Archive - Sep 2015

Surprise!!! Month-end window-dressing manipulation massacred...

Is September 2015 going to be one of the most important months in modern American history?

Just when everyone was convinced that the main "risk off" event of the summer, namely the Greek bailout, was safely tucked away and that having abdicated its sovereignty to its creditors  and Germany in particular, who now hold the Greek banking system hostage courtesy of draconian capital controls, that Greece would continue to receive its monthly cash allotment just so it could repay creditors from its first two bailouts and would not make headlines for the foreseeable future , Market News just reported that suddenly even the Greek bailout is no longer on autopilot as a result of the upcoming elections in three weeks, whose outcome is anything but assured.

Construction spending grew at 13.7% YoY in July. It has only grown at a faster pace than that once - at the very peak of the idiocy in Q1 2006. So that got us wondering... how is it that Construction Spending is surging as Lumber Prices are collapsing? (unless homes are now made of Twitter share certficates). The answer is simple - lag... and we have seen this picture before...

For the last few years, US equity traders have become conditioned to expect the miraculous arrival of some heavy-handed levitation in stock markets as 330pmET rolls by. This became ubiquitous enough to inspire a Twitter account. Well, it appears the Chinese have learnt a thing or two from the American manipulators... behold China's 2pm Ramp Capital at work.

WTI crude has retraced 50% of yesterday's ridiculous gains and is now down 5.25% from the NYMEX close yesterday. It appears everything is not so awesome again...

Perhaps the greatest nightmare for investors in a commodity stock is that the commodity in question goes the way of coal. After more than a century of dominance in the U.S. and abroad, coal appears to have entered into a structural decline. A funny thing happened on the way to the graveyard for coal companies though – one of the industries greatest detractors, George Soros, appears to be stepping in as a supporter.

Following disappoint PMIs from around the world, the US decoupling meme took another knock today as Markit PMI printed 53.0 (from 53.8) - its lowest in almost 2 years, led by a plunge in the employment subindex. Weakness was also evident in new factory orders. As Markit notes, "U.S. manufacturing sector continues to struggle under the weight of the strong dollar and heightened global economic uncertainty." On the heels of Milwaukee and Dallas Fed weakness, ISM Manufacturing printed a disastrous 51.1 (vs 52.5 expectations) - the lowest since May 2013. Employment tumbled, as did New Export ordedrs, but unadjusted New Orders plunged to its lowest since 2013, which is a problem given the massive inventory builds that have saved the world in the last few months.

According to Western diplomats, a Russian expeditionary force has already arrived in Syria and set up camp in an Assad-controlled airbase. The base is said to be in area surrounding Damascus, and will serve, for all intents and purposes, as a Russian forward operating base. In the coming weeks thousands of Russian military personnel are set to touch down in Syria, including advisors, instructors, logistics personnel, technical personnel, members of the aerial protection division, and the pilots who will operate the aircraft.

As Nanex's Eric Hunsader notes "there are numerous mini-flash-crashes in ETFs this morning," as market structure comes under significant pressure. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the VIX complex with VXX spiking above last Monday's highs and XIV collapsing...

Two state-owned Chinese oil trading companies (Chinaoil, which is the trading arm of state-run China National Petroleum Corp. and Unipec, which is owned by Sinopec) have been busy monopolizing the Dubai spot market, as a bout of suspicious trading activity between the two has served to distort prices and confuse other traders.

Modest USD weakness combined with significant risk-off across global equity markets (and a strange un-bid to bonds as China unwinds continue to weigh) has sparked heavy volume flows into precious metals this morning.

*NYSE AND NYSE MKT CASH EQUITIES MARKETS WILL INVOKE RULE 48

US equity futures markets have just pushed to fresh overnight lows, with the last leg down seemingly triggered by the CAD recession print. Let's hope Cramer and Cook have another email up their sleeves as weakness in AAPL is notable - down 2.75% in the pre-market. Lastly, we noted US equities are rapidly catching back down to the XIV-implied lows as the last few days bounce evaporates.

First the good news: of the 28 global regions that have reported PMIs so far (the US Markit PMI is due later today), 18 posted a print of over 50, or indicating manufacturing expansion.
Now the bad news: more than two-thirds of PMIs in August deteriorated compared to July suggesting that while the global economy is not in a recession yet, absent some dramatic improvement, a global economic contraction is just around the corner.