Archive - Apr 23, 2015

We recently revealed that $5.3 trillion of government debt trades at subzero interest rates. In today’s fiscally profligate world that is a thundering tell. What it signifies is nothing less than financial regime change. There are no markets left in any meaningful sense of the word - just a raging casino infected with the madness of the crowds and the central bank pied pipers who mesmerize them. Every day there are new confirmations of the mania.

Just because...

Something doesn't quite add up when the median price of a new home is just shy of all time highs, while the actual number of new homes sold is just shy of all time lows.

No sector will be immune to the changing nature of work and value creation. The only sustainable way to avoid upheaval is to learn to create value in ways that cannot be commoditized.

On the occasion of William Shakespeare's Birthday...To Default or Not To Default 

From below $56 to $58 in a few hours as terrible Asian, European, and US PMIs prompt a spoofed, manic stop-run to Tuesday's highs.

It's the Last Stand for Our Republic

US stocks are open - Panic Buy. PMI missed! - Buy moar on bad data. New Home Sales miss - even better - buy moar as bad news is good news. Yesterday's highs hit... Stop-run complete... unleash the selling...

The era the phony recovery narrative has come unhinged.  We have now entered a cycle of actual price discovery in which financial assets fall to more accurate values. This will eventually result in a stock market crash, very likely within the next 12 months.

After existing home sales sent stocks vertical on great news, so new home sales plunge has sent stocks vertical on bad news. An 11.1% drop MoM - the biggest since July 2013 - dragged new home sales back below 500k to 481k SAAR - the biggest miss in a year. Sales of new homes collapse 33.3% in The Northeast and The South saw new home sales crash 15.8%.

A U.S. drone strike in January targeting a suspected al Qaeda compound in Pakistan inadvertently killed an American and Italian being held hostage by the group, senior Obama administration officials said. As WSJ reports, the killing of American development expert Warren Weinstein and Italian aid worker Giovanni Lo Porto is the first known instance in which the U.S. has accidentally killed a hostage in a drone strike. We await President Obama's 'collateral damage' explanation.

On the heels of weak PMIs from Europe and Asia, Markit's US Manufacturing PMI plunged to 54.2 in April (from 55.7). Against expectations of a rise to 55.6, this is the biggest miss on record. Of course, this is 'post-weather' so talking-heads will need to find another excuse as New Orders declined for the first time since Nov 2014.

Gold developments may not be a golden opportunity.

The new term follows in the footsteps of the classic (but now tired) “Grexit” and its underrated predecessor “Graccident,” and refers to two of the four outcomes Citi imagines are possible in the unfolding Greek drama. The bad news: both scenarios involve capital controls, deposit flight, and defaults.

It's 8am, do you know where your sudden Treasury-bond seller is?