Archive - Oct 18, 2012 - Story

Readers may recall that Ron Paul once surprised everyone with a seemingly very elegant proposal to bring the debt ceiling wrangle to a close. If you're all so worried about the federal deficit and the debt ceiling, so Paul asked, then why doesn't the treasury simply cancel the treasury bonds held by the Fed? After all, the Fed is a government organization as well, so it could well be argued that the government literally owes the money to itself. He even introduced a bill which if adopted, would have led to the cancellation of $1.6 trillion in federal debt held by the Fed. Of course the proposal was not really meant to be taken serious: rather, it was meant to highlight the absurdities of the modern-day monetary system. In a way, we would actually not necessarily be entirely inimical to the idea, for similar reasons Ron Paul had in mind:  it would no doubt speed up the inevitable demise of the fiat money system. Control can be lost, and it usually happens only after a considerable period of time during which their interventions appear to have no ill effects if looked at only superficially: “Thus we learn….to be ignorant of political economy is to allow ourselves to be dazzled by the immediate effect of a phenomenon."

Between stagnating incomes and centrally-planned spillovers into housing and transportation costs, workers in this country are increasingly pressured to move to more 'all-in affordable' areas (if they can). As a recent study by the Center for Housing Policy shows, the housing and transportation cost burdens of moderate income households living in the 25 largest metro areas problem is getting worse; moderate-income households pay a disproportionate share; Moderate-income homeowners carry heavier cost burdens than renters; and the combined burden of housing and transportation costs is greatest where costs are out of sync with local incomes - not always the places with the highest absolute costs. Of course QE is designed to 'help' homeowners... and yet the middle-class continues to be squeezed.

From history, we can glean more than just the bare facts of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. First, one has to understand that before Rome slowly toppled into dust, it was a very prosperous place. There was distinct upper, middle, lower and slave classes and, all in all, there was more than enough to eat and time to spare for numerous sports. Also, the Roman Legions were the largest and strongest, best trained and fed, best equipped with hardware aplenty of any nation-state-empire in the world at that time. Very similar, in fact to the U.S.A. (less a lot of technology). History will certainly repeat, but never the same way twice.  So here we stand, on the edge, citizens mostly well fed, clothed, housed and most of all, thoroughly entertained. What happens to all of us when the plug is pulled?

Much is being made of the compression in Spanish bond spreads this week - the largest 3-day drop since Draghi's 'dream' speech. Four critical things come to mind: 1) increasing amounts of Spanish sovereign debt is now held by domestic banks, making the market less liquid (and far less transparent as any indication of 'reality'); 2) the ban on naked CDS (and Draghi's put) has created a hedging vacuum with CDS spreads collapsing and exposure slumping (technically dragging bond risk down); 3) Lower spreads reflexively mean lower probability of Rajoy saying "Si" - which is what is helping spreads compress (leaving event-risk high - as indicated by the outperformance of our legal arb trade); and perhaps most importantly 4) Recency bias is incredible - we have seen 100-plus percent rises in Spanish risk followed by 35-plus percent retracements a number of times and the current level of Spain risk is still above LTRO-inspired crisis levels. So let's not get all excited quite yet eh?

With less than 20 days to go to the election, the Presidential race has tightened following Romney's performances in the debates, as the Republican challenger has overtaken the president in the national averages for the first time this year (and RealClearPolitics has him with an edge in the electoral college also). But ever the fair-and-balance bank, Citi believes that Obama's advantages remain substantial, as an incumbent president in an improving economic environment. In this broad discussion, the Pandit-less bank addresses 'the data' driving their Obama call, what would have to happen for a Romney win, the Senate and House split, The Tea Party (and other unusual events), and the 'bungee jump'-causing headline risk of the pending Fiscal Cliff debate. Everything you need to know about the election-critical states, players, and events (and who would win in a fist-fight), but were afraid to ask Wolf Blitzer.

These giants boast the world's largest economies and active militaries with their decisions influencing politics at a global level. Despite a massive trade agreement and many diplomatic meetings, the two nations struggle to maintain the semblance of a civil relationship. As pressure mounts from US leaders, China remains unfazed, coolly growing its military and economy. Master-of-Finance-Degrees provides the ultimate infographic of how these two titans of industry and power measure up when pitted head-to-head. Guess who wins?

If a recently proposed law by the director general of Spanish police, Ignacio Cosidó, is actually enacted, it is likely that live (or replayed) webcasts, photos and any electronic recordings such as those seen recently from the Madrid anti-sovereignty riots may be a thing of the past. But not because they no longer exist: simply because very soon it may be illegal to actually record said events. El Pais reports that "authorities are studying the possibility that the next update to the Public Security Law could include an article prohibiting the recording, processing or circulation on the internet of police officers performing their duties, if doing so would endanger them or the operation in which they were engaged." These are the same riot cops who typically wear gas masks, and full riot attire and shields precisely to preserve their identity. But facts matter little when the liquidity tide is going out and all the Ponzi schemes are exposed to have been swimming naked. For now, Spain will be happy to little by little strip its citizens first of their rights to free expression, then all other rights, as it slowly but surely sells the country into Troika slavery.

This is simply incredible. 40 minutes ago, just as the farce that is the market was in danger of not closing green despite the tech fiascoes from GOOG, MSFT, CMG, MRVL, AMD, MS, and all the others, we had one simple thing to say:

Time for CME to lower ES margins a little more here

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 18, 2012

And sure enough, seconds ago...

UPDATE: MSFT (-2.6%), MRVL (-9.2%), AMD (-2.5%), and CMG (-14%) all ugly after-hours

ICYMI - GOOG -8.1% weighed heavy on the entire tech sector which really needed little help after IBM and INTC's earlier disappointments. But while there was a caTECHstrophe there, when GOOG re-opened, algos ran wild and ramped S&P futures all the way back up to VWAP and GOOG made a valiant attempt to reach that mystical level also. But we should not fear, for reading too much into the fact that three of the world's largest tech companies are doing poorly is no reason to not BTFD and so it is that the Dow Industrials and S&P closed only marginally lower and Dow Transports had a green day (never seeing red). USD strength in the afternoon - as GOOG scared - pushed commodities down with silver doing worst and gold -0.77% on the week. Despite general equity weakness, Treasury yields limped higher in the afternoon now up around 17bps on the week. Oil round-tripped after dumping into the US open as weak macro data hit and then resurging on news that the Keystone pipeline would be closed to a few days due to 'anomaly'. VIX ended unch at around 15%. S&P futures are fading off VWAP after-hours.

The squid speaks

After a 2.5 hours halt, GOOG just reopened at $687 from its pre-halt close at $687.30 (from $755.40 close yesterday). QQQs implied an open around $650! Please note that $711 is VWAP - the algos will be looking for that...

Over the weekend it was not some disenchanted and long-suffering Greek, nor Irishman, nor even a Spaniard, but a German who burned and stabbed himself to death in front of the Reichstag in broad daylight. Moments ago, yet another country which has so far had been spared ritualistic (attempted) suicides, joined the ranks of places where people would rather take their lives than live under the oppressive European depression, when a 55 year man of Romanian origin and father of six, currently living in Pinerolo in Piedmont, set himself on fire in from the presidential palace in Rome, the Quirinale. As Repubblica reports, he was protesting the economic conditions and the lack of job opportunities. It appears that whereas Europe may be "saved" and PIIGS bonds are being bought for the time being, the monetary transmission mechanism is still certainly clogged up and the central bank's record liquidity is neither reaching the ordinary citizens of Europe nor, most certainly, the most political square in Rome.

A month ago every single bank was delighted when Bernanke proudly announced QEternity. What they did not realize is that by doing so, and by "getting to work" as Chuck Schumer had previously requested of the Chairsatan, Congress suddenly has no impetus to do anything over the fiscal cliff, i.e., to lose face with the electorate by compromising over difficult fiscal issues, because, guess what, Bernanke is on top of it. After all look at the market - no risk is allowed ever again. Because since the Fed is now in charge the market, and of fiscal policy, why bother with protection or Plan B. The banks, however, know better, and know that without hundreds of billions in continued stimulus from D.C., the musical chairs game is about to end and the market will implode. Which is why the warnings of Mutual Assured Destruction (M.A.D.) were only a matter of time. Sure enough, here comes JPM with the first of many official GDP revisions (don't worry - JPM's Mike Feroli will promptly revise everything much higher if a fiscal cliff deal is done... some time in March long after the S&P has tumbled by 20% in a replay of August 2011), in which he sees the fiscal cliff now reducing 2013 GDP growth by 1%, up from the previous estimate of 0.5%, and specifically sees Q1 and Q2 GDP of 1.0% and 1.5%. And it's all downhill from there...

44 analysts cover Google. 82% are Buys. Average Target Price is $811. The lowest and least herd-like was Heather Bellini of Goldman Sachs who has had a $660 price target (which is where GOOG is implied to trade currently) since 8/13/12. We wonder what Capstone's Rory Maher is thinking today with his $910 target?

While everyone knows that GOOG is halted and may or may not resume trading before market close (and no, RRD merely reported the facts, if only early, and as everyone knows the market has a revulsion to reality peeking during trading hours), few are aware just why it is that everyone dumped the stock which soared to all time highs a few short weeks ago. Here it is, in its full visual splendor - Google's Operating Income, which was expected to come in at $3.536 billion printed at $2.736 billion, a 23% miss!