Archive - Oct 2012 - Story

While the entire 'developed' world is now openly engaged in destroying the balance sheet of its assorted central banks - the sole means to devalue local currencies, a liability, by accepting ever more toxic 'assets' as currency collateral - thereby pursuing strategies which until now were strictly relegated to the banana republic playbook, there are some countries who see what is coming over the horizon, and refuse to join the printing frenzy. One such place is China, for whom, as we have repeatedly shown the threat of a fast onset of inflation is far greater (3x more bank deposits as a % of GDP than in the US, means a soaring capital market as a result of inflation will benefit far less while a deposit exodus will cause hyperinflationary havoc in minutes) than any other developed world country. And with the inability to hide "non-core" CPI as a result of food and energy being such a greater portion of overall inflationary bean counting than in the US, it means that despite the demands of Tim Geithner for immediate more easing by China, the PBOC is now stuck waiting to import everyone else's inflation: this includes the Fed, ECB, BOE, BOJ, Korea, Australia and all other bank engaged in adding liquidity, while its own hands are quite tied. Because recall that it was only last year that the NYT said that: "Inflation in China Poses Big Threat to Global Trade." Now we are told that lack of inflation poses the same threat, when in reality what they mean is that with the world tapped out, one more source of marginal liquidity is needed. Judging by overnight comments from the PBOC's head Zhou Xiaochuan that liquidity, suddenly so very needed to keep the game of musical chairs going, is not going to come from China just as we have warned for months on end.

Everyone is aware of a multitude of problems that besets our world, however the nature of these problems and why they exist is distorted by the media and by governments all over the world. Our leaders, corporate heads, military top-brass etc. all have a fairly good idea of what is really happening, they just don’t want us – the ignorant masses known as the general public to know what they know. The multiple crises on this planet are caused by our insane mode of living – one that seems to be dominated by economics. Our way of life (unfortunately now for most of the world) depends on an ever-expanding economic system, for if it is not expanding it is contracting. This system was all well and good while there was plenty of capacity for continued expansion, but unfortunately for all of us the limits of expansion are not far off.

As we noted last week, the US, long considered the standard bearer for economic freedom among large industrial nations, has experienced a rather remarkable plunge in economic freedom over the last decade. This excellent infographic summarizes what factors drove us here, which countries are on the rise, and why we are more like Venezuela, Argentina, and Iceland than many would like to believe.

As the day approaches when Israel may decide to launch a preemptive strike against Iran in order to cripple its nuclear infrastructure, Israeli policymakers and their allies abroad would carefully assess how the Lebanese-based group Hezbollah would react. With the debacle of the 2006 war against the Lebanese group still fresh in Israeli minds, the possibility that the "Party of God" Shi’a organization would renew hostilities against the Jewish state through cross-border raids, terrorism, or rocket attacks against its cities, will have to be part of Israel’s calculations for any “day after” scenario.  The challenges posed by the Iranian nuclear program are numerous, with many of the different nodes being interrelated. The problem is made all the more intractable by an increasingly volatile region that is sharply divided along sectarian lines. Hezbollah is but one of the many players involved, but should it choose to do so, it has the capacity to inflict great harm on Israel.

With the election right around the corner, the chickens are going to come home to roost.  Our ability to print our own currency and buy all the commodities we want with it is the exorbitant privilege that allowed us to export most of the problems within the monetary system elsewhere first.  As Nixon’s Treasury Secretary John Connelly said when confronted by a group of European Finance Ministers: “it’s our currency, but your problem.”  At the time he was correct, as we were at the very beginning of the fiat dollar standard.  41 years later the system is in its final days and our currency is about to become our problem as well. There were always going to be massive consequences to keeping this ponzi alive. The main point here is one I was hammering on in my last piece The Global Spring.  You can only push people so far into hardship before things snap.  They snapped in North Africa.  They snapped in Southern Europe.  They snapped in China.  They are about to snap here.  Oh, and one last thing.  What do you think all of this signals for corporate margins?

The state of Americans’ retirement accounts is dismal is how ConvergEx's Nick Colas begins his critically important-to-read note on the reality that millions face. According to an early 2012 study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, Colas notes only 58% of us are currently saving money for retirement – and 60% of those that are have less than $25,000. Thirty percent have less than $1,000. Needless to say, it’s a far cry from the 8x-10x final earnings suggested by most retirement planners. So why are we so far behind? Americans aren’t exactly known for impressive savings habits, but that alone does not explain our poor preparation for retirement. Rather, Colas cites a general lack of financial literacy, including basic understandings of savings growth and retirement income needs, superseding financial obligations, and basic behavioral finance biases keep us from putting cash away. But if we keep up at this pace, you can expect the ongoing political debate about Social Security to take on new and more strident tones.

The usual definition of a recession is GDP goes negative. But this isn't necessarily true. Notice that GDP never went below the zero line in the 2001 recession. Dipping close to zero was good enough. The more interesting line is our composite of economic activity. We can pose the "recession" question in this way: if real investment, net earnings after debt service and M2 money are all puking, how can the economy be "growing slowly but steadily"?

AAPL slumbered today (fading at VWAPs) and GOOG stumbled on FTC settlement chatter - dragging Nasdaq to its biggest weekly loss in almost 5 months. Financials were also sold hard (following what every talking head said was 'good' earnings by JPM and WFC this morning) - leaving the sector down 3.7% from post-QEternity highs with previous darling WFC slapped down to BofA/MS levels post-QE -6.5%. Dow Transports outperformed its peers on the week (ending very slightly red) but this remains more a pairs-trade story than anything to hang a 'recovery' on. The S&P has auctioned back to the top of the post-Draghi spike - battle is commencing. Treasury yields legged down once again (long-bond down 18bps on the week at lows) but pulled off the lows after Europe closed -5bps to -14bps as the curve flattened. The USD limped lower for the last few days but ended the week +0.45%. While Oil managed a 2% rise on the week, we saw commodities getting sold today with Gold/Silver sliding (-1.44% and 2.9% respectively on the week). After an early spike down, VIX leaked back higher all day ending at the magical 16% level - up 1.5vols on the week.

Ron 'I'm playing the long-game' Paul will not go quietly into the night - and rightly so, it would seem, given his truthiness. In a recent brief interview on CNBC's Futures Now, he managed to diss Romney, smash the 'belief' in a 'two-party' system, and undermine any hope for economic change from the farce of an election. Summed up simply: "There is essentially no difference between one administration and another, no matter what the platform."

We talk a lot about the importance of owning precious metals… and often for the sake of convenience, we lump gold and silver together in the same category. But while the two share similar characteristics as excellent inflation hedges and stores of value, silver has unique fundamentals worth considering. For starters, while the entire gold market is small, the silver market is even smaller. This means that, in a boom, silver is going to rise more rapidly than gold. In a bust, silver is going to drop more rapidly. This gives silver an interesting edge as a speculation. And one way to play this is to buy specific types of silver whose premiums soar during financial panics.

With equities sat the edge of an ugly-looking cliff and precious metals leaking lower, FX markets remain somewhat less shell-shocked (for now). Citi's Steve Englander provides a quick-and-dirty view of the five key issues FX investors are focusing on.

In a little over three minutes, CNBC's Gary 'Golden Gloves' Kaminsky not only pointed out the dismal reality of our political class but explained, in his out loud voice - which we assumed was typically suppressed for career-limiting reasons - exactly what he thinks of Joe Biden and what he would have done had be been sat next to him on that table. In saying what we suspect a lot of readers may have felt, Kaminsky exposes the underbelly; as like many of Wall Street who are 'compelled' to give politicians money (Biden has raised the great majority of his funds from financial services firms) hearing the hypocritical "wall-street-vs-main-street" double-talk and 'nasty' laughing and smirking last night made the ex-PM angry. Impressed at Ryan's calm, Kaminsky sums it all up, about Biden: "I would have punched the guy in the face!" - the truth.

From the morning of Draghi's press-conference on 9/6, Treasury bond prices and Gold have danced an interesting waltz around one another. After recoupling on 9/26, they once again divorced for two weeks, only to reconcile their differences once again today. Is the toing-and -froing of inflation views driving gold and bonds  - and does that mean Gold is almost done with its drop here as Both the Long-Bond and Gold are now both up 1.22% from QEternity.

With AAPL sat just above its 100DMA, unable to hold gains this morning, the S&P 500 futures have just broken below their 50DMA for the first time since July 25th. The Bernanke-Spike has gone and now the Draghi-Dagger comes into focus... as financial earnings fail to spark another hope-driven rally. From the day before Draghi's spike, the VWAP (volume-weighted average price) for S&P 500 futures is 1444.5 - so on average in aggregate buyers are now losers.

To quote David Rosenberg: "there is no good time, but better now than waiting to be shocked into the retrenchment later on. If left unchecked, the Federal debt/GDP ratio will breach 100% within the next two or three years. Do we really need to turn European? And more importantly, even under a sustained low interest rate policy, debt service costs will continue to bite into the revenue base - so much so that they will soon begin to absorb more than 20% of total tax receipts. At a time when grim demographic realities will push dependency ratios higher and with that ever-spiralling entitlement spending, the power of compound interest on a continued mountain of debt even assuming years of low rates will ensnare fiscal finances and seriously limit our policy flexibility in the future."