Archive - 2011 - Story

Following in the footsteps of the recent fireworks of the Chinese SHIBOR market courtesy of the evaporation of virtually all interbank liquidity, we now get more indications that all is fine... no inverted... no fine in China. Per Bloomberg, Chinese corporate spreads have now inverted to a level not seen since pre-Lehman days: "The average yield on yuan corporate debt maturing after 2025 was 4.67 percent in December, compared with 4.97 percent for three to five-year bonds, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s China credit indexes. The last time the gap was wider was on Aug. 13, 2008, when the spread reached 31 basis points, or 0.31 percentage point." And while corporate bond issuance in China, especially on the longer end, is still very scarce (and a reason why China still does not have a representative CDS market, something that JPM will fix promptly), this should be an indication that either things are very good or starting to get rather bad, as more are "rushing" to the safety of near-term fixed income on concerns of what may happen to the long end in the next few months.

The US Congress is welcoming 112 new members this week. Congratulations, if you’re on of them. Now get this through your thick, newbie head. No one likes you. No one thinks you’re smart. Chances are you got the only reason you got this gig is because your predecessor couldn’t follow simple instructions. So stop thinking of yourself as a champion of __________ or the protector of _________. You’re hired help, nothing more, nothing less.

RANsquawk European Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 07/01/11

One look at the M2 chart below shows that the reliquification of the market by the Fed is proceeding according to plan: having increased for 23 of the past 25 weeks, the M2 has hit another all time high in the final week of 2010 at $8,848 billion, a $14 billion weekly increase, and a $316 billion annual increase (we will present the M2 constituents change next week). But that is not all: more important to those who believe that the Fed merely creates one and zeroes that never do anything practical, and most certainly do not add to inflation, will be delighted to learn that in addition to the $14 billion increase in M2 liquidity, reserve balances added another $26 billion in liquidity, as the absolute number declined from $1027 billion to $1001, or a gross addition of $40 billion in the week. Of course, adding a few leverage factors, and the last week of 2010 saw a gross liquidity addition of well over $100 billion or so. And there are some who wonder why stocks surged to close the year....

Looking back at the carnage created by the bursting of the credit bubble, it’s natural to scratch your head and ask “How did we ever let that happen?”. Behavioral economics exists to answer questions like this. Last week Chris sat down with Dan Ariely, gallivanting behavioral-economics-researcher-extraordinaire, who is breathing new life into this previously obscure field of study. The resulting interview is full of fresh, non-intuitive insights and shines light on how the human brain is often hard-wired for irrational action when it comes to money.

In the early 80’s the attempt of the Brothers Hunt, Nelson Bunker and William Herbert Hunt, to fully clamp down the silver market was one of the most spectacular but at the same time also one of the most unsuccessful financials plans within the then fair world. Despite that the brothers failed in their attempt to clamp the silver market, they have succeeded to make a outright mess of the precious metals market and lose one of the largest fortunes in the world in no time.

Some time ago, there was a lengthy debate as to why anyone even cares about the manufacturing ISM number. After all America is now by and far a service economy. Obviously, that debate ended in a stalemate. Nonetheless, the sad truth is that with each passing year America is losing ever more of its once dominant industrial advantage, and with the chief export being "financial innovation", should the world experience another risk flare up it is very likely that the world will enforce an embargo on any future US "imports" and the country's current account deficit will drop to a level from which there is no recovery. So for those who are still not convinced of just how serious the deterioration is, The Economic Collapse blog has compiled this handy list of 19 fact that demonstrate the deindustrialization of America in all its glory.

Following today's sudden realization that the much vaunted December retail sales data, which if one had listened to CNBC in December, would have been left with the "consensus view" that it would be one of the greatest shopping periods in the history of the world, was a dud, here is a complete post-mortem of the various individual retailers and how they fared versus expectations from Goldman's Greg "Chewbacca" Chwatko.

We always thought sooner or later we'd make somebody's list...Just not this one.

Any time you bring the two Pauls together in an interview, and start discussing items such as the debt ceiling, government spending, and monetary policy you know the results will be good. Sure enough, in this rare ABC interview with father and son, the sparks fly, and among the topic touched is the most popular story on Zero Hedge from yesterday, namely President Obama fabulous hypocrisy, who after bashing the debt ceiling as a senator 4 years ago, has bet the outcome of his entire economic policy on maxing out every single credit card available to him. Paul's response: "we have to face the fact that we are bankrupt and we can't pay our bills." Not exactly bedtime material if one's name is Hu Jintao. That said you know the Paul-led interrogation of Bernanke will be something else, even if it is ultimately totally fruitless.

Art Cashin, who lately looks like he is coping with the market's lunacy in a very liquid fashion, pulled a Rosie and basically went medieval on Ben Bernanke and the chairman's now infamous explanation that interest rates are up because they are really down courtesy of Richard Feynman and quantum chromodynamics, in some parallel universe in which QE2 is actually working. In a nutshell, the most famous face on the NYSE has offered to sell the Princetonian a piece of very valuable East River real estate in exchange for agreeing with the BS that the FOMC's committee is dishing out now on an almost daily basis.

Either the republicans have fully adopted a role as the "charade" party, or they are actually serious about believing that by limiting Bernanke to controlling just inflation, the Chairman will actually start acting on behalf of the peasants (note: he won't - he will just ignore the fact that food prices are at an all time record, and focus instead on the ongoing collapse in home prices, which simply means that middle class has less equity and is paying more for staples). Either way, they are not wasting any time. Reuters reports that representative Paul Ryan, the new chairman of the House of Representatives' budget committee, said he will push for legislation paring back the Federal Reserve's mandate to focus solely on controlling inflation, not ensuring full employment. Well, the problem there is that Bernanke will say that instead of doing QE in perpetuity, or until the unemployment rate goes back to 5% (whichever comes first), he will simply print money (pardon, feed primary dealers with infinite 1s and 0s, which in no was have an impact on cotton prices now trading at unheard of levels). More from Reuters: "Republicans have made no secret of their desire to impose more limits on the U.S. central bank and have been critical of it on a number of scores, including its plan to buy an additional $600 billion in government bonds to try to speed up a sluggish economic recovery." As if the same republicans don't realize that the only reason the Fed is buying said additional $600 billion is to monetize their own damn deficit created when they passed the tax cut extension for the rich, now that China's holding of Treasuries have basically not budged in the past year. Well, someone has to monetize all that debt. And as Zero Hedge has been screaming since September, the only reason for QE2 (and QE3 next) is to fund the $3 trillion in budget deficits over the next two years, as nobody else wants it any more.

At one point last year Bill Ackman, who had created an entirely separate fund to express his exbuerance in retailer Target, and created a standalone fund PSIV to invest in the same name, was down 99% at the point the fund was unwound. Many had hoped the supposed retail genius' bad luck would end there. Alas, no. Another stock in which Pershing Square now owns 37%, is on the verge of filing bankruptcy. And apparently it can't even afford to hire a decent financial restructuring advisor. According to reports, traditionally creditor-side advisor Jefferies has been retained to represent the company, while Jones Day is legal counsel. Look for a bankruptcy filing in the next week and for another wipe out for Mr Ackman.

RANsquawk Market Wrap Up - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 06/01/11

Just crossing the wires now. If this passes, Blythe is most likely toast.