Archive - May 27, 2015

That FIFA has been a hotbed of corruption, shady backroom dealings and outright crime for years, has been known to anyone who has a passing interest in football. Which is why we were surprised to learn this morning that none other than the US Attorney General, seemingly content with all the wristslaps handed out to criminal US foreign banks (and subsequent SEC waivers) gave FIFA the red card in a charge detailing "rampant" corruption in international soccer hours after 14 officials were arrested on accusations of a 24-year scheme to enrich themselves through FIFA, whose office was searched in a series of dawn raids in Zurich.

On Tuesday, Deutsche Bank agreed to a $55 million SEC settlement tied to allegations it hid billions in losses by mismarking its crisis-era derivatives book. The bank has always contended its valuation methodologies were sound. Here is the real story...

Who could have seen that coming?

UPDATE: Denial *GREEK CREDITORS NOT YET DRAFTING FINAL ACCORD, EU OFFICIAL SAYS

Another day, another rumor (not yet denied) of a report that Greece and its creditors are crafting a deal (well durr)... The result, vertical buying panic in US equities, USD dumped (on EUR strength), TSY yields spike 3bps, and Crude oil surges... what a "market"

What do you do when month after month you have nothing but bad data to report. Simple: you have two choice - you either seasonally adjust the data (or in the case of US GDP, double-seasonally adjust it), or if that is not possible since unlike US GDP, your numbers are at least somewhat indicative of underlying reality, you stop reporting them altogether.

Something BIG is afoot: we are seeing multi-decade breakouts in numerous currency pairs. 

A month ago 24-year-old Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel gave global sheeple investors a glimpse at the reality in Silicon Valley's and how the second tech bubble will burst (via his leaked comments from 2013). Overnight he stepped up the rhetoric, as ReCode reports - itself in the midst of a stock-only buyout by Vox - Spiegel warns we are currently living through a tech bubble and that it’s a matter of when, not if, the tech bubble will burst. "People are making riskier investments and... there will be a correction," he warned, placing tha blame squarely on The Fed's shoulders, explaining that the bubble is being fueled by an "easy money policy" and low interest rates - that may not last much longer.

WTI Crude's late-day bounce yesterday is gone... and then some. Front-month (July) futures prices are back below $57.50 - their lowest since April 23rd (before the inventory "draw"s began). With OPEC's June meeting looming every closer, one wonders if this downward pressure on price is helping to solidify anti-Saudi rhetoric among the cartel members...

Which country will be next to join the ‘bring our gold home’ movement?

Bill Gross just revealed another aspect of trading in the new (or any) normal: one may get the direction and the timing with laser-like precision (as Gross did on his Bund trade), but if said trade is excecuted in a way where the inherent "coiled spring" volatility of the Gross-defined "new normal" blows up the trade structure, the losses will make one wish never to have had the correct idea in the first place.

Crude oil prices are tumbling as the USDollar pushes on to new highs driven by the continued stretch of renewed weakness in the Euro. As Bloomberg's Richard Breslow notes, however, "it’s not all about Greece. Not even close."

"The price of it swings, but on the other hand it is a 100 percent guarantee from legal and political risks." - Dmitry Tulin, manager of Russia's monetary policy.

Greece is "nowhere close" to a deal with its creditors and will miss a May deadline to strike a compromise ahead of an IMF payment due on June 5. Meanwhile, the ECB tightens the screws on the country's banking sector by refusing to lift the ceiling on the emergency liquidity that until now has helped to offset deposit flight.

• FIFA Raided by Swiss Authorities in 2018, 2022 World Cup Probe (BBG)
• Companies Send More Cash Back to Shareholders (WSJ)
• Time Warner Cable Deal Stirs Debt Concerns (WSJ)
• Qatar $200 Billion World Cup Under More Scrutiny Amid FIFA Probe (BBG)
• Philippine, Vietnamese troops play soccer and sing on disputed island (Reuters)
• The G-7's Problem: Can the World Deal With a Greek Default? (BBG)
• SocGen Deal for Bache Illustrates Commodity-Trading Woe (WSJ)
• China’s Naval Abilities Test Asia’s Insecurities (WSJ)

"We begin then by saying without equivocation that we have changed our mind again regarding equities... Hence in our retirement funds here we reduced very slightly our long position in Apple directly and then wrote near-the-money calls  against the remaining position. Further, we sold just out-of-the money calls against the “tanker” shares we owned, and we used the money taken in from those calls to buy more derivatives sufficient to take us back to market neutrality."