Archive - Nov 2012 - Story

In 1936, the US government began circulating a series of pamphlets to explain its brand new Social Security program, plus the associated taxes. Initially, the Social Security tax was set at 2%. The government promised it would rise to 3% in 1949, with no additional increases EVER: "[F]inally, beginning in 1949. . . you and your employer will each pay 3 cents on each dollar you earn, up to $3,000 a year. That is the most you will ever pay." In 1949, the tax rose to 3% as scheduled. But it only took five years for the government to break its promise. Politicians routinely make bold promises about tax policy... and they almost always end up being lies. Perhaps most dangerously, politicians fail to understand that raising tax rates does NOT actually increase government tax revenue.

"With EUR now at 1.2773 versus 1.2816 just before the announcement there is probably more downside till the kneejerk reaction is out of the way. But on the whole it seems likely that this more reflects an already existing reality than new information for the market so the downside should be relatively limited, and nothing that could not be cured by an aggressive Fed indication on balance sheet expansion."

It seems the bond market was onto something today in its lack of exuberance. Following the after-hours FrAAnce downgrade, which very conveniently happened 2 minutes after the ES quiet period started, EURUSD has tumbled giving the day-session's gains back and retraced back to where Treasuries ended the day. This would infer S&P futures open down notably - around 1370-75 (note 1377 was closing VWAP and may be support).

After hours shots fired, with Moody's hitting the long overdue one notch gong on France:

• MOODY'S DOWNGRADES FRANCE'S GOVT BOND RATING TO Aa1 FROM Aaa
  
• FRANCE MAINTAINS NEGATIVE OUTLOOK BY MOODY'S

Euro tumbling. In other news, UK: AAA/Aaa; France: AA+/Aa1... Let the flame wars begin

The Hostess bankruptcy liquidation, the result of a bungled negotiation between the company, its equity sponsors, its striking workers, and the labor union, over what has been defined as unsustainable benefits and pension benefits, is rapidly becoming a Ding Ding farce. The latest news in what promises to be an epic Chapter 22 fight is that the judge, pressured by various impaired stakeholders, among which none other than the US trustee, is that the bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain has ordered the company and its unions to seek private mediation to attempt averting what the company has already said is an inevitable unwind of operations. More to the point, and as we predicted on Friday, if there is an outright purchase of the company, it will be a standalone entity, without its unions: Hostess will draw strategic buyers and private-equity investors for its brands, Rayburn said, without naming potential bidders. The company is “more attractive” to buyers without the unions, he said. In other words, if the Union had hoped that their workers would be retained by the purchasing entity, their dreams just got shattered. But while the Union may be sad, it is about to add another emotion to its arsenal: blind fury. Because it is here that things get truly surreal. As the US Trustee, a Justice Department official responsible for protecting creditors, disclosed, as part of the winddown of Hostess, wants to pay as much as $1.75 million in incentive bonuses to 19 senior managers during the liquidation.

Presenting 74 seconds of pure Krugmanism from the mouth of the man himself - Keynes 1939 (pre-war) radio address on the beginning of The Grand Experiment...

Best day in 5 months for stocks. AAPL jumping to one-week highs with its 2nd biggest low to high swing in 3 years. Wherever you look, the worst came first and so the talking heads re-appeared saying the worst is over and all is rainbows, unicorns, and mountains are once again molehills. Unfortunately, while ETFs were smashed higher (HYG biggest move in a year on 2nd largest volume ever back above its 200DMA, VXX crushed -9%), risk assets broadly speaking were not playing along with Treasuries especially drifting lower in yield from the European close (and EURUSD) as stocks surged to the highs of the day. Commodities soared with Oil leading the way - though post-Europe everything flattened and leaked lower. VIX collapsed 1.2vols to end just above 15% (notably ahead of stocks relatively speaking) but equity volume on the day was dismally low as S&P 500 futures broke back above the 200DMA amid larger than average trade size.

Today's AAPL move, on no news, is as of this moment a $35+ move in one trading session, or a $30+ billion market cap move in one trading session, and a nearly $60 move from the Friday lows. As the histogram below shows, in absolute terms, this is the second largest intraday move up in the stock in the past two years, and a 4 sigma move for a stock which has moved 7% on a 1.7% standard deviation, for no other reason than the "stock is oversold" or whatever other narrative those who put narratives to stock moves have ascribed to it today. And with HFT's determining valuation based on momentum, RSI, Bollinger bands, and other meaningless New Normal technicals, we have just gone from massively oversold, to massively-er overbought.

They do it every time – i.e., they buy more junk debt than ever at precisely the riskiest points in the cycle. Naturally this can go swimmingly for a good while, but as a general rule of thumb it is far better to buy such risky paper when the compensation one gets for taking the risk is actually adequate. In spite of investors' bitter experiences with such exuberance, the cycle repeats over and over again. The driving force behind it is the central bank's easy money policy - which brings the sugar highs of today, but also the hangovers and steep losses of tomorrow. The markets have seen this movie before – long ago.

Corporate profits have been boosted unusually in recent years by fiscal support to the economy, the very heart of the risk posed by 'the cliff.' Despite all the political rhetoric, jawboning and pre-election bluster, corporations may or may not be people, but what they have turned out to be is the government's best friend as without corporations firing millions, the government would be unable to enslave everyone via a habituation to the government's "transfer payment" generosity. Since government has no 'choice' but to do its rightful duty and bail out those poor citizens crushed by the "evil" corporations, it allows the US Treasury to spend, spend, spend under the guise of another false conflict. The corporations (knowingly or unknowingly) are doing the government's bidding (and receiving the quid pro quo) even as the tentacles of uber-government reach everywhere and more than half the US population would exist in a state of learned helplessness if its weren't for Uncle Sam's weekly check, modest as it may be. To summarize: crony Capitalism for richest, socialism for the poorest; and the middle class goes the way of the Twinkie Dodo.

It has been a while since broke Greece, which has been begging Europe for the 5 month delayed €31.5 billion tranche, which will be used to pay the ECB and other German banks, and not to enter the Greek economy, was a chooser. Today, the little country that could not, has once again stretched its feeble repo'ed muscles:

• GREEK OFFICIAL SAYS GOVERNMENT WON'T ACCEPT NEW TROIKA REQUEST
• GREEK OFFICIAL SAYS TROIKA WANTS 20,000 STATE EMPLOYEE SACKINGS 
• GREEK OFFICIAL SAYS COALITION PARTIES TO SET UP C'TEE FOR GOVT

Perhaps Greece forgot to clarify "by email" but certainly by fax, telex, or even carrier pigeon, because once the Troika calls it bluff, the "lost in translation" explanations will commence. Until then, the farce continues.

As many prepare for the imminent demise of the JPY (courtesy of Abe's aggression), Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg reminds us of possibly the greatest (and most unbelievably hilarious) financial advertisement ever. From our friends across the ocean, "Men that own government bonds are popular with the ladies!" Don't believe its real? Bloomberg story here.

Austerity is coming our way, it's just a matter in what manner and by how much, and whether it becomes an orderly or disorderly process. The fiscal cliff is really a bit of a ruse in that respect, but the key here is that years of fiscal profligacy is coming to an end and the Fed at this point, having used its bazookas, is now down to firecrackers. The economic outlook as such is completely muddled and along with that the prospect for any turnaround in corporate earnings... Once we get past the Fiscal Cliff we will confront the inherent inability of the Democrats and the GOP to embark on any grand bargain to blaze the trail for true fiscal reforms. The U.S. has not had a rewrite of its tax code since 1986, which was the year Microsoft went public and a decade prior to Al Gore's invention of the Internet. The tax system is massively inefficient and leads to a gross misallocation of resources that impedes economic progress — rewarding conspicuous consumption at the expense of savings and investment. It is the lingering uncertainty over the road to meaningful fiscal reform that is really the mot cause of the angst — the fiscal cliff is really a side show because who doesn't know that we are going to have a Khrushchev moment?

While some of the smartest chaps on the street suggest that being long of Gold in cowbell terms is the trade of the decade, it appears the winner off the March 2009 lows remains long of Gold in plain-old USD terms. Gold in USD terms has risen 84.5% from the 2009 equity lows and leads the race-to-debase while JPY (until very recently) was the big loser among the majors - debasing itself a mere 52%. It seems Mr. Abe had better get to work...

During a week in which Americans are supposed to give thanks, we thought this inside look at the reality on the streets of Greece was worthwhile comprehending. From the May 2011 Syntagma Square uprising to "the 'firesale' of their country, their labor rights, and their livelihoods to corrupt domestic elites and foreign financial interests" the brief documentary follows the dramatic portrait of a country veering to the brink of collapse - and the people who choose to struggle to build a new world from the ruins of the old. "For [the elites] Greece is a guinea pig, to find out up to what point they can 'milk' [us]" is how one narrator describes the situation, adding that "they are refusing to see the reality [saying] it's not happening, it's not happening, it's not happening, everything is gonna be alright; Nothing is gonna be alright" as "loans enslave people." Utopia remains on the horizon...