Archive - Aug 2015

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index is now down over 21% from the highs, having fallen over 9% in the last week, and Taiwan's TAIEX is down over 20% from April highs, joining Chinese stocks, both joining Chinese stocks in official bear markets. Japanese markets are down over 6% in the last few days (which Amari simply brushes off, blaming the global selloff stemming from China), a JGB trading volumes slump to a record low. Tensions in Korea are not helping. With all eyes on China's flash PMI (though why we are not sure since PBOC is already full liquidity-tard with CNY350bn this week alone), The PBOC fixed Yuan at 6.3864, up from yesterday's biggest strengthening in 3 months to 6.3915 (the biggest 2 day strengthening since April), and margin debt fell for the 3rd day. Gold is surging in the Asia session, near $1160.

America’s next president could be eased into office not just by TV ads or speeches, but by Google’s secret decisions, and only a few obscure researchers would know how this was accomplished.

...Perhaps the most effective way to wield political influence in today’s high-tech world is to donate money to a candidate and then to use technology to make sure he or she wins. The technology guarantees the win, and the donation guarantees allegiance, which Google has certainly tapped in recent years with the Obama administration...

While some, perhaps not California farmers, will disagree with NOAA's assessment of the world's atmospheric conditions, earlier today the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared that July was the warmest month ever recorded for the globe and was also the record warmest for global oceans, putting a full stop to a year that has been characterized by numerous perplexing atmospheric outliers around the globe but perhaps none other more so than NOAA's earlier assessment that the winter of 2015 was also the warmest on record despite the much discussed US winter, where for the second year in a row the economic slowdown was blamed on a colder than usual winter. Go figure: perhaps here too we need double seasonal adjustments.

"When does the statute of limitations on blaming President George W. Bush for the record of the current administration finally expire? Obama [has become] the president who, to use one of Rose’s baseball metaphors, called his shot only to strike out."

Tensions were already running high across the DMZ in the Korean Peninsula, and then someone took a shot at a speaker...

In the end, Trump is what America had earned. Trump is what America deserved. Trump was our reckoning. And while his rise to power was born of our failings, it also forced us to find our strength. It’s amazing how adaptable we are as human beings, isn’t it? Trump saved us.

Husbands and wives across the world are waking up to their partners' extramarital affairs after, as AP calls it, a catastrophic leak at adultery website Ashley Madison spewed electronic evidence of infidelity across the Internet. Online forums were buzzing Thursday with users claiming to have found evidence that their significant others were on the site. But it's not all doom and gloom... as Reuters notes many professions stand to benefit from the unfolding saga, from lawyers to therapists to cyber security firms. Prominent divorce lawyer Raoul Felder said the release is the best thing to happen to his profession since the seventh Commandment forbade adultery in the Bible, "I've never had anything like this before." So hey, those cheating spouses are now helping the economy grow...

News That Matters...

"What, with a cloth or something?," Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton said earlier this week, in a sarcastic and fairly condescending reply to a reporter who pressed her on whether she had attempted to wipe her private e-mail server clean before turning it over to the FBI. That was the second time in a week that Clinton has attempted to deflect questions about the server with a dark mix of humor and disdain, and it’s backfired both times. Now, the Clinton campaign has admitted that in fact, classified information was stored on the Democratic frontrunner's home e-mail server.

Comedian George Carlin is known as one of the most controversial and outspoken entertainers of his time, and as far as the government is concerned, he could have possibly been a terrorist.

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JP Morgan aren't satisfied with disparate, disorganized "reference data" which is why they're teaming up on an initiative called "SPReD". As WSJ reports, "using consistent data allows the banks to form accurate pricing for trades," and we all know what can happen when Wall Street gets together to "standardize" a reference point on which trades are based.  

It’s getting downright hazardous out there, and not just because the robo-machines were slamming the “sell” key today. The real danger comes from the loose assemblage of official institutions which claim to be running the world.