Archive - Jul 8, 2015

The DOL recently proposed raising the overtime threshold from $23,600 to $50,400 making this only the second time they’ve addressed the issue since 1975. According to the department, 62 percent of workers qualified for overtime back then, whereas today, only eight percent do. At the current overtime threshold, Americans would have to live below the poverty threshold ($24,008 for a family of four) before a jobholder could qualify for overtime. 

For the 2nd week in a row, crude oil inventories saw a build (after 8 weeks of draws) albeit a modest 384k barrels. Cushing also saw an inventory build. At the same time, production rose very modestly back to near cycle record highs (thouygh we note an extremely small drop in Lower 48 production). Crude prices have tumbled on the news as apparently yesterday's exuberance over better demand data from EIA has been long forgotten...

It has been almost exactly one year since Micorsoft announced it would fire a record 18,000 people (surpassing the previous all time high layoff round of 5,800 in 2009) form a company that one upon a time seen as infallible as AAPL. So perhaps in order to release more funds with which to buy back its struggling stock, moments ago Microsoft did what it had to do to make corporate executives richer, and reported it would lay off another 7,700 workers.

This morning we experienced an unprecedented surge in traffic which brought our servers to a grinding halt. We are happy to announce that we are now back up. In the meantime... a pre-emptive attempt at plunge protection (by breaking NYSE just like on Monday) failed as NYSE re-opens and stocks slumped. Seeing this, the NYSE decided to break again and stocks ripped...

We are entering the final phase of a cyclical bear market...

Seems like 'glitches' are becoming a little too common...

*UNITED AIRLINES U.S. FLIGHTS GROUNDED, FAA SAYS IN NOTICE, CITES 'AUTOMATION ISSUES' IN UNITED AIRLINES STOPPAGE

This is the 2nd such setback in six weeks!

The rescue of AIG should not serve as a source of comfort to investors.

"At the moment and in principle we see, as the chancellor said expressly in her press conference in Brussels, no occasion at all to discuss this issue - there is no leverage or basis for that," Martin Jaeger said at a news conference. "That refers to a haircut in the classic sense but I explicitly add we also take that to mean measures that aim to bring about a reduction in the cash value of debt - those are things that you hear in discussions under profiling, restructuring and similar things."

At around 645ET, EURCHF suddenly took off out of nowhere. This instantly lifted European stocks off new post-Greferendum lows, slammeds EU credit risk lower, lifted US equity markets, and drove Treasury yields higher. The SNB has declined to comment on whether it intervenened but we ask in all frankness, have we become so divorced from 'free markets' that China can blatantly enter markets to save them (and fail) and European markets can mysteriously go bid and no one bats an eyelid that this is all rigged.

Facing a new “deadline” to submit a viable proposal to EU creditors and keep Greece in the eurozone, Greek PM Alexis Tsipras faced friends and enemies at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday, where there was no shortage of fireworks from both sides of the Grexit debate. 

• Greece and China expose limits of 'whatever it takes' (Reuters)
• China no longer has a market: China Stock Sellers Frozen Out of 71% of Market (BBG)
• China’s Market Rescue Makes Matters Worse as Prices Lose Meaning (BBG)
• China Stocks Plunge as State Support Fails to Revive Confidence (BBG)
• China Market Rout Spreads From Stocks to Price of Pig Food (BBG)
• China’s State-Owned Firms Ordered Not to Cut Share Holdings (BBG)
• Greece Requests Three-Year Bailout in First Step Toward Meeting Creditors’ Demand (WSJ)
• Greece Faces Euro Exit Unless Demands Accepted by Sunday (BBG)

Greece formally requested a three-year bailout from the eurozone’s rescue fund Wednesday and pledged to start implementing some of the overhauls demanded by creditors by early next week. Crucially for Greece’s creditors, the letter says the government would start implementing some measures, including on taxation and pensions, by the beginning of next week, though it doesn’t go into details. The letter is a first step toward fulfilling a demand by international creditors, who have given Athens until Sunday to come up with tougher measures they would impose in return for desperately needed financing that could keep the country from bankruptcy and even worse economic turmoil. 

Today's market battle will be between those (central banks) "hoping" that a Greek deal over the weekend is finally imminent (which on one hand looks possible after a major backpeddling by Tsipras - who may never have wanted to win the Greferendum in the first place - yesterday in Brussels and today during his speech in the Euro Parliament, but on the other will be a nearly impossible sell to Greece as any deal terms will be far harsher than the deal offered by the Troika 2 weeks ago and will have no debt reduction), and those who finally noticed that the Chinese central planners have effectively lost control.

It's shaping up to be a rough year for CEOs at Europe's most notorious rate rigging, scandal laden investment banks. Just three months after Brady Dougan left Credit Suisse and barely 30 days since Anshu Jain and Jürgen Fitschen tendered their resignations at Deutsche Bank, Barclays has shown CEO Antony Jenkins the door.