Archive - Jul 27, 2015

The 30 blocks of squalor from 69th Street in Upper Darby to 39th Street in West Philly is a tribute to government incompetence, failed government policies, shoddy union labor practices and fiscal mismanagement.

The U.S. economy is growing at a painfully slow pace. Greece still threatens the euro. Chinese stocks have just pulled out of a frightening free-fall. Big companies in the U.S. are struggling to boost profits. You might think it's been a rough year for investors, but it's mostly been a smooth ride - and a profitable one. "Things have worked out," scoffs one analyst "and that has emboldened investors." Maybe too much...

China crashing, commodities plunging, emerging currencies imploding to levels last seen when LTCM blew up, Greece on the verge of deposit confiscations, the Apple Sachs Industrial average well in the red for the year, the US economy on the verge of an industrial recession, junk bonds bloodbathing, Donald Trump pulling ahead of Hillary... Meanwhile the president is in China's African slave colony of Ethiopia... prioritizing.

For as long as the present economic system lumbers along, Keynesians will control the levers of power and influence. But when at last the system goes down in a heap, and central banks cannot restore the system, there will be a quest for answers. When you live by the Federal Reserve, you die by the Federal Reserve.

As The Greek government presses The ECB for 'permission' to reopen its stock market, it may want to reconsider. GREK, the Greek Stock Index ETF trading in US markets, is down over 3% today and has plunged to its lowest since the peak of the crisis in 2012 (near its lowest since 1989). Just as in China, The ECB (who is now very much in charge) seems to believe that if markets are not open for locals, then they have no 'real' idea just how bad things are.. and with National Bank of Greece stock trading at record lows (below $1), and the expectations of bail-ins looming, that is not what The ECB wants the people to see...

Earlier today, it was Putin's turn to troll not only the DOJ, but also Barack Obama who is currently in Ethiopia as part of his African tour when in an interview aired by Swiss broadcaster RTS on Monday Putin said that Sepp Blatter deserves a Nobel Prize for his stewardship of soccer’s governing body. “I think people like Mr Blatter or the heads of big international sporting federations, or the Olympic Games, deserve special recognition. If there is anyone who deserves the Nobel Prize, it’s those people.”

This period of history resembles the 1850s in America in two big ways: 1) our society faces a crisis, and 2) the existing political parties are not up to the task of comprehending what society faces. In the 1850s it was the Whigs that dried up and blew away (virtually overnight), while the old Democratic party just entered a 75-year wilderness of irrelevancy. God help us if Trump-o-mania turns out to be the only alternative.

"Central bank quantitative easing drove traditional investors seeking mid-to-high single digit yields out of investment grade/ crossover credit into high yield, loan and emerging market debt to satisfy yield bogeys. The problem, however, is some of the tourists underappreciate the exponential loss and mark-to-market functions for low quality high yield assets."

Overall, the bull market in biotech stocks doesn’t look like it will end in a fury today or tomorrow. However, as Biogen has shown, a high flying group of stocks like this can blow up performance at any moment. The trend in these stocks is still mostly positive, however, momentum seems to be changing for the worse on the margin. As a stock market leading group for most of this bull market, it will be worth investors’ time and effort to keep a close eye on biotech’s performance.

Hedge Funds' net long position in WTI Crude collapsed 27% (the biggest single 'dump' in over 3 years) ahead of the big plunge last week (and is now down almost 60% in the last month - the most since 2010). Part of a broader deflationary collapse in commodities, as Bloomberg reports, long positions dropped to a two-year low while short holdings climbed 25%, erasing more than $100 billion in market value from the 61 companies in the Bloomberg E&P stock index. With crude supplies still almost 100 million barrels above the five-year average, "there's a lot more room for prices to slide," warned one trader, "it's going to take a long time for this to work itself out."

The Chinese stock market crash has hit the world’s largest auto-market hard. For now, China is a dream turned sour for the Michigan-based Ford and General Motors and Germany’s Volkswagen. The risks are enormous and will become greater with time.

Who is the culprit for the recent record oil stock glut across the OECD nations? We present the answer on the following several charts showing oil exports from both OPEC and non-OPEC oil producing countries. Note that Iran has gone exactly nowhere - it is "others" who are to blame for the most recent downturn in oil prices.

This was not supposed to happen.

Many have questioned just why President Obama was so keen to get the Iran nuclear deal done - apparently with almost no real concessions - in the face of allies home and abroad deriding the agreement. Well, if one were so inclined, OilPrice.com explains that Iran's deputy oil minister for commerce and international affairs, Hossein Zamaninia, told Reuters that the country has already identified 50 oil and gas projects it will offer for bids - with the government pegging the value of these properties at $185 billion...