Archive - Aug 27, 2015

It appears the collapse of China's stock market has officially taken its first victim. While we have heard from desperate farmers who lost everything after realizing that making money in stocks is not easier than farmwork, RT reports that a 57-year-old man has allegedly committed suicide in Shenyang, the largest city in Liaoning Province, by jumping off the 17th floor of a building with a black briefcase "full of stock-related materials," local press reported.

Over the last few years, the United States has not had the best track record with Deep Geologic Repositories (DGR) for nuclear waste. In February of 2014, the U.S.’ DGR, known as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), had two separate incidents that compromised the integrity of the project by releasing airborne radioactive contamination. While most U.S. citizens were relatively unaffected by the events, our Canadian neighbors have proposed a plan to construct a DGR 0.6 miles from America’s largest source of fresh water, the Great Lakes — and the U.S. State Department is remaining relatively uninvolved.

If the last two auctions, the 2 and 5 Year, were both wildly disappointing and confirmed what we had said that foreign central banks are no longer a strong demand presence in the short-end, today's 7 Year was a welcome surprise to anyone who is holding on to Treasury longs. Moments ago the 7 Year When Issued was trading at 1.939%, so when the 1.930% high yield print hit the tape, longs everywhere collectively exhaled in approval observing the 0.9 bps stop through.  The internals were likewise strong, with the Bid to Cover of 2.526 highest since November's 2.635, as Indirects kept their take down flat, absorbing 50.84% of the auction as Directs took down 14.15%, the highest since January, leaving 35.00% to the Dealers.

While oil prices are surging (global economic meltdown averted), stocks are back in the green on the week (crisis averted), and bonds are collapsing (not because of China selling according to the mainstream because "everything is awesome" again), we point traders' attention to the continued inversion in the VIX term structure. While well off the peak crisis levels, we have a long way to go to "normalized" levels of risk...

If today's ridiculous move is the kind that no retail investors would chase, it is precisely what HFTs around the globe love: nothing but momentum, momentum, momentum. In fact, HFTs are trading so much, they are literally overheating!

Wondering why the world's risk assets are all exploding higher... wonder no more. JPY - funding currency of choice for many leveraged traders - has been monkey-hammered 500 pips lower against the USD in the last few days with the last 24 hours, since Kuroda unleashed his comedy gold last night, seeing another 150 pips surge...

Varoufakis’ fans get ready! The ex finance minister is preparing to launch a European movement that will develop into a political party. Yanis Varoufakis will push for a Pan-?uropean network to fight austerity. Instead of running for the upcoming elections, he will put his energy into political action on European level.

Over the years, Socgen's Albert Edwards has repeatedly expressed his skepticism of both the economy and the market (the longest US equity "bull market" since 1945) both propped up by generous central banks injecting liquidity by the tens of trillions (at this point nobody really knows the number now that the 'black box' that is China has entered the global "plunge protection" game) and yet never did he have as "conclusive" a call as he does today. As the following note reveals, when looking at one particular indicator, Edwards is now convinced: 'we are now in a bear market."

The More You Know Joe - the new Democratic Frontrunner - the Less You'll Like Him!

Presented with little comment, aside to ask why is Bloomberg "Consumer Comfort" for The NorthEast region at its highest in 8 years, when The Midwest region's "Comfort" is plunging to its lowest since Nove 2014?

The 5.9% rise in the last 2 days is the largest for the S&P 500 since March 11th 2009 - when The Fed announced QE1...

The last two times the Kansas City Fed survey was this low, the US was in recession.The KC Fed survey has missed expected for eight straight months, falling to -9 in August from -7 (missing the -4 estimate). Across the board, underlying components were ugly with Shipments collapsing, Order backlogs echoing earlier surveys in demise, New Orders tumbling, and Prices received crashing.

WTI Crude just surged from $38.50 to over $41 and at the same time the USD Index has been surging. In fact, the correlation regime between these two seemingly negatively correlated assets has entirely shifted since last week's FOMC Statement.