Archive - Sep 29, 2015

Can you hear me now?

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) September 29, 2015

When you tell people in self denial the market could drop 40% in a few months, they think you are crazy. They declare this could never happen. They would get out of the market before it would fall vertically. Their memories are conveniently short as their normalcy bias and cognitive dissonance blind them to what happened over three months in 2008/2009. We wonder how many willfully ignorant investors can handle a 50% to 70% haircut in their 401k, especially if they are over 50 years old. We wonder how much angrier the populace will become when the current recession results in more job losses, bankruptcies and revelations of Wall Street malfeasance. Beware of the bear.

As WSJ reports, "Bank of America Corp. is expected to announce layoffs in its global banking and global markets unit as early as Tuesday, according to people familiar with the matter."

"This is not an exit."--American Psycho

If Congress understood the Austrian theory of the business cycle, it would have allowed the recession that followed the housing bubble’s inevitable collapse to run its course. Recessions are the economy’s way of eliminating the distortions caused by the Federal Reserve. Attempts by Congress and the Fed to end a recession via inflation and government spending will only lead to future, and more severe, economic downturns.

China's massive interventions in the offshore yuan spot look to have begun affecting liquidity in Hong Kong as heavy CNH buying by Chinese banks coincides with a spike in O/N HIBOR. The question now would appear to be this: how long before something snaps in mainland money markets?

Nothing screams out human rights like bombing women and children at a wedding party.

For the second month in a row, US Consumer Confidence (according to The Conference Board) soared in September. Printing 103.00 (smashing expectations of 96.8) in September, this is just shy of January's high going back to August 2007. The biggest driver of this seemingly odd exuberance (amid global escalation in financial and physical wars) is the Present Situation (up from 115.8 to 121.1) while "hope" dropped from 91.6 to 91.0. As The Conference Board concludes, "while consumers view current economic conditions more favorably, they do not foresee growth accelerating in the months ahead.”

Superficially one gets the impression that they aren’t really trying to “explain” anything to the hoi-polloi, since it all sounds remarkably uncoordinated. To the extent that the messages are contradictory, they merely reveal the literal impossibility of central planning – neither Dudley nor Evans can possibly know at what level short term interest rates should be set.

Forget China, Volkswagen, Glencore, Noble, and pretty much everything else. The only catalyst that matters for today's price action has just been revealed. Earlier today, Dennis Gartman, whose flop-flip-flop-flipping calls on stocks, commodities and everything else have become a blur, just went mega bearish, and is predicting that the S&P has some 400 points of imminent downside.

For the 5th month in a row, Case-Shiller home prices missed expectations and dropped 0.2% MoM in July (the biggest drop since July 2014). Year-over-year, home prices have been stable around a 5% increase for 6 months which seems oddly linear and seasonally-smoothed, but broad price gains YoY also disappointed again, rising 4.7% (against 5.2% expectations). San Francisco and Denver continue to see the highest YoY gains (10.4% and 10.3% respectively) and Phoenix posted its 8th consecutive annual gain - the longest streak among the 20 major cities Case-Shiller track.

convincing equity that company is viable is one thing (and the company and its sellside cheerleaders sure are trying).  Convincing the far more skeptical bond market, which is desperately trying to figure out the counterparty risk, will be far more difficult...

We call on central banks to abolish their zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) framework before more harm is done. In our assessment, ZIRP is bad for all stakeholders and may even lead to war.

This is an important story and shows how China and Russia are increasingly close and strong allies who are flexing their muscles and asserting themselves as rival superpowers to the U.S.

In the latest sign easy-money market froth may be peaking, moments ago German media conglomerate Axel Springer announced it has agreed to buy 88% of web-only Business Insider, adding to the 9% it already owns, for $343 million, which according to the Springer press release values 100% of the content aggregator at $442 million "on the basis of a cash and debt free valuation of USD 390 million." The remaining 3% of the company will be retained by Bezos Expeditions, the personal investment company of Jeff Bezos, who purchased a $5 million stake in 2013.