Archive - Sep 2015

We are sure it's just a coincidence but seconds after Vladimir Putin concluded his speech at The UN calling for a broad anti-terrorist coalition, the Russian Ruble was sold aggressively (after a relatively news-less and quiet day in the currency)...

President Obama had his opportunity, started off well then dwindled into a renewed "it's all Russia's fault" blame game. Now it's Russian President Vladimir Putin's turn to explain how the world's decline into chaos is not his fault either... Should make the Putin-Obama 'conversation' later very interesting...

Who could have seen that coming?

Glencore is in total free-fall across all markets today. Most worrying for systemic risk concerns is the rush into credit protection that has occurred, as counterparties attempt to hedge their exposures. Forthe first time since 2009, Glencore CDS are being quoted with upfront pricing (something that happens as firms become seriously distressed). Based on the latest data, it costs 875bps per year (or 14% upfront) to buy protection against a Glencore default (which implies - given standard recoveries - a 54% chance of default).

As part of his UN speech seeking to restore a crumbling Pax Americana, president Obama, eager to cover up US involvement in the Ukraine presidential coup of early 2014 (who can forget Victoria Nuland "strategy" interception in which she laid out the post-coup lay of the land, while saying to "fuck the EU"), just said that "America has few economic interest in Ukraine." Few, perhaps, but quite substantial.

Republican presidential nominee front-runner Donald Trump, amid massively variant poll numbers (Fox >40%, WSJ ~21%?), plans to unveil his tax plan today, that, as WSJ reports, would eliminate income taxes for millions of households, lower the tax rate on all businesses to 15% and change tax treatment of companies’ overseas earnings. Trumps's plan claims to bring "sanity, common sense and simplification to the nation's catastrophic tax code," and, despite plans to end "carried interest" tax breaks - most loved by hedge fund managers - Carl Icahn has come out and endorsed Trump as "the only candidate that speaks about the country's problems."

Not since October 2008 (cough post-Lehman cough), has The Nasdaq Biotech index dropped for 7 straight days. The 18% close-to-close drop in the last 7 days is the largest since Lehman.

August's regional Fed survey collapse was unanimous... Dallas, Richmond, New York, Philly, Chicago, and even Kansas City all flashing recessionary warnings. And so now we begin to see September's data and Dallas Fed prints -9.5 - the 9th negative (contractionary) print in a row. While a small beat (against -10 exp.) and rise from August's -15.8, under the surfacxe the data is a disaster with wages lower, employees contracting drastically, and average workweek collapsing. Having noted that "the quantitative easing hangover is starting" in August, it appears - judging by the biggest plunge in Capex in 5 years.

With The UN's Ban earlier commenting that "Syria is out of control" and demanding that Russia, US, Saudi, iran and Turkey cooperate, it will be interesting to see what tack President Obama takes in his address this morning...

While the rest of the US economy was slowly but surely reentering a recession, with the only two pieces of silver lining being the relatively strong, if unbelievable, jobs data (driven by low-wage paying jobs) and the US housing market, moments ago we just got the latest confirmation that one of these two final anchors is slowly falling apart when the perpetually optimistic housing industry organization, NAR, reported that August pending home sales dropped -1.4%, on expectations of a 0.4% increase, and down from a 0.5% jump the month before. Confirming that the Chinese "hot money parking" bid is finally ending, this was the fourth consecutive miss in a row.

· Friday sees the latest nonfarm payroll report from the US, with surveyed expectations for the reading at 200k

· This week sees the advance reading of Eurozone and German CPI for September, which may see added attention given recent suggestions the ECB may expand QE

With Biotechs in a bear market, and Nasdaq having dropped back into negative territory for 2015, the year's leading equity index has now joined the rest of the majors and completed its "death cross."

A TECTONIC shift has begun in the markets, if they no longer respond to the Fed's efforts to boost them, then it is GAME. SET. MATCH. for the Fed and its policies.

We have been warning for months that high-yield bonds have decoupled from equity markets, just as they did in 2007/8, and the credit cycle's turning will inevitably flow through to crush the only thing left supporting stock valuations - the irrational non-economic corporate buyback-er. However, as we detail below, time's running out and it’s getting tougher out there for our QE and ZIRP-coddled corporate junk-bond heroes.