Archive - Mar 12, 2015

Earlier today we warned readers that based on actual credit card spending data, today's retail sales data would continue the worst trend since Lehman, and sure enough that's what happened: moments ago the Commerce department reported that in February, retail sales missed once again and missed big and across the board, the third big miss in a row, with the headline print coming at -0.6%, far below the 0.3% expected, and in line with the -0.8% drop last month. Putting the headline numbers in context: December -0.9%, January -0.8%, February -0.6%. Excluding the volatile autos and gas, sales dropped once again, sliding -0.2%, below the 0.3% expected - in fact below the lowest estimate - and worse even than last month's downward revised -0.1% decline. And with that the worst run in retail sales since Lehman is now in the record books.

February Import Prices to the US droped 9.4% YoY - the biggest drop since the month after Lehman's bankruptcy i 2008. January's drop was also revised lower. The YoY drop is dominated by a 43.2% drop in petroleum prices (but MoM in Feb petroleum prices jumped 8.1%). Ex-fuel, import prices fell 1.2% YoY as the price of imported capital goods fell the most since March 2009.

Yes, the end is near...

Despite a 36k drop week-over-week, the less noisy four-week average initial jobless claims remains above 300k for the 2nd week in a row - something we have not seen since in 6 months. At 289k, initial claims beat expectations of 304k but continuing claims printed higher than expected at 2.418 million. Shale state claims remain below the peak levels of January but well above average. The trend remains 'changed' from the QE3 regime.

Yellen has created a narrative about the US economy, especially the (un)employment rate, and with the narrative is now firmly in place, Yellen and her stooges can claim they have no choice but to hike In short, Janet Yellen will go down into history as the person responsible for what may be the biggest economic crash ever, or at least delivering the final punch of the way into it, a crash that will make the rich banks even much richer. And there is not one iota of coincidence in there. Yellen works for those banks. The Fed only ever held investors’ hands because that worked out well for Wall Street. And now that’s over. Y’all are on the same side of the same trade, and there’s no profit for Wall Street that way.

"While equity prices look expensive relative to real economic activity, they are arguably cheap relative to bond valuations. S&P 500 earning yields are similar to BB/B bond yields, as opposed to A/BBB yields historically, indicating excessive yield-seeking behavior in the face of reduced bond market liquidity," UBS cautions.

Just hours after Ferguson, MO police chief Thomas Jackson submitted his resignation - the latest in a string of Ferguson officials to resign in the week since a scathing Justice Department report found widespread racially biased abuses in the city's policing and municipal court, and also found that the city used police as a collection agency, citing traffic citations to black residents to boost city coffers through fines, creating a "toxic environment" - two police Ferguson officers were shot during a protest outside Ferguson, Missouri police headquarters early on Thursday.

• As reported here first: The U.S. Has Too Much Oil and Nowhere to Put It (BBG)
• Dollar Drops From 12-Year High as S&P Futures, Bonds Gain (BBG); Dollar Bulls Retreat From 12-Year High to Euro With Fed in View (BBG)
• Clinton Private Email Plan Drew Concerns Early On (WSJ)
• ECB Bond Buying Not Needed With Economy Improving, Weidmann Says (BBG)
• China Feb new yuan loans well above forecast (Reuters)
• U.S. probing report Secret Service agents drove car into White House barrier (Reuters)
• Kerry tells Republicans: you cannot modify Iran-U.S. nuclear deal (Reuters)
• PBOC Pledges to Press on With Rate Liberalization Amid Slowdown (BBG)
• China Prepares Mergers for Big State-Owned Enterprises (WSJ)

The global currency wars are getting ever more violent, following yesterday's unexpected entry of Thailand and South Korea, whose central banks were #23 and #24 to ease monetary conditions in 2015, confirming the threat of a global USD margin call is clear and present (see "The Global Dollar Funding Shortage Is Back With A Vengeance And "This Time It's Different"). But the one currency everyone continues to watch is the Euro, which the closer it gets to parity with the USD, the more volatile it becomes, and moments after touching a 1.04-handle coupled with the DXY rising above 100 for the first time in 12 years, the EURUSD saw a huge short squeeze which sent it nearly 150 pips higher to 1.0643, before the selling resumed.

Part I of this series provided what (for some) is a revelation: the absurd, $1 & $5 face-value on our legal tender, minted silver coins is not some totally arbitrary anomaly. Rather, it was a part of the strategy of the One Bank to pretend that its fraudulent paper currencies were not (and are not) losing value at a catastrophic rate.

Not just one 25 basis point rate hike, taking a look at that chart, several rate hikes have already been priced into the US Dollar Index.