Archive - Aug 2012 - Story

A year ago the mere mention of Greece selling its real estate, let along its prized islands, was enough to fill Syntagma square with tear gas, laser light pointers and the occasional riot dog. Now - nobody cares, which is why the statement by Greek PM Samaras that he is ready to start selling Greek islands was largely met with a yawn across the investing world.

The last few months have seen a rapid deterioration in economic newsflow. SocGen's newsflow indicators, which capture sentiment regarding trends in the underlying economy (based on the balance of economic strength and weakness in newswire and newspaper articles) typically leads the economy by around three months. Currently, this intriguing indicator suggests a notable drop off in global industrial production - and furthermore, while Fed/ECB anticipation has dragged market-implied inflation expectations up, newsflow has biased towards deflation rather notably in the last few months. It seems that rather than being the chess pieces of global central planners, we really do have minds of our own and act in our own best interest.

Industrial unrest hobbling the South African platinum industry deepened yesterday, prompting fears of a broader mining crisis in one of the main platinum and gold producing countries. Platinum and gold prices continued to soar partly due to real concerns of supply disruptions after 44 people died during strikes at a pit owned by  Lonmin. About a fifth of global platinum production capacity is idled in South Africa today as the nation holds a day of mourning for 44 miners and policemen killed in the deadliest police violence since apartheid ended (see Newswire). Massive discontent has spread to two other important platinum mines. Amplats, the world’s largest platinum producer that is 80% owned by Anglo American, disclosed it had received demands for pay rises at its Thembelani mine. Meanwhile, another miner, Royal Bafokeng, said about 500 people were protesting outside its Rasimone mine, and preventing others from going to work. It seems likely that the protests will spread from the platinum sector, to other sectors, including the gold mining sector.

One month of positive economic surprises since the last FOMC may be all we get, now that a "majority" of FOMC members suddenly need a rapid deterioration in economic data to usher in the NEWER, MORE OPEN-ENDED QE. Initial claims was happy to comply: after posting several weeks in a row of "beats", claims has finally resumed "missing", as well as rising, posting an increase from last week's upward revised 368K print to 372K this week, worse than the expected improvement to 365K, and to a one month high. And with continuing claims missing too, the real story continues to be the steep fall off in those on extended benefits and EUC, which declined by a total of 48K in the past week, and down by about half a million in the last few months, and lower by 1.3 million in the past year. This is 1.3 million fewer consumers who can recycle Uncle Sam's dole back into the economy and iGadgets. The question is whether this minimal miss is enough to justify the FOMC doves' fears the much more QE is needed. Judging by the futures reaction to Bullard and claims, the answer is so far no, and in fact points to something very ominous: the closer the Fed (and ECB) come to actually doing something instead of talking about it, the more negative the market reaction seems to be. Woe to Bernanke or Draghi the second they finally have to do something instead of telling listeners to "believe them."

With only days until the great unveiling and back-slapping that is the GOP's 'convention without walls', we humbly suggest they erect some - and buy some umbrellas. In NOAA's most recent update, Hurricane Isaac is forecast to pass right down the middle of main street Tampa amid Romney-and-Ryan's great moment so far. Of course, TOTUS will be riley smiling, noting that God didn't build this storm, his government did. Somewhat ironically, Tampa mayor Bob Buckhorn added, for once, "Safety is going to trump politics" - perhaps he should tell Bernanke.

Reports that the ECB is discussing a new variation for sovereign bond purchases involving secret caps for interest rates failed to support  peripheral EU bonds and instead provided market participants with an opportunity to book profits following recent strong gains. As a result, 10y peripheral bonds with respect to the benchmark German Bund are wider by around 12bps, with the shorter dated 2y bonds wider by around  15bps. This underperformance by peripheral EU assets is also evident in the stock market, where the IBEX and the Italian FTSE-MIB failed to match performance of the core indices today. The latest PMI data from the Eurozone, as well as China overnight underpinned the need for more simulative measures either from respective central banks or the government. While the PBOC continues to refrain from more easing, the release of the FOMC minutes last night revealed the members favoured easing soon if no growth doesn’t pick up.

Following yesterday's FOMC minutes we suggested that the minutes are, all facts considered, extremely stale, especially when one actually observes the surge in all economic indicators (or should we say seasonal adjustments) since the last FOMC meeting. Moments ago, on CNBC, non-voting St Louis Fed president confirmed just that.

• St. Louis Fed President Bullard says FOMC minutes “are a bit stale”.
• Says some data stronger since FOMC minutes
• Doesn’t know where FOMC will come out on easing
• Says “different constellation” of data vs 2011
• Says “not sure” data warrant big FOMC action
• Says U.S. unemployment “very high”
• Says “we’re not going to react” directly to stock market

In other words, the FOMC minutes do not reflect the economy, but the Fed does not care about the market which just happens to be at 2012 highs, as it does not reflect the economy either, but instead reflects merely what the FOMC thinks, which in turn reacts solely to the market.

Broke Eurogroup viceroy Jean-Claude Juncker meets broke Greek P(anhandling)M(aster) Antonis Samaras. Will a happy ending finally result? Stay tuned as Greece (and the Eurogroup) beg for Germany to finally stop saying "9".

• Australian minister says resources boom is over (Reuters)
• China dismisses reports of lost gold reserves (China Daily) - so China really did lose 80 tons of gold.
• Inconceivable: Former JPM CEO and Chairman William B Harrison Jr come out "In Defense Of Big Banks"
• Qantas Cancels 787 Order After Posting Annual Net Loss (Bloomberg)
• EU Official Says Crisis is Eroding Influence (WSJ)
• Greece Faces New Pressure on Cuts (WSJ)
• Philippines' black market is China's golden connection (Reuters)
• Hollande government responds to criticism (FT)
• LG Display Starts Touch Screens Output Before New IPhone (Bloomberg)
• Greek Crisis Evasion to Fore as Merkel Hosts Hollande in Berlin (Bloomberg)
• Stakes rise as US warned of double-dip (FT)
• Brazil’s Richest Woman Unmasked With $13 Billion Fortune (Bloomberg)

Just when we thought we had seen and heard it (and by it we mean lies, innuendo and desperation) all, here comes the one thing that confirms where the ECB, and Europe, is concerned, we ain't ever seen nuthin' yet. According to Bloomberg, the ECB may set secret ceilings on the yields of govt bonds from countries requiring bailout aid, Welt reports, without citing anyone. Note the words "secret" and "without citing anyone" because they really are key. Because it is unclear whether Bild is truly stupid enough to assume that what amounts to a limitless bond purchase operation could remain a secret and not show up on the ECB balance sheet. What it really is, is merely a last step desperation attempt by Mario to keep on talking down bond yields, since a month into his "believe me" speech, the ECB has yet to do anything, let alone secret or not so secret yield caps, let alone Spain demanding a bailout, let alone the ECB even reaching a consensus with Germany and Bundesbank both opposing any incremental money printing. Welt says that the ECB could also set a range for yields, merely another absolutely idiotic "detail" in the ECB's "secret" plan. Supposedly the advantage of a range is that the ECB wouldn’t need to defend a set price at any cost, could tolerate S/T deviations. The (lack of) logic for this measure is that central bankers no longer believe that announcing a ceiling and making it public would be enough to calm markets. But nothing, nothing, can prepare one for what comes next: Secret yield ceilings would only work if they aren’t leaked says Welt. Yup. They said that. This is where blood shoot be shooting out of your nose at escape velocity.

It was the best of times (US equities); it was the worst of times (the world's growth engine - China). HSBC-Markit just announced the Flash PMI for August and it's not pretty - printing at a nine-month low (47.8 vs 49.3 in July). Of course, China's own version remains in the Schrodinger-like >50-expansion state for now but with all 11 sub-indices in this evening's data pointing to weakness, we suspect not even the Chinese can sell that data for much longer. So what next - RRR? Massive stimulus? - don't hold your breath given the recent reverse repos and the already creeping-inflation in food and energy prices. The piece-de-resistance of the data-dump though has to be (in line with Japan's trade data last night) is the New Export Orders slumped to 44.7 - lowest since March 2009 when trade finance collapsed post-Lehman.

In as-comprehensive-an-explanation-as-we-have-seen of the monetary malfeasance and misunderstanding of the standard Keynesian central-banker, Gloom-Boom-Doom's Marc Faber addressed an instutional audience in the Middle East earlier this year. Faber begins by explaining his (correct) view that 'Keynesian' intervention into the free-market or capitalistic society (with fiscal and monetary measures), in order to 'smooth' the business cycle, has in fact created a more violent business cycle - as they attempt to address long-term structural problems with short-term fixes (or bubbles). His lecture expands from his insight that in 1970 not a single investment bank was public - they were all private partnerships (implicitly playing with their own money as opposed to other-people's - dramatically impacting the risk profile in the world) to the notion that central bank money printing (pushing dollars out the door) does have inflationary symptoms - but they do not necessarily have to show up in wages or CPI in the US (think Chinese wage inflation, or commodity price rises, or Aussie housing bubbles). Central bankers can determine the quantity of money but they cannot determine what we do with those USD bills. Must watch.