Archive - Aug 10, 2012 - Story

Mitt Romney is set to announce his choice for running mate tomorrow morning according to Bloomberg news. The wires are alive with multiple sources confirming it will be none other than Paul 'budget-bill' Ryan - which appears to be a more aggressive choice than the safer options as Rubio, Portman, and Pawlenty are all bridesmaids and not the bride. Ryan-ney? Rom-an? R-Squared? Ro-Ry?

When we wrote Part I of this paper in June 2009, the total U.S. public debt was just north of $10 trillion. Since then, that figure has increased by more than 50% to almost $16 trillion, thanks largely to unprecedented levels of government intervention. Once the exclusive domain of central bankers and policy makers, acronyms such as QE, LTRO, SMP, TWIST, TARP, TALF have found their way into the mainstream. With the aim of providing stimulus to the economy, central planners of all stripes have both increased spending and reduced taxes in most rich countries. But do these fiscal and monetary measures really increase economic activity or do they have other perverse effects?...  The politically favoured option of financial repression and negative real interest rates has important implications. Negative real interest rates are basically a thinly disguised tax on savers and a subsidy to profligate borrowers. By definition, taxes distort incentives and, as discussed earlier, discourage savings.... The current misconception that our economic salvation lies with more stimulus is both treacherous and self-defeating. As long as we continue down this path, the “solution” will continue to be the problem. There is no miracle cure to our current woes and recent proposals by central planners risk worsening the economic outlook for decades to come.

The presidential season has started in earnest. First to hit the hustings was the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Eric Rosengren, who, true to his blue-state roots, pressed the case for an open-ended asset purchase program. Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher made the red-state argument for easing off the monetary gas pedal. Increased chatter from Fed officials is a marker Morgan Stanley's Vince Reinhart has long-identified as signifying increased chance of Fed action. And we are hearing it. But why do Fed officials talk so much in advance of action? Fed officials must be disappointed by an economic outlook that falls short of both of their objectives. They individually think that policy can do better, but they cannot collectively agree on how.

The first step toward liberty is to see through the masking fog the state engulfs itself in to carry out its deeds of conquest. Using reason to discover absolute truths is an essential part of determining how one should live their life in accordance with sound ethics.  Relativism denies this.  It can deny that evil is committed by the state and that reprehensible acts are perfectly okay when done by individuals with guns and badges.  All it takes to reverse such destructive thinking is the realization that state authority deserves no pass in moral scrutiny.  Withdrawing consent comes next on the path to a free society.

Three months to the election? Check. Which means war-mongering rhetoric, once considered a staple of the GOP, may very soon become action, first in Syria, and soon, everywhere else. From Bloomberg: "The U.S. and allied forces probably will impose a “no-fly zone” over Syria and take other “more aggressive action” against the Syrian regime, former Defense Secretary William Cohen said. While the U.S. has been leery of another military intervention after a decade of wars, “We’re coming to the point, however, where the violence is getting so severe, I think, that you’ll see a movement towards setting up those no- fly zones,” Cohen said on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt” airing this weekend." Is war and immediate geopolitical escalation guaranteed? Not yet: "The former Pentagon chief and Maine senator, now chairman and chief executive officer of the Cohen Group consulting firm in Washington, said any U.S. military action would depend on participation and support from allies." Although desperate times, and by that we mean unfavorably trending popularity ranking, will certainly require desperate measures. Such as the continued massive build up of US naval assets in the middle east.

Today's MANU fiasco tipped the scale on the dichotomy between the seeming exuberance that occurs on the stock exchange floors (and the incipient media attached to it) and the reality of what an IPO is and what exchanges do. Since the middle of last year - when the impossible was suddenly made possible by the US debt downgrade and markets realized that Keynesian arithmetic was an academic version of three-card-Monti - Bloomberg's IPO index has dramatically diverged in performance from the ever-exuberant S&P 500. This index of post-IPO performance sends an ominous signal. It must be clear by now that IPOs now occur when when MANAGEMENT want to cash out - simply put they are trying to maximize their gain. The divergence between new-money weakness and stuck-money strength highlights more than ever the Muppet-fleecing purpose of 'our markets'.

Iran has been pushed into a corner and is fighting for its life.  The safest weapon in its arsenal is an economic strategy; and it is the one point where the United States is vulnerable. It is no secret that many governments object to the sanctions and are willing to deal outside of normal channels for a reduced price.  If the Iranians should use the new private traders to dump a few million barrels of oil onto the market at a sharply discounted price, they just might encourage one of these governments to openly defy the United States for a bargain. As a persecuted minority, the Shia have learned that the weaker in a conflict must employ cunning rather than muscle. It is the inherent weakness of the alliance that is Iran’s strength.  The unwillingness of Washington to pressure supposed allies and the simple fact that there are buyers willing to defy the sanctions secretly reveals the cracks in the system.

Sometimes, some things are best left unsaid...

UPDATE: MANU below IPO price at $13.90 now....sigh

You know the score by now. Equities stage late day surge to green driven by an irrepressible squeeze lower in short-term volatility but high-yield credit doesn't follow suit as volume remains absolutely amazingly incredibly non-existent. S&P 500 e-mini futures (ES) ended the week nicely higher - closing today at the highs over 1402 (at the day-session close) with VIX at 5 month lows well under 15% (down 0.5 vols on the day which is a big move for a 1.5pt ES gain). HYG (the high-yield bond ETF) ended lower again - basically 5 days in a row - which is very unusual given equity's push to new highs. Risk assets in general did leak higher as stocks pushed up but are notably less bullish (and it appeared from our chats that credit desks left early and the IG and HY indices were simply being reracked higher - as opposed to traded there). Gold outperformed on the day - and it seemed like the EOD ramp in ES was a magnetic pull to Gold - as it disconnected from Treasuries and FX quite handily. The USD ends the week up 0.29% (yes, up), the S&P 500 up 1% while Treasuries limped a little higher in yield today to end the week 5-10bps higher (and steeper) in yield and commodities up the same as stocks (around 1%) aside from oil which managed 2.2% on the week.

Reed Hastings is not a popular man with NFLX shareholders. After taking the stock just shy of $300 last summer, a series of abysmal executive decisions that followed (including buying company stock using corporate cash near the peak) has seen the video streamer plumb news depths, and recently was trading at fresh two year lows. One would think that if indeed the CEO had some extra cash lying around that he could do something, anything to prop up his company, and send some signal of confidence in the now battered one time high-flying DVD-rental company. And would also be right. Partially. Because as the attached From 4 indicates, Reed did indeed just fork over $1 million to buy new shares. Only problem is the stock he bought was not his own but that of... FaceBook. Which he bought at an average price $21. Of course, if one needed glaring evidence that FB is going far lower, this is it. Yet we certainly thank Reed for telling us and his shareholders that NFLX is still not low enough for him to even consider buying some here.

Two months ago, in the aftermath of the "surprising victory" for the Italian PM from the June 29 European summit, which the media mistakenly interpreted as successful for Monti and Rajoy, whose hijacking tactics merely led to even more European animosity and instability in a system that is beyond fragile (i.e., Europe), we proposed an entirely different explanation, namely that "Merkel's Surprising "Defeat" was Merely A Gambit For A German Referendum?" To wit: "it appears that events over the past week may have been merely a gambit for something that Schauble and Weidmann have already hinted at: a popular referendum that decides the fate of Europe once and for all, washing Merkel's hands and letting the people decide if they want the European experiment to continue or not." Turns out we were right.

With 26 million shares traded and two more exhausting market-making hours to go for MANU's underwriters, it is clear that more than double the 16.67 million share float will be 'rotated' at least twice and yet stay in a 10 cent interval (with well over 95% of that within a minute 5c interval). What is perhaps more stunning is the massive bid at exactly $14 - the IPO price - as if they will never learn. Of course there are buyers for every seller and many algos played all day but with a massively dominant bid soaking up any and all offers near $14.00, we suspect the underwriters of the MANU IPO are 'pulling-a-facebook' and onboarding whatever they have to. There has now been 9.5 million shares bid at $14.00 (and none asked) - more than half the float alone! It seems increasingly self-evident that IPOs are simply weath transfer mechanisms - no win-win - and that the value-add from 'stock exchanges' is rapidly converging to zero.

The phrase "Are You Better Off Than You Were Four Years Ago?" and "It’s the Economy, Stupid" have become standards of American election discourse in recent decades. And seemingly for good reason. Although it is rare to unseat an incumbent, poor economic performance seems to play a role. We are less than four months away from the US Presidential election. Financial and economic developments have caused surprise political outcomes around the world from time to time.  UBS took a look back at the first terms of the nine presidents that preceded President Obama to determine if the performance of economic variables had any predictive power in determining the odds of re-election for a second term. The news is not good, from GDP growth to real disposable income, and from unemployment to the Misery Index, it seems the bailer-out-in-chief may just have an uphill battle.

The juggernaut continues as Egan Jones exposes a key issue we have been discussing: namely that in the absence of actual trading, banks, which can no longer rely on Net Interest Margin, will have to get smaller, leaner and more efficient, or else lose some of the competition. Such as Bear. Such as Lehman. Maybe, even, such as Knight.

The last few weeks have not been fun for California. Facebook's face-plant removed a large part of the unbelievably 'expected' tax revenues for the state, Stockton BK'd, and now we find out that San Bernadino - the latest and greatest city to file for municipal bankruptcy (after a $46 million shortfall in its budget was irreconcilable). The reason it's a big deal - unfortunately the state's retirement fund - CalPERS - is the city's largest creditor by far with a wonderful $143.3 million exposure. This is more than half the entire debt load of $281.4 million of the Top 20 creditors alone! The deadline for creditors to challenge bankruptcy eligibility is September 21st and we suspect that until then, the comptrollers should be renamed the Golden State Worriers? What is ironic is the same unions that we suppose are fighting the city over cuts and forcing it to take such drastic action are likely to be entirely beholden to their pension benefits from the very same CalPERS which is about to take a sizable haircut.