Archive - Mar 2015

In 2002, Benjamin Netanyahu already harbored some extremely strong convictions on how to deal with both Iran and Iraq - "If you take out Saddam’s Regime, I guarantee you, that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region." Fast forward nearly thirteen years, and rather than recognizing that this man’s plan in Iraq only led to death, chaos, and the emergence of ISIS, Congress felt the need to ask him for advice once again. Since as we all know, being wrong in America doesn’t lead to consequences, it leads to promotions.

Draghi's devalued the Euro over 20% in 6 months...How much further?

All of the biggest problems in the financial world revolve around the bond markets today: Greece, Japan, the Fed's interest rate hike, etc.

No details as yet but ABC7 reports a Delta flight has skidded off a runway upon landing at New York's Laguardia airport... 130 passengers are being evacuated - no serious injuries. 300 Gallons of fuel leaking from plane.

UPDATE: TRY now +6.5 handles at 2.6275...

The Turkish Lira is down over 4 handles again this morning as the currency's collapse accelerates exponentially. Having devalued by 30% year-to-date amid Erdogan's rage against central bank independence, selling its gold, threats of jail for not cutting interest rates, and rising repression of increasing social unrest, the country's Economy Minister took to the TV today to expose the "hidden currency war" and blast 'speculators' (because only a speculator would pull his capital from such a 'stable' place) - "The manipulation of those who play with the dollar will explode in their hands and their hands will be burned."

Where have we seen this before?

Over the weekend Barron's engaged in another attempt by the pro-HFT media lobby to make it seem that frontrunning HFT parasites (now available on a laser near you) are good for the "little guy." An attempt which fails when one actually scratches the surface even by the smallest amount.

According to two anchors, one journalist, and one "wealth strategist," now is the time to take out an 84 month car loan in order to buy stocks.

With the world and his cat positioned for spread compression in European peripheral sovereigns ahead of the ECB's Q€, the natural 'short' that weighs on Bunds (against Spain, Italy, Portugal etc.) is being massively squeezed this morning. 10Y Bund yields have ripped 11bps from the start of the ECB press conference... in context, that's a 25% collapse in yield.

Must be the weather... since August. US Manufacturers New Orders tumbled 0.2% in January (missing expectations of a 0.2% rise for the 6th of the last 7 months). This extends the losing streak for factory orders to 6 months, something we have not seen since the great recession in 2008... The drop was led by a plunge in Consumer Goods - not exactly what one would expect from all those gas savings? Just add it to the growing list of missed macro data expectations since the start of Feb!

Alongside the Draghi presser, the ECB moments ago the terms and conditions of its Q€, or as the ECB calls it, the "public sector purchase programme (PSPP)" Here are the full details and the Q&A.

Bronzeye identified a weakness in the two-step authentication process used by most banks and reported it to the FCA in July of last year. It identified one “large British bank”, the name of which was redacted in the documents, that had “22 critical vulnerabilities”.

EURUSD rallied 100 pips into Draghi's press conference as weak shorts covered but the moment he opened his mouth), it collapsed and is now looking to break to a 1.09 handle for the first time since 2003. Despite hockey-stick-like expectations for EU growth, bond yields are compressing (as EU arbs the world) and oil prices are waking up to the reality that China took an ax to its growth expectatiuons overnight. But apart from that, stocks are higher...

Moments ago Mardio Draghi, as part of the ECB's March set of economic forecasts, revealed what is the biggest inflationary hockeystick in history, as European inflation, magically, is now expected to soar from 0.0% to 1.5%!