Archive - Jun 1, 2015

The six-month clock is up. OPEC is convening this week in Vienna, as it does every six months, to discuss and decide on how the group will coordinate. So what should we expect from OPEC’s upcoming meeting on June 5? More of the same. Having made the decision to fight it out, there is almost no reason to back off now. US shale producers have hung on longer than many anticipated. OPEC has inflicted a lot of damage across the US shale patch, but it hasn’t yet struck the deathblow that it had wanted. OPEC’s strategy could still work, but will need more time. That points to a stay-the-course approach heading into the June meeting and beyond.

My fellow Americans, our long national nitemare is not over...

For now, no catalyst - as if one is needed in this market - but gold and silver prices just spiked higher on heavy volume above $1200 and $17 respectively...

June is off with a bang, and a very busy week in the macro economic calendar, both globally and in the US, which culminates with the latest "most important ever" payrolls report, one which will surely be closely watched by a Fed which may hike as soon as a few weeks from now (but probably won't).

The Fed insists that Cinderella's carriage is forever golden, ignoring the increasingly obvious reality that the carriage is turning back into a pumpkin before our eyes. The Fed's magic was always a short-term fix, akin to over-fertilizing and over-poisoning our economy to create the illusion of massive growth in profits and stock, bond and home valuations. Now that the magic is wearing off, the reality is going to hit everyone who believed the fantasy of permanent asset bubbles especially hard.

This is not what the American Dream is made of... US consumers got a generous 0.4% rise in incomes in April - better than the 0.3% expectation - but none of it was spent! Personal Spending was unchanged - missing expectations for the 5th month of last 6. What this means is obvious, Americans are saving more (savings rate surged from 5.2% to 5.6%) and spending less... this is not the wealth effect creating 70%-of-GDP-consuming world that The Fed's textbooks say it should be...

It wouldn't be the new normal without a "Greek deal imminent" rumor/headline and so after overnight China-based strength gave way to selling pressure, another twitter-based rumor of "chatter" of a Greek accord (which given yesterday's comments seems extremely unlikely anyway) sparked a malt-up in EURUSD and US Equity futures. However, as is always the case, Virtu's algos as usual forgot to sell when the official denial occurred just a few minutes later.

Welcome to SmartKnowledgeU Podcast #10, Free Your Mind. For many of us, almost every single belief we hold about religion, politics, financial markets, war, law, morality was fed to us by another human being, and not something that we arrived upon from our own path of critical thought.

"Not only is it possible that we may need to see technical default and deposit blocks in order to come to a new programme, it may be necessary to do so in order to break the current impasse in negotiations," Goldman says, after indicating that a Greek government shakeup is now likely inevitable.

• Senate lets NSA spy program lapse, at least for now (Reuters)
• Draghi Deflation Relief Means Little With Greek Threat Unsolved (BBG)
• Tepid factory data add to Asian gloom (FT)
• Citigroup Likely to Close Banamex USA (WSJ)
• Frugality of High Earners in U.S. Shows Long Shadow of Recession (BBG)
• Greece’s Tsipras Warns Bell May Toll for Europe (BBG)
• Carnegie Mellon Reels After Uber Lures Away Researchers (WSJ)
• Romário leads drive for Brazilian probe into Fifa (FT)
• Faster than China? India's road, rail drive could lay doubts to rest (Reuters)

Remember China's 6% crash last week? It is now a distant memory made even more remote thanks to the latest batch of ugly data out of China, coupled with hints of even more liquidity injections, which led to the latest surge in the Shcomp, an index that has put most pennystocks to shame. In Europe, the big story remains Greece, and as everyone expected, the doomed country and its creditors failed to make a deal on Sunday. This is after Greek Officials were said to have prepared a draft agreement, which was expected to be announced on Sunday. Not helping things, Greek PM Tsipras came out in fully defiant mode and accused bailout monitors of making “absurd” demands and seeking to impose “harsh punishment” on Athens. A bunch of final PMI number showed a modest improvement in the periphery at the expense of Germany whose deterioration is starting to be a concern.