Archive - Jul 2015

These mediocre asset returns disguise treacherous trading conditions in past six months. Indeed, Wall Street has been a world of Pain Trades ever since the Fed signaled the end of QE early last year. The end of Max Liquidity means the end of Minimum Volatility, and the lack of strong economic growth in recent quarters has caused the cyclical upside to asset prices to fade.

Janet Yellen’s reputed favorite jobs measure, the JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) reported blockbuster record job openings in May. But look beneath the headlines and you will see just how distorted and maladjusted the US job market is.

Who cares about constantly being wrong right here, right now (aside from 11 million Greeks that is) when your projections keep promising that growth is always "just around the corner" as they do in the following chart showing just why the IMF has now lost all credibility not only as an bailouter of last resort (see Greece), but as a forecaster.Presenting: over five years of glorious IMF hockeysticks.

Greece's outspoken Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis laid out the details for the country's pipeline project with Russia on Thursday and went out of his way to let PM Alexis Tsipras know that the referendum "no" vote is "not going to become a humiliating 'yes'".

The Charleston church shooting flooded newsrooms around the world. Did the killer act alone? How much did he really hate black people? Should we burn every Confederate flag in the country? When will another racist strike next? Stay tuned for more! After reading this, one would assume there was an evil Confederate in every town, ready to open fire on every family in America. The reality is much different. The greatest danger to the average American is the cheeseburger they ate for dinner last night.

Well that didn't last long...

That’s what’s beyond the insufferably rosy corporate speak.

"I want to be clear at the outset that I am not saying that it is appropriate for fiscal policymakers to increase the long-run level of public debt. I am simply pointing to one benefit associated with such an increase: It allows the central bank to be more effective in mitigating the impact of adverse shocks to aggregate demand."

Unsurprisingly, the percent of issues making 65-day new lows is expanding across all geographies. 

Guess who just went "marginally net short... in dollar terms."

The Shanghai Composite Index had dropped as much as 3.8% to a 4 month low before the news that the cops were going to arrest anyone who was caught "maliciously shorting stocks", when everything suddenly took off, and the SHCOMP closed  a "Dramamine required" 5.8% higher, the biggest daily increase since March 2009! Stocks around the globe followed, with US equity futures wiping out much of yesterday's losses and up 1% at last check.

Chinese markets bounced last night following drastic intervention by the state when it banned large players from selling their shares in listed companies – arresting the over 30% decline of the past four weeks.

In an odd escalation over the Grexit fiasco, where Greece is now expected to provide yet another detailed reform proposal today by midnight at the very latest, it was the one man whose decision will make or break the Eurozone when (if) he decides to impose even more ELA collateral haircuts (or yank ELA entirely) forcing Greece to Grexit by imposing its own currency (since there is no legal mechanism to kick a nation out of the new Berlin Wall) that made some surprisingly candid comments on the fate of the Greek negotiations. According to Reuters, ECB president Mario Draghi voiced "unprecedented doubts about the chances of rescuing Greece from bankruptcy as Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was due to put forward last-ditch reform proposals on Thursday."

Initial jobless claims have surged almost 30k in the last 2 weeks and are nearing the Maginot Line of 300k (printing 297k vs 285k exp).  This is the worst claims print since mid-Feb and well above the levels that occurred at the end of QE3. Of course, apologists will note that there are likely holiday distortions in this data. At the same time, continuing claims continue to rise quite notably, now at their highest since mid-March having missed expectations for the last 7 weeks.

Standing before the European Parliament yesterday, it took Nigel Farage just four minutes to completely destroy every argument supporting the Eurozone.  As Nigel explains in the video below, right from the start, the system was never intended to help the Greek people. Greece entering the euro was great for Goldman Sachs. But terrible for Greeks. It chained the country to a system in which it didn’t belong.