Archive - Jun 24, 2015

If one excludes just three items: Obamacare, the "harsh winter", and near record inventory re-stocking in anticipation of a spending deluge that never comes, Q1 GDP would have tumbled nearly 2.0%.

We had wondered at the relative lack of response by Russia to extended sanctions and asset freezes in Europe and now we see the first major move. Having confirmed new counter-sanctions this morning, Russian President Vladimir Putin just threw The IMF (US taxpayers), and Ukraine's 'American' finance minister under the bus... "Moscow can no longer give Ukraine gas discounts due to the current drop in oil prices." The price must be on level of other countries like Poland, he added.

15 minutes after GDP data was released - showing Q1 was indeed as weak as expected and inventories suggesting Q2 will be just as weak - someone decided it was an appropriate time to dump over half a billion dollars of notional gold on the futures market...

Ne eligat is qui donum accipit...

Just as consensus had expected, after printing at -0.7% in the first revision to Q1 GDP, the final revised GDP print for the March 31-ended quarter came in at -0.2%, confirming the third negative GDP quarter in one recovery cycle since 2011 (all of which have come in the first quarter of the year as global winter cooling fans will have you know)- the first time this has happened since the 1950s.

"Even if a deal between Greece and its creditors is struck, the problem isn't solved," warns Saxobank CIO Steen Jakobsen, which leaves the door open to a snap election being called shortly and a referendum on continued membership of the EU just weeks later. Debt refinancing will be the first issue, with the country needing a significant discount. But how can the country secure that, asks Jakobsen, when the government is unwilling to bring in significant reforms?

Collapse is not an event, it is a process.

• Greece Handed New Terms as Tsipras Approaches Decision Time (BBG)
• As U.S. Probes $12.7 Trillion Treasury Market, Trader Talk Is a Good Place to Start (BBG)
• Signs Swedish QE Backfiring as Liquidity Evaporates (BBG)
• ECB approves ELA funding requested by Greece- banking source (Reuters)
• Greek Millennials Can't Find Work But Actually Want to Keep the Euro (BBG)
• Greek deal or not, the euro is now a different beast (Reuters)
• Promoter’s Arrest Sheds Light on Cynk’s $6 Billion Surge (BBG)
• The World's Biggest Economies Are About to Feel the Impact of China's Slowdown (BBG)
• Senate Clears Trade Bill’s Way to Passage (WSJ)

And it started off all so well: the market, blissfully ignoring what we wrote just yesterday in Why The IMF Will Reject The Latest Greek Proposal In Just Two Numbers, was in full blown levitation mode overnight when it sent Japanese stocks to their highest close since 1996 (pre dot com) and with the Chinese central bank doing its best to keep levitating local stocks away from the abyss, pushing the SHCOMP up another 2.5%. Euro Stoxx 50 went from flat to down 1% and is bouncing. As BBG's Richard Breslow adds, predictably, the market is taking this as a ploy, not an end game. Of course, this is precisely the "Bear Stearns is fine" conventional wisdom that Cramer was spewing days before Bear failed because nobody could fathom how anyone can conceive of a worst case scenario. Only it isn't nobody: we reported before of a Goldman's "Conspiracy Theory" Stunner: A Greek Default Is Precisely What The ECB Wants. 

Who could have possibly foreseen that the IMF would throw up all over the Greek "proposal"... aside from this post here "Why The IMF Will Reject The Latest Greek Proposal In Just Two Numbers" yesterday afternoon of course. In any event, moments ago Bloomberg reported that just as we wrote here yesterday afternoon, there is no deal and that Greek PM Alexis Tsipras told his associates that creditors not accepting equivalent fiscal measures has never happened before, according to a Greek govt official, who asked not to be named in line with policy. Creditors “not accepting parametric measures has never happened before. Neither in Ireland, nor in Portugal, nor anywhere. This strange stance can hide two scenarios; they either don’t want an agreement or serve specific interests in Greece.”

Watching as bankrupt (Western) governments pay near-zero or even negative rates of interest on their debts, we see a financial fraud and sham of unparalleled dimensions in the history of our nations. However, when these same regimes inflict these fraudulent interest rates on “savers” (i.e. their own populations), while double-digit inflation rages all around us, this is nothing less than a crime against humanity – with even worse crimes still to come.