Archive - Sep 14, 2012 - Story

The US is no longer the cleanest dirty shirt, or least syphilitic hooker in the whorehouse as we so responsibly noted previously. Year-to-date, the US Dow Jones Industrials 30 and Europe's EuroStoxx 50 - the two major blue-chip indices of the beleaguered regions - are now equally awesome at +11.35%. Of course, Gold and Silver are outperforming both of these (and the long-bond is unchanged) but nevertheless, even with EURUSD now up over 200 pips on the year, 2Y Spain yields are unchanged and 10Y Spain yields up 70bps. Context is king here, especially when we just keep anchoring to the latest 5 minute trend.

The market may no longer reflect any actual events or newsflow as it quietly levitates on what is a now certain avalanche of fiat dilution and wheelbarrow blue light specials, and it may thus be forgiven to ignore the dramatic developments abroad, but that does not mean you should. As country after country storms and burns down US embassies in futile searches for foodstamps and to express other pent up forms of soaring dissatisfaction with Pax Americana, follow the latest developments live courtesy of this Al Jazeera webcast with constant updates from around the world.

"Everything will collapse" is the consequence Gloom, Boom, & Doom's Marc Faber sees from the Fed's latest 'stimulus' (and the fallacy and misconception of how money-printing can help employment). In a wondrously clarifying interview on Bloomberg TV this morning, Faber explained why he was 'happy', since "the asset values of his holdings will go up" but as a responsible citizen he is worried because "the monetary policies of the US will destroy the world." It truly is class warfare under a veil of 'its good for you' as he notes: "the fallacy of monetary policy in the U.S. is to believe this money will go to the man on the street. It won't. It goes to the Mayfair economy of the well-to-do people and boosts asset prices of Warhols." Congratulations, Mr. Bernanke.

Did we say Arab Fall? We meant global fall. From the Star Tribune: "Thousands of Kashmiri Muslims protested Friday against an anti-Islam film, burning U.S. flags and calling President Barack Obama a "terrorist," while the top government cleric here reportedly demanded Americans leave the volatile Indian-controlled region immediately. In the southern Indian city of Chennai, protesters threw stones at the U.S. Consulate, shattering some windows and burning Obama in effigy. Police quickly cleared the area, arresting more than 100 protesters. U.S. Embassy officials in Delhi did not immediately comment." And elsewhere: "In Bangladesh, about 5,000 hardline Muslims marched in Dhaka's streets after Friday prayers, burning U.S. and Israeli flags and calling for the death of the filmmaker. Police prevented them from marching toward the U.S. Embassy several miles away." And elsewhere: "In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, about 200 protesters chanted slogans and held up signs in a largely peaceful protest outside the heavily guarded U.S. Embassy in Jakarta. American diplomatic outposts increased security worldwide this week after clips of the film went viral online and sparked violent protests in the Middle East. About 20 protesters outside the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, shouted "Allahu akbar!" and handed reporters a letter addressed to the U.S. ambassador expressing their anger over the movie and calling for greater respect for religions."

As the Eurogroup meets today and tomorrow, a funny thing is happening to Spanish bonds; they are selling off. Today is the worst day for the no sacrasanct 2Y Spanish bond yields in over 5 weeks and 10Y yields are not pretty at all. The 'sync' between risk-on around the world as Bernanke's bubble was re-blown yesterday seems to have drawn all that fast money flooding back to the S&P 500 leaving the forelorn Spaniards to ponder whether a bailout wouldn't be so bad. Just for one second, consider this - why did Bernanke go full retard yesterday? Data didn't exactly scream 'panic' mode. Perhaps he knows something about this weekend in Europe and wanted to get out in front of it? Certainly, the shift in Spanish bonds is idiosyncratic and extreme given all the 'Draghi-support' it has. For now though, it seems fast money is playing high-beta US equities, not high-beta European debt - but for how long?

Celebrations of QEnfinity are now officially sweeping the globe.

Gross: #Fed to buy mortgages ‘til the cows come home. Think 7% unemployment, 2.5% inflation targets. Buy real assets…gold…a house!

— PIMCO (@PIMCO) September 14, 2012

The open-ended awesomeness of Bernanke's bluster has crushed the spread between mortgages and Treasuries. While the spread had been tumbling in anticipation of Ben's great save, the move from yesterday's announcement is stunning as the already record-low levels have been halved leaving mortgages now under 28bps from being 'as safe as Treasuries'.

There was a time when it took at least some digging to cut through the manipulated headline data. Not so much any more. The latest UMichicagn consumer confidence data point is out, and it being an election year and all, and there needing to be some immediate validation of the massive stock surge in the aftermath of our own Gideon Gono going full retard, posted the biggest positive surprise to expectations in well... ever, printing at 79.2, on expectations of 74.0, up from 74.3. This was the highest print since May, which occurted not on the conditions component, but the expectations, which soared from 65.1 to 73.4. And here is the punchline: why did consumers get more confident? Because in the period from the last month they priced in more... drumroll... deflation! 1 and 5 year inflation expectations declined from 3.6% and 3.0%, to 3.5% and 2.8%. And that's how we know they don't even bother to mask the lies any more.

Ex-Fed Governor Kevin Warsh provided much food for thought during his appearance on CNBC this morning. Over the course of the following clip, he addresses concerns from just how bad the reality of the global economy must have been for Bernanke and his merry men to have gone "all-in" aggressive - reflecting on this as a panic-like reaction during times now where we are not panicking, the ineffectiveness of QE3 "iPhone 5 will do more for the real economy than QE3", fears over how bad this could get as "there is a reason 'exit' is a four-letter word." Warsh notes the paradox of Bernanke "trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat' each time the economy loses control while calling for Washington to do more - as the politicians know "there's not much we need to do, Bernanke has our back." When asset prices are driven less by fundamentals and more by speeches and policies coming out of Washington, you're taking risks. "Risks are highest in the economy when measures of risk are he lowest"

... A man celebrates QE3.

In one more example of why we are going to need more-er and open-ended-er QE from the Fed, today's dismal data rolls on. Industrial Production dropped 1.2% MoM - its largest drop since March 2009 - and missed expectations by the most since December 2008. The market (expectedly) is unimpressed and stable - fully aware that the Fed's new infinite QE will simply be expanded to an infinte-er QE should things go from worse to worse-er. To add more salt to the wound, Capacity Utilization dropped to its lowest of the year and missed expectations by its most in 16 months. 15x P/E multiples here we come - all supported by moar hockey-stick growth trajectories, infinity +1 printing, and a status quo who needs moar commissions. So much for cleanest dirty shirt, eh? It seems 'they won't come' in our 'if we build it' economy - as factories go quiet from the over-exuberant mal-investment of channel-stuffers.

Bernanke took the plunge yesterday by embarking on QE3 or what would be better described as “Currency Debasement 3”. Improving the U.S. job market and therefore economy was the reason given for the extremely radical measures. However, the scale of the open ended monetary commitments suggests the Fed is worried about another Great Depression and an economic collapse. The move was described as "stunningly bold" by some analysts as it is "open ended" with Bernanke pledging to print or electronically create, with no time limit, an extra $40 billion every single month until the labour market improves. This is the frightening vista we have been warning of for some time. It means that should the US economy enter a recession and or depression, which still seems very likely, that the Fed will continue printing money and debasing the dollar thereby leading to dollar devaluation and inflation - potentially virulent inflation on a par with or worse than that seen in the 1970's. We had long said that QE3 was inevitable - the question was when rather than if. Indeed, we had said that given Bernanke's closeness to Wall Street we expected that QE4, QE5 etc.  were likely.  The "open ended" nature of this new round of QE as enunciated yesterday means that the Fed could if it wished or believes it is necessary print unlimited quantities of dollars.

Following yesterday's producer price shock, when PPI soared by the most since June 2009, today's CPI follows suit, with the largest jump in over 2 years, printing up 0.6%, in line with expectations, up from an unchanged print in July. In other words, the food inflation which is already spreading through the economy courtesy of the record drought, is about to be supported by some brand new Fed-generated inflation. Luckily, as yesterday, nobody uses gas or food. And in other news, retail sales posted yet another very disappointing print, when despite a better than expected headline print of 0.9% in August advance retail sales, a number which included gas and auto sales, retail sales excluding these very volatile components, rose by only 0.1%, on expectations of a 0.4% rise, and a downward revision from 0.9% to 0.8%. This was the 5th miss in 6 months, and ugly all around. In other words, the US consumer, revised consumer credit data notwithstanding, is levering up and not generating any real new sales. Expect yet another round of GDP revisions. However, in light of yesterday's Bernanke announcement, it is pretty obvious that no macro economic data for public consumption does the disaster that is the economy in the Fed's eyes, justice, and makes us wonder just how ugly the underlying reality must be. All that said: with inflation spiking, and consumers lethargic, it certainly appears that Bernanke picked the perfect time for more monetary paper dilution.