hopes of surging economic growth in the U.S., over the next several quarters, will likely be met with disappointment.

We suggested the Greek pivot from Europe to Russia was building previously, and now, we get confirmation from Russia's finance minister Anton Siluanov that the pivot could be mutual, who told CNBC in the interview below:

*RUSSIA WOULD WEIGH FINANCE FOR GREECE IF ASKED, SILUANOV: CNBC

With fire and brimstone spewing from Germany over the potential for Greece to veto any and everything, it seems Russia may just have stymied Europe's leverage over the newly democratic nation.

It would appear Gazprom has once again come knocking for payment - or else. As Bloomberg reports, Ukraine is pressing the Obama administration to provide political support, as much as $3b in financial aid and “non-lethal weapons,” with the goal of some progress by the end of February, Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko says. Of course, given Europe's agreement to further sanction Russia (asEU agrees more "punitive" steps are now possible) President Obama will be happy to lend Ukraine more American taxpayer money (despite the market's perception that Ukraine's default probability is over 80% - six year highs).

After the delayed 5 Year auction took place 90 minutes ago, and priced strongly well through the When Issued, it was the turn of the last for this week auction of $29 billion in  7 Year paper, which just concluded and, somewhat surprisingly, was the worst of all auctions this week: not only did it tail modestly, pricing at 1.59%, a 0.4 bps tail wider than the 1.586% WI, but the Bid To Cover also was just modestly anove last month's 2.388, at 2.499, below the TTM average of 2.56. To be sure, a key factor for this superficial weakness was that the high yield of 1.59% was the lowest since May of 2013, as a result all those who have booked major profits in last month's auction pricing at 2.13 likely had far less of an incentive to get involved here.

USA USA USA!!!

It appears markets are on the verge of learning just how damaging the unintended consequences will be from multiple years of extreme central bank promises now that the Fed has run out of the ammunition to keep the utopian market façade alive.  The structure of the ECB QE and the Greek situation make the backdrop considerably more troubling and difficult.