Archive - Aug 2015

"Increasingly concerned about the markets, I’ve taken more aggressive action than in 2007, the last time I soured on the equity markets. Let me explain why and what I’m doing to try to profit from what may lie ahead."

For years now China has been heralded as an economic miracle that will drive the global economy towards growth and eventually eclipse the US as THE superpower in the world.

Apple is now down 15% from record highs as "no brainer" investors begin to question their faith in its China prospects. This is the biggest drop since January 2013 and overall AAPL is now almost unchanged on the year...AAPL has lost $27bn market cap today.. a TWTR or a LNKD

A few quick observations: the top 10 highest valued companies have a combined private valuation of $156 billion, on just about $4 billion in revenues and employ a whopping 19.5 thousand people. In other words, the universe's combined historical Price/Sales ratio is 39x and each employee is worth about $8,000,000.

"I am speechless. Not since yesterday or last week. I have been speechless since July 13th when the Greek left-wing coalition government agreed to burden the country and the people with a new loan, the third bailout for Greece since 2010 together with the strictest austerity program ever.  I really don’t care if Varoufakis wears tasteless shirts and why he wanted to ‘hack’ taxpayers’ numbers while sitting with his team of skilled hackers and childhood friends... I just don’t care. It doesn’t affect my life, not even a tiny little bit. I give neither a a whole dam nor half of it for this so-called Greek political agenda after July 13th. What do I care about is watching  my country and the people falling into pieces."

For the 8th month in a row, US factory orders fell YoY. Down 6.2% in June, this is the longest streak of declining factory orders outside of a recession in history. MoM, factory orders rose 1.8% - as expected - the most since May 2014 but historical orders and shipments were revised lower. Inventories contonue to rise leaving inventories-to-shipments ratios at cycle highs.

News that bonds and stocks of Abengoa SA - the Spanish renewable-energy company - plunged after a plan to shore up capital failed to reassure investors that it can stop burning cash is likely to have passed many by. But coming just one day after President Obama unleashed his Clean Power Plan, the fact that the company received over $230 million in US taxpayer subsidies in 2014 - despite two ongoing federal investigations - may raise an eyebrow or two as images of Solyndra's government-sponsored farce come to mind.

For those who prefer unbiased, accurately reported data, it should come as no surprise to those who have been observing the recent swoon in the economy, that according to Gallup data, July was the third month in a row in which the average American spent less than they did in the same month a year ago, confirming that the US economy is if not in a recession then certainly no longer growing. Furthermore, as the chart below shows and confirms the already week retail spending data, of the 7 months in 2015, 5 have seen a decline in consumer spending year over year.

Apple is down 12% from exuberant earnings highds just a few days ago and has broken below a crucial technical support level at its 200-day moving average (something it has not done in over 2 years). While the parade of bullish analysts and fan boys continues to have faith that Apple TV, iCar, or iWatch will bring about the next leg of the 'no brainer' rally to trillion-dollar market cap levels, perhaps, just perhaps, there is a crack in the armor of the "as goes Apple so goes America" company. As Engadget reports, Apple has slipped to third place in China -behind Xiamoi and fast-growing rival Huawei...

After trading limit-down on Monday when Greek stocks opened for trading for the first time since PM Alexis Tsipras called a referendum, shares of Greek banks once again flirted with the daily 30% loss limit on Tuesday as there were simply no bids for a set of institutions that everyone knows is insolvent. Meanwhile, Kathimerini reports that "the state’s losses from indirect taxes alone in the first couple of weeks of capital controls and the shuttering of banks [amounted to] more than half a billion euros."

In this perfection of consumerist narcissism, the only goal is maximizing private gain by whatever means are available. Clinton solidified the modern presidency's narcissistic obsession with public approval (the political equivalent of "likes" on Facebook) and the exploitation of that popularity for maximum self-enrichment.

Just days after WSJ revealed that Deutsche Bank's $2.5 billion LIBOR settlement could be in jeopardy due to the apparent mishandling of chat records dating back to 2005, Bloomberg says Loretta Lynch’s Justice Department has launched a criminal probe into the bank’s alleged role in facilitating a series of trades which may have allowed Russian clients to launder billions through the bank's trading desks.

• Unhappy Voters Shake Up Presidential Race (WSJ)
• China stock exchanges step up crackdown on short-selling (Reuters)
• China Dethroned as World’s Most Liquid Stock Market After Curbs (BBG)
• Xiaomi retakes the smartphone lead in China as Apple slips (Engadget)
• Impact of EPA’s Emissions Rule on Industry to Vary (WSJ)
• Citadel’s Ken Griffin Leaves 2008 Tumble Far Behind (WSJ)
• Greece says expects bailout deal by Aug 18 (Reuters)

After a lukewarm start by the Chinese "market", which had dropped for the past 6 out of 7 days despite ever escalating measures by Beijing to manipulate stocks higher, finally the Shanghai Composite reacted favorably to Chinese micromanagement of stock prices and closed 3.7% higher as Chinese regulators stepped up their latest measures by adjusting rules on short-selling in order to reduce trading frequency and price volatility, resulting in several large brokerages suspending short sell operations. At this pace only buy orders will soon be legal which just may send the farce of what was once a "market" limit up.

The headlines are dramatic, ugly and depressing to anyone who holds gold right now. Broad market sentiment has shifted from disdain and dismissive to highly negative. Hedge funds are shorting gold aggressively, hedge funds that own gold are being "outed". The market pundits are are sticking the proverbial knife in and twisting it with glee.