Archive - Jul 2015

US global superiority in military affairs is actually the superiority of a rich kid who thinks he’s really smart but in reality is merely just rich. When the seemingly endless flow of money slows (as it inevitably will), the mask of cleverness will fall. Everyone who resented the kid will be waiting at the edge of the playground for this day of reckoning, and because no one else will have been so dependent on spending-as-strategy, the erstwhile rich kid will find it tough going.

"He is going to pay me back in some sort of product when he is able to, maybe in cheese."

Since the market is once again on the verge of a terminal liquidity seizure with its associated side-effects (see China for details), the authorities needed to remind the "market" just who the scapegoat will be when the next crash finally does come. Which is why earlier today in an unexpected "preliminary second quarter guidance" release, ITG, owner of the Posit dark pool, was just busted with a $22.6 million potential SEC settlement for what appears to have been blatant frontrunning of company clients in its own prop trading pod. But what is particularly amusing in this case is that while everyone knows that when it comes to HFT's, it is never called "rigging" - the proper nomenclature is "glitch", so now we learn a new term to use instead of "criminal frontrunning" - drumroll... trading experiment,

As we recently warned, the hyperinflationary collapse in Venezuala is reaching its terminal phase. With inflation soaring at least 65%, murder rates the 2nd highest in the world, and chronic food (and toilet paper shortages), the following disturbing clip shows what is rapidly becoming major social unrest in the Maduro's socialist paradise... and perhaps more importantly, Venezuela shows us what the end game for every fiat money system looks like (and perhaps Janet and her colleagues should remember that).

Religious imagery... peak condescension... everyone proclaiming "gold is dead"... In a nutshell, sentiment has plunged to negative levels not seen in years, if not more than a decade. Here are four mainstream media articles that provide some evidence we may be approaching a sentiment low. Some of them we're sure you’ve seen, others perhaps not. What amazes us is how they’ve all come out within the last two weeks.

In GMO’s latest quarterly missive, Jeremy Grantham is back with another dose of inconvenient truthiness, this time in the form of "ten quick topics to ruin your summer"...

"All global financials markets are a shell game right now... There is no doubt that the price of assets right now is a question mark... and ultimately when Central Banks stop manipulating markets where that price goes is up for grabs... and probably points down"

We don’t know what we would do without Ms.Clinton. How would we know, for example, how long we should hold an investment without her to tell us? She seems to believe that today’s average holding period is too short. It causes an obsession with short-term results that she calls “quarterly capitalism.” How will “working to end short-termism” help working families? How many months of holding an investment is acceptable to the Democratic Party’s front-runner? Why would anyone even think that Ms. Clinton – who has never held an honest job in the private sector – could possibly have any idea about how to save capitalism… or how long an investment should be held?

There are plenty of 'everyday Americans' out there with perfectly good haircuts, styled by perfectly good hairdressers, in perfectly good Main Street salons... so why is self-proclaimed populist person-of-the-everyday-American Hillary Clinton getting a $600 haircut at Bergdorf Goodman's Fifth Avenue store in NYC?

With the major US equity markets within 1-2% of their record highs, Gavekal Capital notes that underneath the headline indices, stock markets are extremely tumultuous. Rather stunningly 21% of MSCI USA stocks are at least 20% off their recent highs, and 68% of Canadian stocks are in bear markets, but the real carnage is taking place in Emerging Markets.

Why are governments suddenly so keen to ban physical cash? The answer appears to be that the banks and government authorities are anticipating bail-ins, steeply negative interest rates and hefty fees on cash, and they want to close any opening regular depositors might have to escape these forms of officially sanctioned theft. The escape mechanism from bail-ins and fees on cash deposits is physical cash, and hence the sudden flurry of calls to eliminate cash as a relic of a bygone age — that is, an age when commoners had some way to safeguard their money from bail-ins and bankers’ control.

Having detailed yesterday the manipulation in the precious metals markets that implies the bear market in bullion is an artificial creation, we thought the following 'rational' chart effort at 'valuing' gold may provide some frame of reference for the level of riggedness occurring...

When people think about Social Security, they think that all the problems are decades away. Wrong. The Disability Insurance (DI) fund reserves are expected to be depleted by next year. The other trust fund, OAS, is projected to “become depleted and unable to pay scheduled benefits in full on a timely basis in 2034.” Which means that if you’re 47 or younger, you can kiss Social Security goodbye. Not to worry, though. Congress is on the case... the only problem with their solution - it's fraud!

If Greece does find it has a legal basis to criminally charge Varoufakis with treason merely for preparing for a Plan B, then it brings up an interesting question: if Varoufakis was a criminal merely for preparing for existing the Euro, then comparable treason charges should also be lobbed against none other than Varoufakis' nemesis - Eurogroup president and Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem.