Archive - 2011 - Story

The same people at Goldman who thought the Chinese December interest rate hike was the greatest thing since sliced bread, would obviously be positively creaming themselves over today's RRR hike (even as the SHCOMP continues to get hammered). Sure enough...

Markets trading with a sour tone this morning, driven once again by macro headlines. Yesterday’s claims data resumed its dire tone as PPI reflected commodity inflation (the bad kind). Today will see a slew of data including CPI, retail sales, inventories, industrial production and capacity utilization – the sum of which should signal whether the 4Q10 upswing was inflation/inventory driven or the result of real demand.

Today, JPM announced results, which presumably beat on the top line, while the bottom line is largely irrelevant as banks continue to operate under the auspices of FASB mark-to-myth, and as such no numbers can be trusted. As for the improvement in the credit card business, cited largely as a reason for the $1.12 EPS beat compared to $1.00 consensus, when consumers don't have to pay mortgages, they at least can afford to pay for trinkets. Which is why we believe the bulk of the numbers in the company's 23 page Q4 earnings presentation are largely worthless. The two slides that however bear mentioning are 9 and 10, which deal with the elephant in the room, mortgage repurchasing risk, and the foreclosure process update. Below are the highlights, among which we find that as of Q4, the average delinquency at foreclosure for JPM is now 14 months.

A heavy day with retail sales, the CPI, industrial production, Michigan confidence, and business inventories….

Today brings another confirmation that the only trading vol remaining in risk asset is not in stocks, but mostly in FX. After the EURUSD was trading in the mid 1.33s, a sudden surge of buying by European desks overnight took it to well over 1.3450....Only to see the entire move undone in a matter of hours. According to Market News, the reason for the nearly two big figure move has to do with yield plays (obviously), although we are confident that those wishing to establish better short positions in the pair, alongside Goldman's prop desk for example, are certainly welcoming any justification for the surge, as fabricated as it may be.

After the PBoC raised the RRR for the fourth time in two months (and 6 times in 2010), and following the Christmas Day interest rate hike, Chinese stocks once again find themselves reacquainted with gravity as the SHCOMP was trading down 1.3% at last check. The hike will be effective January 20 and will bring the RRR to a record 19%. And this most ineffective of monetary interventions will certainly not be the last: according to Bloomberg, "China may boost reserve ratios by more than 200 basis points in 2011, according to HSBC Holdings Plc economist Qu Hongbin. Industrial Bank Co. economist Lu Zhengwei estimates the ratio may reach 23 percent." Unfortunately, this latest move is too little too late, as Chinese food prices are already starting to make the politburo uneasy about what the world central bank cartel's actions mean for rice prices (remember the 3Rs as predicted by ZH - as we predicted in October, the next bubbles are Rare Earths, Rice, and Rubber).

RANsquawk European Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 14/01/11

The theme of input price inflation in America seems here to stay, and the dynamics of passing on inflation through the supply chain and eventually the consumer will be vital to watch this year.

The artist said that the more complicated an idea, the more worthless. So here is a very simple bizarro world thought experiment:

1. Everyone in America maxed out their credit cards (on average about 4) to pay as much of US debt as possible (link)...
2. Everyone refused to pay their credit card bill when invoiced.

Net result: America pays off the debts incurred to rescue the banks?

The day's key events in equities, vol, FX, rates, corporates and commodities, as well as a recap of tomorrow's upcoming events.

The vast majority of Americans, including many of those who believe that they are "educated" about the Federal Reserve, do not really understand how the Federal Reserve really makes money for the international banking elite. Many of those opposed to the Federal Reserve will point to the record $80.9 billion in profits that the Federal Reserve made last year as evidence that they are robbing the American people blind. But then those defending the Federal Reserve will point out that the Fed returned $78.4 billion to the U.S. Treasury. As a result, the Fed only made a couple billion dollars last year. Pretty harmless, eh? Well, actually no. You see, the money that the Federal Reserve directly makes is not the issue. Rather, the "magic" of the Federal Reserve system is that it took the power of money creation away from the U.S. government and gave it to the bankers. Now, the only way that the U.S. government can inject more money into the economy is by going into more debt. But when new government debt is created, the amount of money to pay the interest on that debt is not also created. In this way, it was intended by the international bankers that U.S. government debt would expand indefinitely and the U.S. money supply would also expand indefinitely. In the process, the international bankers would become insanely wealthy by lending money to the U.S. government.

As the conventional and cheap oil and gas start to dry up in the Middle East… a bigger, even better opportunity seeks to replace it.
For many who aren’t familiar with the region, the Middle East comes across as an updated version of Lawrence’s Arabia, only with lots of oil. But this mosaic of cultures isn’t made up of only Arabs or Muslims, and most Middle East countries are neither awash with heavily armed, rather excitable citizenry… nor with black gold, which is what we’re interested in. Twenty-three countries comprise the Arab League, but only Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Iran are major oil producers.

Nothing like a little stick save in 20 minutes to prevent a, gulp, close at the day's lows. Fidel Sarcastro demonstrates how the HFT crew is now doubling also as SkyNet's goalie.

It has not been a good day for New Jersey. First, governor Christie dared to tell the truth (i.e., that the state could go bankrupt on increasing... yes you read that right - INcreasing - health care costs) which pretty much cost the state a successful bond auction as we reported earlier, and now we find that one of the casualties in today's Coinstar collapse is none other than the State of New Jersey, which owns a (less than) whopping 460,000 shares. Granted the loss for NJ is only $8.2 million but it is never nice to kick a man down as he is on the very of insolvency. The table below shows all the biggest losers in today's after hours wipe out in Coinstar. Notably, at position 4, is Jim O'Neill's latest fiefdom, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, which continues to live up to its reputation of one of the worst asset managers on Wall Street.

According to a loosely-organized apocalyptic Christian movement, May 21, 2011 will be the "end of days." On or about that same date, the price of oil in the United States will begin to climb to $4 a gallon, according to two savants of the oil industry. The former is highly unlikely but the latter is very probable. The escalation in the price of oil is predicted by the legendary oil man T. Boone Pickens, known for his financial acuity as well as his oil expertise, and John Hofmeister, who retired as president of Shell Oil Company, to sound the alarm about the rate of U.S. consumption of oil. In an interview with a trade publication, Hofmeister predicted that oil would rise to $4 a gallon this year and to $5 a gallon in the election year 2012. Separately, Pickens—who has been leaning on Congress to enact an energy policy that would switch large trucks and other commercial vehicles from imported oil to domestic natural gas—predicts that oil currently selling for just over $90 a barrel will go to $120 a barrel, with a concomitant price per gallon of $4 or more.