Archive - May 2015

One week ago when news hit that Houthi rebels had launched a rocket attack on a Saudi border town we said that "a Saudi response now appears just a matter of time, and one which the oil-trading algos are eagerly expecting, pushing Brent to within two dollars of $68." By response, we of course meant a land invasion since Saudi Arabia has already been bombing Yemen for nearly a month.  That "time" may have arrived, because as Al Arabiya reports, Saudi Arabia has announced that a "strike force has arrived on the border with Yemen, as the operation to quell Houthi militias in the country continues."

As the SHCOMP soars, the sellside reacts to China's latest round of easing and the message is clear: more policy rate cuts are in the cards as real lending rates remain elevated and deflation risk remains high. Meanwhile, the PBoC's statement was making the rounds on WeChat hours before its official release suggesting Janet Yellen isn't the only central banker that enjoys leaking information.

• Full picture of Clinton charities' foreign government funding remains elusive (Reuters)
• Greece Readies for Another Week of Deadlines (BBG)
• Greece says deal will be 'difficult' at Eurogroup meeting (Reuters)
• Saudi Arabia’s Rulers Snub Arab Summit, Clouding U.S. Bid for Iran Deal (WSJ)
• Saudi Aramco Said to Plan Spending $80 Billion Overseas (BBG)
• The $900 Billion Influx That’s Wreaking Havoc in U.S. Bills (BBG)
• Cameron rules out another Scottish independence vote (Reuters)
• Banks Prep Defense for Anti-Wall Street Campaigns (WSJ)

With the big macro data out of the way, attention today and for the rest of the week will focus on the aftermath of the latest Chinese rate cut - its third in the past 6 months - which managed to boost the Shanghai Composite up by 3% overnight but not nearly enough to make up for losses in the past week; any resumption of the 6+ sigma volatility in the German Bund, which already has been jittery with the yield sliding to 0.52% only to spike to 0.62% shortly thereafter before retracing some of the losses; and finally Greece, which in a normal world would have concluded its negotiations during today's Eurogroup meeting and unlocked up to €7 billion in funds for the coming months. Instead, Greece may not only not make its €770 million IMF payment tomorrow but according to ever louder rumors, is contemplating a parallel currency on its way out of the Eurozone.

Arrives

How this will not end badly and ugly is hard to see. As we quoted in an earlier article, the number of foodbanks in Britain went from 66 to 421 in the first 5 years of Cameron rule. How many more need to be added before people start setting cities on fire? Or even just: how much more needs to happen before the Scots have had enough? Very much like the Greeks, the Scots unambiguously voted down austerity. And in very much the same fashion, they face an entity that claims to be more powerful and insists on forcing more austerity down their throats anyway. It seems inevitable that at some point these larger entities will start to crack and break down into smaller pieces. As empires always do. Now, the EU was of course never an empire, there’s just tons of bureaucrats dreaming of that, and Britain is a long-decayed empire.

Very rarely, if ever, is there a failure of regulators, a failure of central bankers, a failure of commercial bankers, failures on the war on drugs, failures in military wars, etc. because all of these institutions and people deliberately plan, execute and achieve exactly what they intend to accomplish.

Earlier we detailed reports that The IMF was preparing a contingency plan in the event of a Greek default, and furthermore that Andrea Merkel was under increasing pressure to "let Greece go," and now, as Eurogroup ministers begin to gather for today's crucial 'deal-or-no-deal' meeting, Die Welt reports The Troika has 4 scenarios for Greece  - one positive and three increasingly negative ranging from the need for further bailouts to paying staff in IOUs and issuing a parallel currency.

"Sustainability is so 2007. Those were the heady days before the Global Financial Crisis, before the failed Copenhagen Climate Summit, before the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP)... the list continues. Since 2008, informed conversations on the economy, the environment, and energy have shifted from ‘sustainability’ to ‘resilience’. There are undoubtedly many reasons for this shift, but I’ll focus on just two: undeniable trends and a loss of faith. Let me explain."

Members of Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic bloc are pushing the Chancellor to let Greece leave the euro, with some lawmakers saying the EU would be better off without the Greeks. Meanwhile, German FinMin Schaeuble warns of "accidental" insolvency.

In the new paranormal, you don't use wheelbarrows to move your worthless fiat currency, you use exoskeletons...

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We currently have over 93 Million able-bodied people without jobs – and growing. This is why it’s near incomprehensible, as well as outright disgusting to me that such a dismal showing in both the headline number as well as the onerous implications of such a downward revision to the month prior, coupled with the outright fallacy of suggesting the rate of unemployment has moved closer still to statistical “full employment” came with near giddiness and if not outright back slapping. i.e., “This is a Goldilocks print. Not too hot – not too cold. With a report like this – The Federal Reserve won’t dare raise rates and might actually have to contemplate instituting another round of QE if not outright QE4ever!” And yes; that was the reaction paraphrased across the financial media outlets. Again, personally – I found it all repulsive.

As we have pointed out for a number of years, according to the payroll jobs reports, the complexion of the US labor force is that of a Third World country. Most of the jobs created are lowly paid domestic services. No economist should ever have accepted the claim that the economy was in recovery while participation in the labor force was declining. Having looked at the actual details of the payroll jobs report, which are seldom if ever reported in the financial media, let’s look at what else goes unreported in the media.

The biggest slow motion trainwreck in history, one that everyone knows how it ends just not when (especially since the "when" is about 5 years overdue), that of the Greek sovereign default may just got a bit more exciting earlier today when the WSJ reported that the IMF can no longer lie - like Mario Draghi did to Zero Hedge in 2013 - that there are preparation for a Plan B. To wit: "the International Monetary Fund is working with national authorities in southeastern Europe on contingency plans for a Greek default, a senior fund official said—a rare public admission that regulators are preparing for the potential failure to agree on continued aid for Athens."