Archive - Sep 2015

"The discrepancy between economic growth and the two key indicators' growth in the first six months did not fit with previous patterns, but industrial restructuring is a new factor, and should be taken into account when analyzing the new situation."

The global Bubble is bursting – hence financial conditions are tightening. Bubbles never provide a convenient time to tighten monetary policy. Best practices would require central bankers to tighten early before Bubble Dynamics take firm hold. Central bankers instead nurture and accommodate Bubble excess. It ensures a policy dead end -  the faltering global Bubble has progressed beyond the point where Fed rate policy has much impact.

Having warned that "we are on the precipice of a liquidation in emerging markets like the fourth quarter of 1997," Passport Capital's John Burbank sits down with RealVisionTV to discuss why "the Fed would eventually be forced into a fourth round of quantitative easing to shore up the economy." Being among 2015's best performing hedge funds, successfully navigating this turmoiling unwind of the Fed's efforts to "mean-revert" the world's assets back to normal, Burbank concludes, "nothing's safe," no matter what The Fed does, "the liquidity of everything is being taken down."

Having achieved his militarist goals, amid massive protests and plunging popularity, it appears Shinzo Abe is rapidly taking gaining on Vladimir Putin's spot atop the tyrannical-dicators-of-the-world-meme. By pushing through this change to Japan’s pacifist constitution, Japan’s nationalists have gotten their foot in the door, so to speak; and as Pater Tenebrarum notes, once a long-held principle is abandoned, further steps to alter the legal framework are usually not long in coming, prompting, as TokyoReporter.com reports, a 71-year-old man to allegedly deface roughly 30 political posters - drawing a hitler-esque moustache on Abe posters.

At the height of the financial crisis, the unprecedented decline in swap rates below Treasury yields was seen as an anomaly. The phenomenon is now widespread, as Bloomberg notes, what Fabozzi's bible of swap-pricing calls a "perversion" is now the rule all the way from 30Y to 2Y maturities. As one analyst notes, historical interpretations of this have been destroyed and if the flip to negative spreads persists, it would signal that its roots are in a combination of regulators’ efforts to head off another financial crisis, China selling pressure (and its impact on repo markets) and "broken" wholesale money-markets.

The Western gold space has learned a great deal about the Chinese gold market and global gold flows, though we’re always left with loose ends. For example, the issue regarding PBOC gold purchases; how much gold do they truly have and where was it bought? Does the PBOC buy 400-ounce Good Delivery (GD) bars in London and covertly transports these gold bars to its gold vaults in China mainland, or are the Good Delivery gold bars shipped to Switzerland, refined into 1 Kg 9999 gold bars, sent forward to the Chinese mainland where they’re required to be sold through the SGE gold exchange and from where they can be bought (in clear sight) by the PBOC.

"Everything is awesome..." - just keep saying it.

Over the past few years no institution has had more consequences beholden to their words than the Federal Reserve. So much so one could reasonably argue in response to prevailing circumstances their communiques overshadowed most others; including presidents and other leaders. The problem today is; in their effort to bring more clarity via press-ers, and more as to what might be transpiring behind the doors at the Eccles building, they’ve now communicated more confusion in the last two weeks nullifying all previous efforts. In our eyes it seems to be working exactly the same as its other policy outcomes: adding confusion, uncertainty, and having the exact opposite of intended results.

"What we have had is a jobless recovery in the US and so the Fed could not afford to cause another depression by raising interest rates. QE4 will be their next move, which is now much more likely than a rate hike."

The exodus from war-torn Syria should never have become a crisis, according to billionaire George Soros; it was long in the making, easy to foresee, and eminently manageable by Europe and the international community. While some leaders, like Hungary's Orban, have suggested plans, these subordinate the human rights of asylum-seekers and migrants and threaten to divide and destroy the EU by renouncing the values on which it was built and violating the laws that are supposed to govern it. Soros demands that The EU respond with a genuinely European asylum policy that will put an end to the panic and the unnecessary human suffering.

CATALAN SEPARATISTS CLOSE TO 50% OF VOTES: EXIT POLL

Dear Fed Chairwoman Yellen: if you are still confused why there is so much slack and so little wage growth in the US economy despite the 5.1% "reported" unemployment rate, here is the answer: instead of a 5.1% unemployment rate in August, the true unemployment rate in the "land of the free" has been rising ever since the financial crisis, and is above 12% for the past three years.

High stakes poker, winner takes all. Traders better have their trade plans ready: The next 3 weeks will likely determine whether we enter a lengthy bear market or whether bulls can use coming positive seasonality to avert a major market break one more time. As the following charts show, by the end of October we shall have confirmation one way or the other...

"In my opinion, provision of military support to illegal structures runs counter to the principles of modern international law and the United Nations Charter."