Archive - Jun 2015

With real incomes collapsing, approval ratings at record lows, and PMIs back in contraction; is it any surprise that the last thing standing for Shinzo Abe to "show" the world his 'progress' is the stock market... the all-knowing arbiter of monetary and fiscal policy-maker success (and completely divergent indicator of real economic health). To wit, overnight saw Japan's Nikkei 225 surged to its highest since Nov 1996 (up almost 150% since Abenomics devaluation was unleashed). The last time we saw such a surge brings a chill air to the conversation as Japanese stocks pass the halfway-back mark to 1989's epic bubble peak, it is begining to look a lot like peaking once again.

So much for a Greek deal getting "done" today, as the market had priced in for the nth countless time on Monday. Here is what happened moments ago according to Bloomberg and Reuters:

• GREEK DELEGATION LEAVES EU COMMISSION
• SCHAEUBLE SEES INSUFFICIENT PROGRESS FOR GREECE DEAL TODAY
  
• SCHAEUBLE SAYS HE DOESN'T HAVE MUCH NEW TO SAY ON GREECE

And so on, until the next round of buying ahead of the next rumor, until the next denial launches stocks even higher, ahead of more hopes of an imminent deal launches even more buying program, until the next round of rumors leds to new all time highs and so on, and so on...

But "Greece was Rescued"...

We suspect this will be the last time billionaire investor Carl Icahn is invited on CNBC. Having sold CNBC darling NFLX, he crushed the two main memes of CNBC's raison d'etre - buy stocks, because where else are you going to put your money - "what's better - making 2% or losing 30% as people did in 2008...right now it's an extremely dangerous time;" and the next leg of this bull market will come from an improving real economy - "the economy is not picking up, it is artificial due to low interest rates." The market has way over-estmated how long this will last, Icahn concludes, "keep your powder dry - why do have to own anything risky? It's just nonsensical."

One recurring pattern that we had noticed months ago, and which had a nearly 100% predictive hit record, was that on auction days when there is a major lack of collateral as evidenced by a negative repo rate, Tsy auctions were stellar. Today, was just such a day, with the 5 Year repo printing well special at -0.85% this morning as ICAP reported. All else equal this would have meant a big scramble to cover shorts into the auction and a high yield well tighter than the When Issued. Only not today. Because for all those who expected the yield to price through the when issued, the result was a surprising 1 basis point tail to the 1.700% W.I., with the auction of $35 billion in 5 Year bonds pricing at 1.710%.

The renewed optimism that's surrounded Greek debt negotiations since Monday evening evaporated like deposits on a hot summer day in Athens this morning as the IMF has indicated it will stick to its "red lines" on pension cuts and the VAT, meaning PM Alexis Tsipras will either surrender unconditionally or embrace an EMU exit.

Stocks may be ignoring the 'dollar' and liquidity more broadly (at least as far as repurchases are concerned) but the continued stress in the eurodollar world has had an accumulating effect in some places. Primarily that has been shown in the once-thriving junk space, including more illiquid “products” like leveraged loans... By and large, there seems to be renewed concerns about liquidity, economy or both.

“There are three things that matter in the bond market these days: liquidity, liquidity and liquidity. When the unwind comes, like we’ve seen in the past few months, it comes abruptly and sharply as the exit door is tiny"...

While French president Hollande is busy "grilling" (in the words of The Local) president Obama over the latest US "spying on its allies" snafu, the French economy continues to deteriorate and according to the latest French labor ministry data, in May the number of French jobseekers rose by another 0.5%, or 16,200, to 3.552 million, 10k more than expected, and a new all time high.

While there was a disturbance earlier around the DOE data, crude and copper are now getting clubbed like a baby seal off the day's highs... It appears between Icahn's bubble comments and The Fed's reported impatience, momo trades are being unwound.

- We need a free market in currencies, not bail-ins and a war on cash and gold - People blindly trust “experts” so welcome that some of them giving prudent advice regarding diversification - Currencies of creditor nations – Norway, Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong will outperform in long term

CEOs are not the most trustworthy figures in society. They will lay off thousands of employees to beat analysts' estimates, and yet they have no trouble looting the stock to pay themselves millions while the company loses money. However, one theme that keeps coming up is that unethical behavior has a price tag. With this in mind, consider the implications when the New York Fed tells us that economic activity declined because of the weather. Now that it's summer, it's not clear how cold weather is interfering. Perhaps the Fed has a South Pole subsidiary? When will the market crash and the Fed be replaced for lying about poor performance?

2/2 If more respected investors had warned about the market in ’07, we might have avoided the crisis in ’08.

— Carl Icahn (@Carl_C_Icahn) June 24, 2015

With the US equity market jerking around on every headline (having jumped on DOE inventories?!), reports from MNI that the FOMC majority is not prepared to wait indefinitely for market participants to be fully on board, appear to have taken the shine off the exuberance. It seems yesterday's warning from Jerome Powell that there will be 2 rate hikes this year did not stall the stock bubble enough and so more "officials" leaked more information today.

Angry and embarrassed, France summoned the U.S. ambassador Wednesday to respond to the revelations by WikiLeaks that the U.S. National Security Agency eavesdropped on three successive French presidents and other top officials. Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the U.S. must do everything it can, and quickly, to "repair the damage" to U.S.-French relations from the revelations, which he called "a very serious violation of the spirit of trust" between the allies. "If the fact of the revelations today does not constitute a real surprise for anyone, that in no way lessens the emotion and the anger. They are legitimate. France will not tolerate any action threatening its security and fundamental interests."