Archive - Aug 2015

That hasn’t stopped many gold bears from using this as an opportunity to disparage gold. A recent article points out that the gold rout has cost China and Russia $5.4 billion. An amount that would sound colossal were it not for the fact that U.S. media companies such as Disney and Viacom collectively lost over $60 billion for shareholders in as little as two days last week ...

It’s very important to call out people like Trump for the man he is, so we don’t simply fawn and fall for a narcissist, strongman-type as a way to deal with our societal pain and frustration... "I was there at the first Tea Party in 2007 and I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand passively by and watch the movement destroyed by a fake conservative."

The Fed has basically borrowed from the future to improve today. The intention of Fed policy over the past 30 years has been to self-correct business cycles into a ‘steadier state’ by easing interest rates into weakness and hiking them into strength. Unfortunately, there is political-asymmetry between easing and hiking which has resulted in the stair-stepping of official interest rates down to the zero lower bound. Monetary policy has reached the practical limits of what it can do.  Thus, the multi-decade credit era is coming to an end... Bad companies should be allowed to fail.  Creative destruction is beneficial in the long run.

Both the 10Y (2.13%) and 30Y (2.80%) yields broke below crucial technical support levels this morning (2.14% and 2.81% 200-day moving averages) - both nearing 3-month lows (in the biggest yield drop in 2 months).

Well that escalated quickly...

As China takes the currency wars to the next level, so OPEC, not to be outdone, rotates the oil war volume to 11. As Bloomberg reports, OPEC pumped the most crude last month in more than three years as Iran restored output to the highest level since international sanctions were strengthened in 2012. The response - as one would expect - is a plunge in crude prices, erasing all the ridiculous algo-driven gains of yesterday, pushing WTI back on the verge of a $42 handle.

To help remind readers of what happens when the entire world engages in wholesale currency war, here is a complete list of all the recent FX interventions, courtesy of Stone McCarthy.

How much more devaluation is in store for the CNY? Well, if one believes the PBOC, today's intervention was a "one off." The problem is that just like every central bank in modern history, the Chinese central bank is lying. Here is the truth.

Just as we warned yesterday, unless the Dow can miraculously rally over 17,850, The Dow will close in a Death Cross pattern. This is the first time that the 50-day moving average crosses below the 200-day moving average since August 2011 (which was followed by a 1300 point swing from high to low in The Dow)...

The ratio of wholesale inventories-to-sales pushed back up to 1.3 - its highest since the recession and is flashing an enormous red flag for an imminent recesion in America, with the automOtive industry the biggest factor in this. A bigger-than-expeted 0.9% surge in inventories (biggest since April 2014) was accompanied by a considerably slower than expected 0.1% growth in sales (weakest since March) suggest that 'field of dreams' corporate planning remains in place. Most crucially, as The Atlanta Fed warns, "lower inventory investment will subtract 1.7ppt from Q3 real GDP growth." The higher Q2 'build' the worst Q3 will be - though we are sure economists will extrapolate Q2 growth no matter what...

"Oops." On the heels of a lackluster performance in the "losers" bracket of the first GOP primary debate last week, Rick Perry has reportedly stopped paying staffers in what may be the beginning of the end for the former Texas governor's second run at The White House.

US equity markets have given up almost all of yesterday's irrational exuberance ramp gains in a perfect echo of last week's Wednesday/Thursday debacle. Bond yields are plunging - also retracing all of yesterday's losses (with 2Y -5bps since Friday now). Europe is suffering most as EUR strengthens (as it was the most popular carry trade against China), driving USD weakness and sending European stocks lower (DAX is dumping almost 3%). And finally commodities are seeing Crude and copper crushed as PMs bounce...

In this financialized hall of mirrors, narcissism replaces identity and the authentic self is rendered incoherent.

Instead of an exuberant 6.7% surge in Q1 unit labor costs, heralded by any and all mainstream economists and talking heads as proof that long-awaited wage growth is here, the historical revision slashes it to a mere 2.3% increase, which followed by Q2's dismal 0.5% increase - the weakest since Q3 2014, suggests wage growth in America is anything but robust. Nonfarm productivity also missed expectations, rising just 1.3% QoQ, a verymodest rebound after two quarters of declines.

As we first warned in March, and as became abundantly clear over the weekend Beijing had no choice but to join the global currency wars, as the yuan's dollar peg will ultimately prove to be too painful going forward. And sure enough this evening the PBOC weakens the Yuan fix by the most on record.