Archive - May 26, 2015

2015's heavily-indebted graduating class of college seniors has a lot of options. Not paying their loans is one of them. Read on...

We have fast-paced lives, we pay to get fast-tracked, we eat fast-food and we fast-forward on a film that bores us. Our lives are fast. We even have fast fashion; our clothes are fast these days from catwalk to high street. We have fast love too.

In an unprecedented move against a government agency, which we are just waiting to hear blamed on Russia, The IRS has admitted that its data has ben compromised...

*IRS SAYS THIEVES ACCESSED TAX INFORMATION ON 100,000 PAYERS, IRS'S KOSKINEN SAYS THERE WAS UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS FEB-MAY

One wonders if they found Lois Lerner's emails while they were in there?

Surprise!

Even as some Republicans — including former Texas Governor and one-time Presidential hopeful Rick Perry — insist that a (re)annexation of Texas isn't in the cards, some observers including 'Texas Ranger' Chuck Norris aren't buying it and insist that at the end of the day, it all comes down to one thing: no one, not even Washington, messes with Texas.

Between 1974 and 2009 there were 62 magnitude 3.0 or stronger earthquakes in Oklahoma. In the past five years there have been 1,070 M3.0+ quakes. The chart of Oklahoma's quake surge correlates perfectly with the amount of wastewater injected into the state. And when it comes to Oklahoma's "induced seismicity" there is nobody more responsible for either Oklahoma's "shale miracle" or the resultant earthquake epidemic than David Chernicky, CEO of Tulsa-based New Dominion.

"Right now, we’re living in a make believe world. Debt can’t be the main source of growth. Without a pick-up in final demand a lot of bad debts are out there. As long as you have excess capacity in the commodity production you have bad loans throughout the system. That means you have governments who can’t repay their debt without selling new loans and all their bad loans are funded by the central banks.... I think a global recession is inevitable...You just can’t devalue your way to prosperity. As long as the number of shares keeps declining, stock prices are going to go up and nobody cares [but] in the long term there has to be a major correction."

"We got hammered," Houston's emergency management coordinator Rick Flanagan told CNN, and as the following stunning images show, that is an understatement. "We've seen flooding before, but not nearly to this extreme," said one resident, adding "It rains and it rains and it rains, and there's really nowhere for the water to go... It's ridiculous." Perhaps even more stunningly, as Mashable's Andrew Freeman notes, the floods have been a remarkable turn of events for a region that was still mired in drought as of three weeks ago. That drought, which had affected Texas since 2010, is now effectively over in most areas, as is a long-running drought in Oklahoma. Authorities are still searching for 12 members of two families who went missing over the weekend.

With French ministers crowing about their better-than-expected GDP data (+0.7%) as some trend reversal that heralds a revolution, it appears Vladimir Putin is about to put a dent in their hopes and dreams. As Sputnik News reports, Moscow has finally given up on the $1.3 billion deal for two Mistral-class helicopter carriers and plans to build its own. Even worse for France, now Russia will discuss only the sum that Paris should pay Russia for the failed contract. However, as with everything in the world, there may be aulterior motive, as China comes sniffing as a white knight for the amphibious vessels (at a reduced price) and then sells to its 'ally' Russia (who has already pocketed the contract cancellation fees).

We're still open...

...or just see the mirrors...

... at least according to the Atlanta Fed. Based on the one GDP model which hasn't lost all credibility and which for the past 3 months has captured the attention to wannabe weathermen and other Wall Street strategists, today's bevy of stronger than expected data, everything from Durable Goods, to core CapEx, to New Home Sales, to Case Shiller, to Consumer Confidence, and even the Richmond Fed was sufficient to push Q2 GDP... by 0.1% to 0.8%.

As we documented previously, one of the best ways to determine if a given Treasury auction will be strong is to look at the implied short overhang heading into the auction courtesy of Repo rates. Earlier today, ahead of today's $26 billion auction, the 2Y was trading -0.27% in repo: not too shorted, but judging by the results of the just concluded auction, shorted enough.