Archive - Sep 8, 2015

The internals of the auction were solid if not groundbreaking: the Bid to Cover was 3.233, fractionally below the TTM average of 3.286, the Dealer take down of 41% was the highest since February, while Indirects ended up withe 51% of the takedown, above the 45.7% TTM average. Finally, Directs were awarded just 8.0% of the auction matching the lowest since February. In short: a perfectly average auction, one which did not attract particular attention for any one reason. Which is why, tomorrow's 10Y auction will be far more closely watched.

Last week, amid China's sweeping crackdown on "subversive", "malicious" sellers, Chinese authorities took Li Yifei, chairwoman of Man Group Plc’s China unit, into custody. Or maybe they didn't. After resurfacing, the hedge fund manager now claims that reports of her arrest were untrue and that she was merely on vacation - "meditating." 

BABA Shares stalled once again in their efforts to break back above the IPO price of $68. Following a Citi tech conference which reportedly saw Alibaba investor relations talking down their numbers, BABA has plunged over 6%

Thanks to the new normal world of extremely loose monetary policy and extraordinary accumulations of financial assets by Central Banks, Deutsche Bank finds that we live in a period not of selectively expensive global asset prices, but of record "expensiveness" across developed market bonds, stocks, and real estate.

For the fifth time in two decades, Turkish soldiers have launched a ground incursion into Iraq in pursuit of PKK "terrorists" who have orchestrated a series of deadly attacks on security personnel over the past several days. Of course Turkish soldiers aren't the only ones fighting Kurds in Iraq. So is ISIS. And that means that just like in Syria, Turkey (with Washington's implicit blessing) is at best distracting from and at worst impeding the battle against Islamic State, the same Islamic State which is being used by Ankara as a cover for the PKK crackdown.  

Today, in the first official criminal action following the Litvak bust from 2013, the SEC confirmed that our assessment was indeed spot on after the regulator announced fraud charges against three traders "accused of repeatedly lying to customers relying on them for honest and accurate pricing information about residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS)." In the complaint, the SEC alleges that traders  misrepresented the bids and offers being provided to Nomura for RMBS as well as the prices at which Nomura bought and sold RMBS and the spreads the firm earned intermediating RMBS trades.  They also trained, coached, and directed junior traders at the firm to engage in the same misconduct.

In our day-to-day world, old lessons regarding markets are easily forgotten. Nowhere is this observation more true than in the stock market where people expect stocks to always rise.

The chart below warrants the question: if an even modest slowdown in Europe's pace of credit creation resulted in unprecedented economic and social upheavals for the "southern" part of the continent, what happens when deleveraging finally hits one of the other places around the globe, be it the BRICs in particular, the EMs in general, or - heaven forbid - the US itself.

"We shouldn't pass on the bill for the tasks that are facing us now to future generations. Being in favour of more debt and a further flooding of the markets with central bank money is neither original nor serious."

The Fed likes to act as though it’s concerned about stocks… but the real story is in bonds. Indeed, when you look at the Fed’s actions from the perspective of the bond market, everything suddenly becomes clear.

Rig productivity and drilling efficiency are red herrings. Although the barrels produced per rig is increasing, the barrels per average producing well is decreasing.

Overnight we got an unexpected call from perpetual optimist JPMorgan (yes, we all miss Tom Lee), which released a report by Mislav Matejka warning that it is not "time to re-enter the US" because "upside is limited at this stage of cycle." To wit: "some of the longer term cycle signals are increasingly worrying, with rising risk that US equities start making sustained losses next year. At best, the upside potential for the US remains limited, in our view." Still, just like BofA, JPM felt the need to hedge: "too early to position for recession." 

Fool me once, shame on me; fool me twice, shame on you; fool me a third time, you must think we are all just idiots!! Following The ECB's Benoit Coeure "internal procedure error" where he leaked the imminent actions of the central bank to a group of well-heeled hedge fund managers - who proceeded to dump EURUSD ahead of the announcement, The ECB has decided - in all its arrogant wisdom - to decamp to Luxembourg to speak, once again, to participants in the world of high finance behind closed doors. The media aren’t invited (though the ECB will publish some prepared remarks from the board members.).

Copper prices have surged over 4% this morning, breaking above the 50-day moving average (trading 2.41, near 2-month highs). Aside from Glencore's demise and modest strength in the Chilean peso today, this seems more like an algo-driven run off China's massive intervention-driven momentum.

Hedge Funds are apparently dusting off their notes on how to hedge