Archive - Nov 2012 - Story

Those living in the dust bowl responded by doing more of what had failed rather than doing something different. Ours is a dust bowl economy.  In our economy, debt is the marginal field that has been plowed up for brief exploitation and profit. In response to the drought of income and collateral that supports debt, the Federal Reserve, Congress and the Obama administration have actively made the crisis worse by doing more of what failed spectacularly: encouraging more debt with zero-interest rate policy (ZIRP), massive "socialized" subsidies of housing and mortgages, and so on. When the present path cannot possibly lead to success, regardless of the labor and treasure poured into the effort, then risking the unknown by trying something different is the only way forward.

Remember Kweku Adoboli: the 32 year old rogue trader who was solely responsible for UBS' massive $2.3 billion trading loss, and cost the firm's then CEO his job?

• ADOBOLI SENTENCED TO 7 YEARS IN PRISON BY LONDON JUDGE
• JUDGE SAYS ADOBOLI MUST SERVE AT LEAST HALF OF HIS TERM

So the trade off: 3.5 years in exchange for several million in hush money. Where does one sign up?

As investors' and traders' attention spans diminish at ever-increasing speed, it is perhaps useful to step back and survey a landscape of global economic growth from a longer-term panorama in order to grasp the real trend and the real unusualness of our current environment. UBS' Art Cashin, while not 800 years old, reflects on such a long-term cycle providing some perspective on our belief that "economic growth be regarded as a continuous process that will persist forever," opining that perhaps, based on the study below (Is US Economic Growth Over?), we "could well be a unique episode in human history rather than a guarantee of endless future advance at the same rate." Of course, that would never fit with the current meme that growth is credit is life, but nevertheless well worth some introspection as we give thanks this week.

As we approach the end of the year and the various cliffs, bungee jumps and political idiocy that is in front of us you might want to take some time and pay attention to some friendly advice.  Yes, of course you know everything, yes of course there is nothing that escapes your attention and you are personally plugged in to the inter-galactic computer that provides not only financial answers and but divine indulgences but still; keeping an open ear might be a novel experience. Take some profits. You and I have no idea what these “detached retinas” might do in Washington. If you are betting for a living then I would say that the craps table is now safer than Europe. These people have flown over the cuckoo’s nest and have become disoriented by the flight. Parties such as this are funny things; the jesters jest, the Kings lord, the Palace of Versailles is abuzz and it all goes along until someone switches off the lights. Keep your eyes on the switches!

With everyone throwing the kitchen sink into creating the illusion that this time housing has bottomed, seriously, this morning's report on housing starts and permits was set to be quite awkward: on one hand, realistic data accounting for weakness due to Sandy would have broken the housing momentum - many were expecting a far weaker than expected print precisely due to the Hurricane. On the other, the Census Bureau could have gone hog wild and completely ignored the same reality that apparently is impacting all other data points, and said housing starts soared to their highest number in 4 years, or a seasonally adjusted 894,000 in October, up 3.6% from a downward revised 863,000 in September, and well above expectations of a Sandy-driven decline of 3.7% to 840K. The CB opted for the latter, while adding a solid pinch of seasonal adjustment to the data, which not annualized and not seasonally adjusted rose from 77.8K to 77.9K sales. In this number was the drop in Northeast housing starts from 4K to 3.5K, the lowest since February. The mystery boost came in the West, where annualized starts rose from 198K to 232K, even as they dropped in the South and Northeast. Finally, and more irrelevant, housing permits dropped from 890K to 866K seasonally adjusted, even as the NSA number rose from 71.4K to 75.0K.

For your Arthur Andersen nostaglia pleasure, we present Deloitte's February 2011 sign off on the firm's 2011 full year results. And to avoid the Twinkie Tsunami and beat the rush, be sure to buy your soon to be collectible, pre-petition HP-12C now before the imminent price surge occurs.

That Hewlett Packard would miss results (it did, with revenues coming at $30.0 billion on expectations of $30.4 billion, guiding Q1 ESP $0.68-$0.71 on expectations of $0.85) is no surprise to anyone who had followed the stock, and/or seen the recent dump of half of Seth Klarman's stake in the name (as was pointed out here previously). What was not only surprising, but shocking is that as part of its earnings announcement, HPQ took a $8.8 billion impairment charge to intangibles and earnings, primarily as a result of what it said was "serious accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and outright misrepresentations at Autonomy Corporation plc that occurred prior to HP's acquisition of Autonomy and the associated impact of those improprieties, failures and misrepresentations on the expected future financial performance of the Autonomy business over the long-term." As a reminder, HPQ bought Autonomy plc for $10.3 billion in August 2011. We now learn that anywhere between 50% and 80% of this purchase price was based on meaningless numbers and fraud. $10.3 billion is also about 40% of what HPQ's market cap will be when the stock opens down at least 10%. And this is how one destroys shareholder value. One in this case being the company's former CEO Leo Apotheker, whose executive decisions and lack of diligence have left the company in a state of complete disaster. What was Leo's punishment for his brief tenure on top of HPQ and swath of absolute value destruction? $25,000,000 in all in comp.

• More QE could distort rather than deliver (FT)
• Soros Buying Gold as Record Prices Seen on Stimulus (BBG)
• EU Leaders Face Greek Aid Gap in Brinkmanship With IMF (BBG)
• Weak data point to bigger economic drag from Sandy (Reuters)
• Shirakawa Pushes Back With Criticism of Abe Unlimited Easing (BBG) But... but... Bernanke??
• French Downgrade Widens Gulf With Germany as Talks Loom (BBG)
• Japanese Poll Shows LDP Advantage Ahead of Election (WSJ)
• BOJ in the Balance as Next Government Picks Top Posts (BBG)
• Exchanges Get Closer Inspection (WSJ)
• Greece edges closer to €44bn bailout (FT)
• Japan Government to Spend 1 Trillion Yen on Next Stimulus (BBG)
• China’s Richest Woman Divorces Husband, Fortune Declines (BBG)

Another day, another melt up overnight wiping out all the post-Moody's weakness, this time coming courtesy of Europe, where following the French downgrade, the EURUSD filled its entire gap down and then some in the span of minutes following the European open, when it moved from 1.2775 to 1.2820 as if on command. And with the ES inextricably linked to the most active and levered pair in the world, it is is no surprise to see futures unchanged. It appears that the primary catalyst in the centrally planned market has become the opening of said "market" itself, as all other news flow is now largely irrelevant: after all the central planners have it all under control.

From buy French bonds and the EUR, to sell French bonds and the EUR, every possible opinion is included in the list below.

Unwilling to sacrifice their sovereignty at the altar of the ECB's contingent OMT (and unable to wrench 'help' from their previously colonized friends in Latin America; it seems Rajoy and friends are more than willing to sacrifice their actual land... and citizenship in order to maintain their 'independence'. Reuters reports that Spain is considering offering rich investors from countries such as Russia and China the right to settle in return for them buying up property in the stagnant housing sector. For buying property worth as little as $200,000, wealthy foreigners could be offered a residency permit, the country's commerce secretary said on Monday. This is the same nation with near 11% loan delinquencies, greater-than-50% youth unemployment, and a bad-bank loaded with heavily discounted real-estate assets that are still too expensive to encourage investors, and an ever-present devaluation risk hanging over its paralyzed economy. We wonder how the other nations of the EU will feel about Spain 'diluting' the citizen-asset pool with this new non-tax-paying, non-labor-utilizing 'wealth'. How long before Greece sells plots on Santorini (w/passport)?

The days just prior to the end of the third quarter now appear like a million years away, and a hundred S&P point away, but they were marked by one notable thing: the price of AAPL hit an all time high just days before the quarter ended. Which is why we read with great interest the quarterly Hedge Fund tracker update by David Kostin, which has been aggregating the popularity of the most prominent hedge fund-beloved names, and which as readers are well aware, has for the past two years been primarily one name: AAPL. And yet, even with the stock price hitting a lifetime high of over $700/share, which in turn would have assumed even more momentum chasers should have jumped in, June 30 saw the world's most popular hedge fund hotel in history rise by just one tenant for the entire quarter, as the number of Hedge Funds owning the stock, rose to a new record, but by the tiniest of increments: from 230, as of June 30, to 231, on September 30. It is thus safe to say that with barely any incremental holders jumping in when the stock was rising to its all time highs, the recent weakness is only and purely a function of the rising trajectory in hedge fund tenants at Hotel AAPL-fornia finally having been broken, as first one then more holders quietly slip out of the world's biggest hedge fund hotel in the quiet of the night while the receptionist is still taking a bathroom break. The only question is how many. That is an answer we will have in mid-February when the December 13Fs are released.

Over the past year there have been many articles published about the decoupling of the U.S. economy from the the Eurozone.  The belief was based on the simple fact that the Eurozone was facing a debt crisis, combined with austerity measures, which the U.S. would avoid. While there have been brief moments where the U.S. looked like it could stand on its own in the past - the drag from a global slowdown proved too strong to withstand.  This time, as expected, appears to be no different.

Today's market summary from Goldman about sums it up:

Though a convincing explanation might be hard to come by, equities posted a serious rally today. Tech leads as those stocks hardest hit of late also bounce the most. This means AAPL adds over 7% on the day. Here’s a fun fact: from Friday’s low to today’s high AAPL rallied over 12% – or about 58bn in market cap. A rally always feels good but that type of volatility is hard to reconcile with a healthy market.

One question for Goldman: what's a "healthy" "market"?