Archive - Apr 30, 2015

The myth of the resurgent US consumer, who was somehow supposed to benefit massively from the "unambiguously good" plunge in oil and gas prices, has been gutted and eviscerated, with the latest confirmation coming from the Personal Income and Spending data, in which we find that not only did personal income not grow in March, with wage growth the lowest in 2015 (with manufacturing workers' incomes coming flat and Trade and Transportation wages actually down), but because spending rose by a weaker than expected 0.4% in March, the 4th miss in the past 5 months, US personal savings have resumed declining and all those "gas savings" are finally being spent: just not where they should be spent, and not in the amounts hoped.

Why you, I oughta...

Greece was forced to delay pension payments by 8 hours on Tuesday while Athens scrambled to find cash. Although the government claims there was a "technical glitch," officials with knowledge of the matter offered a far more elegant explanation: there wasn't enough money.

U.S. and U.K. GDP slowed very sharply in first quarter of 2015. Latest data confirms the rapid slowdown despite stock markets booming in the UK, U.S. and globally. This highlights the major disconnect between the real economy and a financial sector intoxified by easy money.

Initial jobless claims have been worse than expected for the last 2 weeks but remained below the magical 300k level, so it was only appropriate that this week all the great economic news of late - record plunge in US macro disappointments and a dismal 0.2% GDP print - would be met with the lowest claims print in 15 years. At 262k (against a 290k expectation), initial claims has only been lower once - the week of April 14th 2000 - which just happened to mark the top of the Dot-Com bubble. While this is great news, we do note that a rolling average of Texas Jobless claims shows the improving trend has stalled.

As Bloomberg summarizes the various opinions suggested by Wall Street analysts, the rout in German debt and other European sovereign bonds was caused by market-technical factors such as investor positioning and supply glut rather than shift in views on economic outlook, analysts say, with profit-taking on successful QE trades, thin market liquidity and position-squaring before month-end are cited among main bearish catalysts.

• Marchers protest police violence in Baltimore, New York (Reuters)
• Majority of Financial Pros Now Say Greece Is Headed for Euro Exit (BBG)
• Greece signals concessions in crunch talks with lenders (Reuters)
• Greece, Euro-Area Partners Target Deal by Sunday (BBG)
• Iglesias Says EU Risking Right-Wing Backlash With Greek Pressure (BBG)
• Student-Loan Surge Undercuts Millennials’ Place in U.S. Economy (BBG)
• Majors’ Quandary: Why Drill for Oil When They Can Buy Somebody Else’s? (WSJ)

The days when Russia scrambled to prevent the plunge in its currency in December of 2014, pushing its interest rate to an eye watering 17%, are now a distant memory: moments ago, the CBR announced that following the most recent cut from 15% to 14% on March 13, it once again cut rates by a greater than consensus 150 bps, to 12.50%. The majority of analysts, or 25 of 40, had expected a cut to only 13.00%.

The biggest overnight story was neither out of China, where despite the ridiculous surge in new account openings and margin debt the SHCOMP dipped 08%, or out of Japan, where the Nikkei dropped 2.7%, the biggest drop in months, after the BOJ disappointed some by not monetizing more than 100% of net issuance and keeping QE unchanged, but Europe where for the second day in a row there was a furious selloff of Bunds at the open of trading, which briefly sent the yield on the 10Y to 0.38% (it was 0.6% two weeks ago), in turn sending the EURUSD soaring by almost 200 pips to a two month high of 1.1250, and weighing on US equity futures, before retracing some of the losses.

While many thought the selloff had peaked yesterday, and would henceforth be more orderly, they were proven wrong, when right out of the gates this morning, investors were very, so to say, bunderweight, on the German benchmark govvie and the yield promptly gapped up as high as 0.38% before retracing some of the sharp move higher.

The story of Jade Helm — the name for the upcoming military exercises in Texas, California, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada — has taken a decisive turn for the absurd as Texas Governor Greg Abbott has now called on the Texas Guard to (literally) monitor military drills conducted by US special forces after local residents suggested the exercises could be the precursor to a federal invasion of Texas. Only in America.

The Consumer Price Index measures the falling dollar, but only partially. As interest rates drop, you get less on your capital. Yield Purchasing Power shows the full damage.

Japanese stocks and USDJPY are back below the lows of the US day-session following The Bank of Japan's decision not to stimulate further (despite all the collapsing economic evidence one might need to do such a thing). Investors were clearly hoping for moar (even if economists weren't). With GDP expectations collapsing, BoJ still voted 8-1 not to increase QQE keeping monetary base growth expectations flat. The result is a 500 point drop in The Nikkei from this morning's highs and around 1 handle drop in USDJPY... for now.