Archive - Sep 2015

As discussed here on Tuesday evening, people flows (i.e. immigration and migration) are grabbing international headlines these days thanks in large part to i) the massive influx of asylum seekers entering Western Europe from war-torn Syria, and ii) GOP frontrunner Donald Trump’s outspoken position on illegal immigration in the US. With that in mind, we present Goldman's new flowchart which shows "where everybody is going." 

“Sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences..." – Robert Louis Stephenson

So if you really want to make “refugees” the election issue “du jour”, one can waste a lot of time watching the mainstream incumbent parties bicker over the “right” number of refugees to allow into Canada or how much taxpayer money to throw at aid, or even whether more Canadian “boots on the ground” should be headed over there on various “peace keeping” escapades... or, you could ask the really hard hitting questions...

Stockman unleashes truthiness hell on Bloomberg TV: "Federal Reserve [actions] will have disastrous long-term consequences... when you deny price-discovery in the market for so long, it is a massive subsidy to speculation... In an era of peak debt, the only thing zero interest rates achieve is create an enormous incentive for Wall Street to gamble more and more recklessly..."

Corporate buybacks, based on BofAML's client flows, are at the highest four-week-average level in 18 months as the irrationally non-economic buyers of last resort pile in to tumbling prices to maintain their CFO's and CEO's year-end performance bonuses. While hope remains that this pick-up will continue, the demise of the corporate credit market suggests the last greater fool just entered the market...

News That Matters

Now that Europe's migrant crisis is making international headlines on a nightly basis, France and Britain are set to use the influx of aslylum seekers as a pretext for airstrikes in Syria. The timing could not be more convenient as new "intelligence" suggests that Russia is expanding its presence in the Assad stronghold around Latakia. For its part, Germany is out warning the Kremlin against "military engagement."

Brazil, whose economy officially slid into recession in Q2 - a quarter during which Brazilians suffered through the worst inflation-growth outcome (i.e. stagflation) in over a decade - and whose efforts to plug a yawning budget gap are complicated by political infighting and a growing public outcry against embattled President Dilma Rousseff, has been cut to junk by S&P.

Following Hungarian cameramen kicking 10-year-old girl refugees, and Czech police hauling immigrants of trains and writing numbers on their arms, it appears the horrors of the past are quickly forgotten when it comes to 'solutions' for the present. As The Jerusalem Post reports, the leader of the Czech 'nationalist' National Democracy Party, has called for refugees to be placed in Terezin - a former Nazi concentration camp - "Why build tent camps for the aliens? We have the beautiful fortress town of Terezin where the aliens could concentrate before they are taken home by trains." Police are investigating whether his comments constitute a criminal act and Czech Jewish leaders have refused to comment on the incident.

Ironic, because it is precisely CNBC's constant cheerleading of what little viewers it had left that pushed the market to such nosebleed levels that on August 24 it suffered its second flash crash in just five years. It is even more ironic, because instead of a rational, objective coverage of the newsflow, the constant stream of cherry-picked, double seasonally adjusted good news is precisely why viewers had left the Comcast cable station in droves realizing the disconnect between the economy and stocks is simply too gargantuan to stomach, and that they are being lied to.  As a result, it wasn't until the much dreaded market crash that viewers finally came back. At least some of them.

The legacy of the Clinton’s behind the curtain has also been one of questioning everything, two, three, if not four to ten times. The lack of honesty between the words seems to be catching up. Hillary and Bill have been rather notorious for doing whatever it takes to win while lining their pockets at the same time. So it is no surprise that Hillary may fight to the end without ever fearing prosecution for anything she has ever done is in the past.

"In theory, investors can exit an open-ended mutual fund or an ETF at will. But the growing popularity of these funds forces them to invest in an ever larger share of less liquid bonds. If everyone wants to exit at once, prices could fall very far, very fast. A lucky few may get out in time. Others will probably get trampled."

The question on everyone's mind is whether the economy is strong enough to withstand rate hikes by the Federal Reserve? In our opinion, the answer is no. The economy continues to ebb and flow between weak growth and no growth. This puts the Federal Reserve at risk of a policy mistake that could trip the economy into an outright recession. While there have certainly been positive bumps in the data, as pent-up demand is released back into the economy, the inability to sustain growth is most concerning.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

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