Archive - 2015

Brazil has a new finance minister and the market is not happy. As BofAML puts it, "the focus turns now to the direction of the fiscal policy under the new FinMin, which should affect the recovery in confidence and thus growth. With mounting downside risks to growth that heavily weigh on the government’s revenues and the ongoing challenges in passing fiscal measures in Congress, tangible results over statements will now be needed to improve expectations over primary fiscal results ahead."

If this trendline fails to hold (like it did for the VLG in August), then the market may be in for a further decline. And considering the magnitude of the trendline being broken, it may not be just your “average” decline.

"The Fed didn't really drain any liquidity yesterday. They moved the IOER up to .50%, moved the RRP rate up to .25%, and the RRP volume came in at $105 billion, only $3 billion more than the day before. Where was the draining? But interest rates moved up anyway to reflect the tightening, without any fundamental change. Basically, the Fed decreed a rate tightening and the market moved rates higher.... I wonder how many economic interest rate models include "by decree" as a factor?"

In the short term, increases in interest rates can be negative for gold. But, in the medium to long term rising interest rates are positive for gold as they were in the 1970s and the 2003 to 2006 period.

I wanna wish you a Dead Bankster Christmas

What happens the next time global GDP takes a nosedive when Central Banks have already used up all of their ammunition?

"I hope Iraqis will understand that this is a reflection of things that happen in combat. But it's also a reflection of how closely we are working with the government."

One could be forgiven to hypothesize that there would be some negative response in the travel to the Middle East.  Instead as shown below, this regional hotbed continues to see a stunning record growth in passenger traffic from America.  And this unusual growth stands out as the highest of any destination.

In the wake of a Security Council resolution on Syria that failed to consider the fate of Bashar al-Assad, a belligerent Turkey is fuming mad. In comments made from Istanbul on Saturday, PM Ahmet Davutoglu said the UN's stance "lacks realistic perspective." He also said Turkish troops will remain in Iraq until Mosul is "freed" from ISIS. Translation: Turkish boots will be on Iraqi ground for the foreseeable future.

One would think that the Criminals, themselves, would not have the audacity to use the same Script (with just minor plot variations) every eight years. But here we go, again.

If you like your nuclear-capable weapons, you can keep your nuclear-capable weapons...

Update: CISA is now the law: OBAMA SIGNS SPENDING, TAX BILL THAT REPEALS OIL EXPORT BAN

"They’re kind of pulling a Patriot Act." When Obama signs the $1.1 trillion Spending Bill in a few hours, as he will, it will be official: the second Patriot Act will become the law, and with it what little online privacy US citizens may have had, will be gone.

The announcement of the restoration of Israel-Turkish relations should be seen in the context of Turkey having nowhere else to go.

"It's not just warm, but very warm," exclaims one east coast ski resort owner, adding "I can’t remember it ever being like this here." But why? As WSJ reports, two weather occurrences - the Arctic Oscillation and El Niño - are combining to shake up temperatures from coast to coast in the U.S., bringing springlike conditions to the Northeast for much of this month and leaving parts of the West colder and wetter than usual. “If people are nervous, they should be nervous.”

"The new rounds of rate cutting and Quantitative Easing that the Fed will have to unleash will echo the military "surge" in Iraq in 2007. Those fresh troops were needed to roll back the chaos that the Administration had ignored for so long. But just as that surge only bought us a few years of relative calm, look for the gains brought about by our next monetary surge to be even more transitory. That is a development for which virtually no one on Wall Street is preparing."