Archive - Mar 2011 - Story

In a really bizarre moment in history, a single American dollar was actually worth 4.2 trillion German marks.

It really happened. To fund its mega-expensive World War I effort, Germany severed the tie between its mark and gold -- something that's always happened, sooner or later, with government-generated currency.

Today there are no gold-backed currencies in the world.

I still remember when there was a certain cachet to Japanese made products. They were technologically advanced and better built than anything else available. Sonyo, Toshiba, Toyota, Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha, etc. were all dominating brands. You could find products in Electric City in Tokyo that were generations ahead of what you could purchase in New York City. That gap has narrowed and in many cases reversed over time, but now we might be hitting a stage where 'Made in Japan' is a big negative...I was long Japan post quake as the market seemed to have over reacted to the earthquake. The bounce, though, has been large and profitable, so I'm out, and as the situation in Fukushima continues to deteriorate, the market looks expensive as its not pricing in the potential consequences of this being a nuclear event rather than an earthquake event.

RANsquawk Market Wrap Up - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 25/03/11

With the VIX closing the day and the week at approximately a 17.70 level, it marks a 40% decline from its closing print recorded on March 16, when it hit 29.4, just as the Nikkei was about to flash crash to the high 7,000 range. This represents the 2nd largest closing drop in the history of the volatility index, beaten only by the weekly VIX drop from November 4, 2008 (when the VIX dropped from 80 to 47.7). And stunningly, on an intraday basis, when the VIX dropped to the day's lows of just over 17, it briefly represented the biggest weekly drop in the VIX ever. Of course back in 2008 each and every day it seemed as if the world was ending and both stocks and vols moved around like electrons shuffled around in the LHC. This time around, with the apocalypse yet to be delayed (we will not list all the news that have hit the tape in the past month), one wonders: is the market so habituated by the Siren song of the Bernanke Put that it believes nothing can ever dent the smooth Russell 2000 upward slope ever again? And what happens when the Central Planner hubris is once again exposed as the hollow perpetuation of an economic fallacy backed simply by trillions of pieces of linen-diluted cotton? We shall find out soon enough.

The following artist's impression of the generic trader's desktop is applicable to pretty much anyone (who is not a Primary Dealer) trying to scrape a living trading the "stock market", better known as the monetary policy tool to implement "The Wealth Effect."

While generically completely useless, both during increases and decreases as all it is, is a reflexive and very much coincident market indicator, the UMichigan consumer confidence index does have one useful feature: it tracks respondents' 1 and 5 year inflation expectations. For what it's worth these are very volatile, but by and large trend with the moves in short-dates bonds. Indeed over the past 30 years, the 1 Year inflation expectations has tracked the moves in the 2 Year bond very closely. Until today: the 1 year inflation expectations jumped from 3.4% to 4.6%, a 1.2% jump in one month, this is the single highest monthly jump in a decade since the 1.4% jump in December 2001, following the deflationary knee jerk reaction from the September 11 attacks. But what is most interesting is that as the second chart below shows, the spread between the 1 Year inflation expectation and the 2 year bond yield is now at a record wide. This means that either consumers and bonds are at record odds over how they view the inflationary environment in the future, or that there is no real bond market in the short end (all the way up to the 2 Year bond), which is dictated purely by the Fed, and its monetization activity. We believe it is a mixture of the two, although if even US consumers for whom non-core inflation is allegedly supposed to be less of a burden (and recall Dudley's Let Them Eat iPads speach) are starting to freak out about rising prices, perhaps for the first time bonds, courtesy of central planning, may actually be wrong.

A second government falls in one week, after Canada's conservatives are defeated in a no confidence vote, following Portugal government fall on Wednesday. Belgium must feel like a veteran in the anarchy department, which seems to be claiming more and more countries, or at least those that do not adopt a revolutionary route.

From Dow Jones: "An inflation-only mandate would be more appropriate for the U.S.
Federal Reserve than its current dual goal of managing price stability
and facilitating job creation, U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
President Richard Fisher said Friday. "I do believe that the full employment mandate puts us on a slippery
political slope," Fisher said in a panel discussion in Brussels.
"Personally, I would prefer to have a single mandate." Somehow we doubt this statement was preapproved by your friendly Ministry of Truth big brother.

The no confidence vote in Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Canadian government is expected to start momentarily. Just like two days ago when Portugal fell, this event will likely be seen as a buying opportunity of both the USDCAD and the CADUSD. After all - there are trillions in excess liquidity sloshing around which must be put to use even if in mutually offsetting trades. Follow the event live at the following webcast from CTV.

RANsquawk US Afternoon Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 25/03/11

The bears are back, discussing the usual topics du jour, which in this case is a rather humorous listing of the most recent 99 black swans year to date in 2011, and their impact on silver. Funny stuff.

Highlights from the just released speech by Philly Fed hawk Charles Plosser:

• Fed's Plosser says would want to make explicit the Fed's commitment to a numerical inflation objective
  
• Says important to communicate a systemic plan that describes where Fed is going, how it will get there
• Says his proposed strategy would tie pace of asset sales to size of interest rate increases
• Says his preferred exit strategy would raise rates, shrink balance sheet concurrently
• Says failure to exit in timely manner will have serious consequences on inflation, economic stability in future
• Says monetary policy will have to reverse course in the not too distant future
• Says consumer spending continues to expand at reasonably robust rate
• Says US economy seems to be on much firmer foundation
• Says labor market conditions are improving

In other words, an attempt to return confusion over the fate of QE3. As for the Fed existing anything.... good luck. As part of his exit proposals, Plosser proposes two exit plans (12 and 18 months) both of which sees a dramatic reduction in reserves, a hike in IOER, and asset sell offs. Should the Fed indeed proceed to do this, the market will prolapse.

The latest news from Fukushima continue progressing from bad to worse. Which of course means that the (physical) silver lining around the mushroom cloud will be that much more potent: after all, the greater the destruction, the higher the Russell 2000. Just ask the Keynesians.

• FUKUSHIMA REACTOR VESSEL MAY HAVE STUCK VALVE, UCS SAYS
• TEPCO FINDS POOLED WATER AT ALL FOUR TROUBLED REACTORS: KYODO
• INCREASED RADIATION RELEASE FROM FUKUSHIMA POSSIBLE, UCS SAYS

This in turn has prompted the Japanese government to increase the "voluntary" evacuation radius frmo 20 to 30 kms, finally. Shortly, this will be 80. But not before many more innocent people are irradiated and sacrificed at the altar of Nikkei 10,000 (and RUT 36,000).

While today's consumer confidence index missing expectations (at 67.5 or the lowest since April 2009) was not a big surprise following our prediction of just that happening when we reported that the Bloomberg Consuemr Comfort index hit a 7 month low, what was very disappointing was that the Expectations component had its fifth largest drop in history, plunging from 72 to 58. This is a lower reading than that recorded when the "recession", according to the NBER at least, was still raging. As a reminder the recession ended with "expectations" at 70.

And there goes Syria.