Archive - Jul 2015

"In the wake of the commodity price swoon one of the recurring questions is will the stress in commodity markets spillover to other sectors?," UBS asks. Spoiler alert: the answer is "yes."

There are five charts that I think speak to the good prospects for bearishness.

“To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality”  ?  Ayn Rand

"I would like Ukraine to lead the crusades. Our mission is not only to kick out the occupiers, but also revenge. Moscow must burn."

Despite early exuberance at beating top and bottom lines (and users), it appears those looking for hyper-growth opportunities are selling into the machines. An initial 12% spike in the stock after hours has been completely destroyed into the red as investors realize growth rates continue to tumble, capex is rising, and organic growth is slow.

Athletes in next year's Summer Olympics here will be swimming and boating in waters so contaminated with human feces that they risk becoming violently ill and unable to compete in the games. An AP analysis of water quality revealed dangerously high levels of viruses and bacteria from human sewage in Olympic and Paralympic venues — results that alarmed international experts and dismayed competitors training in Rio, some of whom have already fallen ill with fevers, vomiting and diarrhea.

How many more blind eyes can the press (or "we, the people") turn?

To let the media tell it, recent "attacks" - including a suicide bombing that killed 32 people earlier this month - have prompted Turkey to officially join the fight against ISIS. In reality, Ankara's motivations can be explained not by a desire to rid the world of "terrorists", but by considerations of political expediency and by an autocrat's insatiable thirst for power.

Can markets be saved an eighth time, a ninth time, a tenth time this year? How about next year?

While everyone knows "you don't mess with Texas," it appears technologists worldwide just learned another truism, "you don't disrupt in Mexico." As the following disturbing clip shows, as WFLA reports, an angry crowd attacked Uber drivers and their vehicles with clubs and stones Tuesday outside the Mexico City airport.

"...risk management is not another component... it is THE component of trading! Everyone goes broke because their trading size is wrong... Any fool can take a profit. It takes a lot of character, discipline and commitment to take losses and continue going – and that is the only way one can succeed. The lasting trader will always reduce trading size in order to continue trading and come back."

As Sean Davis of the Federalist reports, Planned Parenthood claims on several of its websites that the organization’s web operations have been attacked by "extremists"  but this so-called hacking has all the hallmarks of an orchestrated public relations stunt. A cursory check of the website moments ago shows it stating that "Our normal site is currently undergoing maintenance." What makes this hack unique, however, is that "numerous people on Twitter pointed to evidence suggesting that this so-called hack wasn’t a hack at all."

Jim Rickards, “I think it’s always very important to own gold. I’ve recommended that investors have about 10% of their portfolio in the yellow metal.” “If I’m right and some catastrophic event is on the horizon, then that 10% would be your portfolio insurance.”

Given that some two-thirds of Wall Street traders have never experienced a Fed tightening cycle, SocGen's Albert Edwards is not surprised he gets blank looks when he tries to explain how recent events in commodity and EM markets are in many key (worying) ways similar to the 1997 Asian crisis.