Archive - Sep 6, 2015

It is interesting that the free market has actually found a way to undermine a cartel that up until recently appeared to be completely safe. In some cities, Uber is being fought tooth and nail to protect the sinecures of the established taxi industry. It is a microcosm of the cronyism that is the rule almost everywhere these days. Just think about how greatly our lives would improve if all the regulations that have been designed for no other reason than to protect established businesses against competition from upstarts were rescinded.

Before China’s bursting equity bubble grabbed international headlines, and before the PBoC’s subsequent devaluation of the yuan served notice to the world that things had officially gotten serious in the global currency wars, all anyone wanted to talk about when it came to China was a "hard landing." Now that the yuan devaluation has all but proven that China has landed, and landed hard, here are the five channels of contagion.

"there is a sense that policy is being priced to “fail” rather than succeed... why should equities always rise in value? Why should debt holders be expected to afford their debt burden? There are plenty of alternative viable equilibria with SPX half its value, longevity liabilities in default and debt deflation in abundance. In those equilibria traditional QE ceases to work and the only road back to what we think is the current desired equilibrium is via true helicopter money via fiscal stimulus where there are no independent central banks.

September is here. As expected, market volatility is increasing. The Great Zombie War is intensifying. And investors are getting scared. Now they even want to do away with the State’s own scrip... You see where this is going, don’t you? If the feds are able to ban cash, they will have you completely under their control. You will invest when they want you to invest. You will buy when and what they want you to buy. You will be forced to keep your money in a bank – a bank controlled, of course, by the feds.

What was the final August, and YTD, score card for the hedge fund world? Here are the Top 20 best and worst performers...

Keys in the week ahead:  equity markets--still look lower; China--volatility likely to continue; Fed--market says no Sept hike

More debt begets higher market value of equites which in turn improves the debt/equity ratio which gives the incentive to issue more debt ad infinitum. Or in a slightly simpler version, debt begets more debt.  We have seen the story before. In the shaded grey areas we highlight episodes when the virtuous relationship turns ferociously vicious. Remember, markets take the escalator up, but the elevator down. And the longer the escalator the further down the elevator goes.

Billionaires like Warren Buffett make fun of Gold, while ignoring the fact it has outperformed stocks ever since it was de-pegged from major currencies in 1967. This is part of a larger War on Cash implemented by the Central Banks.

Amid reports that Russia is building a substantial military presence in Syria, a worried John Kerry called Sergei Lavrov on Saturday. Here, according to the State Department, is what was said: "The secretary made clear that if such reports were accurate, these actions could further escalate the conflict, lead to greater loss of innocent life, increase refugee flows and risk confrontation with the anti-ISIL coalition operating in Syria."

Banks in the US and Europe are trying to develop a cashless transactions system. The concept is to establish a comprehensive ledger for a business or a person that records everything received and spent, and all of the assets held – mortgages, investment portfolios, debts, contractual financial obligations, and anything else of market value. There would be no need for cash because the ledger would tell you and anyone you were considering a transaction with how much is available and would be transactable at any specific moment. This is not a dreamy idea. Blythe Masters is leading a new business effort to develop a universal cashless system. Not only is she gathering significant investor interest, but the Federal Reserve and various US Government agencies have become keenly interested in the potential usefulness and efficiencies of a universal cashless system

Mario Draghi has no more magic bullets left...