Archive - Oct 2013 - Story

• Contractors describe scant pre-launch testing of U.S. healthcare site (Reuters)
• Carney Says BOE Revamp Offers Wider Access to Cheaper Funds (BBG)
• Help wanted in Fukushima: Low pay, high risks and gangsters (Reuters)
• Merkel and Hollande to change intelligence ties with US (FT)
• Twitter IPO pegs valuation at modest $11 billion (Reuters)
• NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders after US official handed over contacts (Guardian)
• Officials alert foreign services that Snowden has documents on their cooperation with U.S. (WaPo)
• Scottish Nationalists Lose Vote After Plant Threatened With Axe (BBG)
• Fernández contemplates a train wreck in Argentine elections (FT)
• Irish Government will consider ‘best options’ for bailout exit (Irish Times)

It has been a busy overnight session starting off with stronger than expected food and energy inflation in Japan even though the trend is now one of decline while non-food, non-energy and certainly wage inflation is nowhere to be found (leading to a nearly 3% drop in the Nikkei225), another SHIBOR spike in China (leading to a 1.5% drop in the SHCOMP) coupled with the announcement of a new prime lending rate (a form a Chinese LIBOR equivalent which one knows will have a happy ending), even more weaker than expected corporate earnings out of Europe (leading to red markets across Europe), together with a German IFO Business Confidence miss and drop for the first time in 6 months, as well as the latest M3 and loan creation data out of the ECB which showed that Europe remains stuck in a lending vacuum in which banks refuse to give out loans, a UK GDP print which came in line with expectations of 0.8%, where however news that Goldman tentacle Mark Carney is finally starting to flex and is preparing to unleash a loan roll out collateralized by "assets" worse than Gree Feta and oilve oil. Of course, none of the above matters: only thing that drives markets is if AMZN burned enough cash in the quarter to send its stock up by another 10%, and, naturally, if today's Durable Goods data will be horrible enough to guarantee not only a delay of the taper through mid-2014, but potentially lend credence to the SocGen idea that the Yellen-Fed may even announce an increase in QE as recently as next week.

Nearly one year into the Japan's grandest ever monetization experiment, the "wealth effect" engine is starting to sputter: after soaring into the triple digits due to the BOJ's massive monetary base expansion, the USDJPY has been flatlining at best, and in reality declining, which has also dragged the Nikkei lower dropping nearly 3% overnight and is well off its all time USDJPY defined highs. But aside for the wealth effect for the richest 1%, it is not exactly fair to say that the BOJ has done nothing for the vast majority of the population. Indeed, as the overnight CPI data confirmed, food and energy inflation continues to soar "thanks" to the far weaker yen, even if inflation for non-energy and food items rose by exactly 0.0% in September. Oh, it has done something else too: that most important "inflation", so critical to ultimately success for Abenomics - wages - is not only non-existant, in reality wages continue to decline: Japanese labor compensation has been sliding for nearly one and a half years!

The words above reflect a state of mind and disposition that has been expressed by philosophers and revolutionaries for thousands of years. It is not a novel or new concept, but it is a concept that seems to have been forgotten across much of these United States. The population has largely been domesticated and this is the primary reason why there has been such little pushback to the global oligarchs looting the landscape. A pathetically large percentage of the population would rather not think, they’d prefer to be told what to believe. While in our mind the trade-off between “safety and freedom” should always err toward freedom, there are times when it must even more aggressively bend in that direction. We believe that to be the case today since we have a government and elite power structure of oligarchs that has proven itself to be beyond corrupt and beyond morality.

Inflation, meh! Growth, bleh! Unemployment, whatever! The terrifying news is that it seems, despite the ongoing 'surge' to new all-time highs in stocks, they are losing the confidence of the "rich". With everything hinging on the 'wealth effect' of moar QE and a levitating US stock market, the fact that Bloomberg's Comfort Index for the most affluent earners just collapsed (and stayed at) seven-month lows - in the face a rip-your-face-off rally in stocks - suggests even the wealthy know when the music is beginning to end...

Last week, Peter Schiff began his epic take-down of the myth of Janet Yellen's forecasting ability. As proof of her wisdom supporters had pointed to speeches she delivered in 2005 and 2006 in which she supposedly issued clear warnings about the dangers then building in the frothy real estate markets.  Without any attempt at reasonable fact checking, these claims have been parroted by the media.. and that is what Schiff so diligently destroyed. However, Schiff notes in this follow-up, there is a key statement she makes (in justifying the 'fundamentals' behind the housing bubble) that relates to credit and speculative leverage that is crucial to understand the way she sees the world and thus - what to expect from her Fed.

The number one American export is U.S. dollars.  It is paper currency that is backed up by absolutely nothing, but the rest of the world has been using it to trade with one another and so there is tremendous global demand for our dollars.  The linchpin of this system is the petrodollar.  For decades, if you have wanted to buy oil virtually anywhere in the world you have had to do so with U.S. dollars.  But if one of the biggest oil exporters on the planet, such as Saudi Arabia, decided to start accepting other currencies as payment for oil, the petrodollar monopoly would disintegrate very rapidly.  For years, everyone assumed that nothing like that would happen any time soon, but now Saudi officials are warning of a "major shift" in relations with the United States.  In fact, the Saudis are so upset at the Obama administration that "all options" are reportedly "on the table".

At first glance, when the CIO of Fortress Investment Group says:

"Put a little money in Bitcoin...Come back in a few years and it’s going to be worth a lot."

One might think, the firm that manages $54.6 billion is advocating the end of the USD as we know it... Or is this more muppetry at work?

"We see upside surprise risks on gold and silver in the years ahead," is how UBS commodity strategy team begins a deep dive into a multi-factor valuation perspective of the precious metals. The key to their expectation, intriguingly, that new regulation will put substantial pressure on banks to deleverage – raising the onus on the Fed to reflate much harder in 2014 than markets are pricing in. In this view UBS commodity team is also more cautious on US macro...

During this morning's Congressional hearing on the failure of Obamacare, one of the developer's let slip a little too much truth:

CGI exec says she is not allowed to publicly say how many people have enrolled via http://t.co/25y1SOfdCF

— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) October 24, 2013

While the self-proclaimed 'most transparent' administration fights off the French and the German over spying 'lies', and gags insurers from publicizing how many people have signed up for Obamacare, it seems the cover-up goes even further with everyone involved silenced (for now).

It’s like the movie Groundhog Day. Greed and hubris are the downfall of the mighty. Believing it is different this time is the mistake of the feeble minded. Watching the ensuing carnage will be a laugh riot. Seeing the blubbering of the bubble headed bimbos, pinhead pundits and Wall Street shysters when the inevitable collapse occurs will be worth the price of admission. If you think we're wrong, pony up to the trough, borrow some money and buy Twitter on IPO day. You can’t lose.

Before Hercules Offshore collapsed into bankruptcy, they (like every other company in the USA it would seem, that faces falling revenues) were desperate to cut costs. Unfortunately for the offshore drillers that worked for the firm, Hercules chose to squeeze out the last drops of expense in a 'different' way...

The wonder that is Amazon summarized in six plus one easy charts.

Homebuilders have surged to the best performing sector off the debt-ceiling-debacle lows now (up a stunning 8.3%) despite a mixed bag of performance today with Trannies once again (10th of the last 11 days) surging to new all-time highs (as Oil prices slide further south). This is the best 11-day run (+9.9%) for the Dow Transports since June of last year. Treasury yields rose modestly once again (despite SocGen's threat of moar QE next week) but remain 3-6bps lower on the week. Gold and Silver had another solid day (+2.3% and 3.6% respectively on the week). The USD flatlined (-0.5% on the week) with EUR strength continuing (and CAD and AUD weakness continuing). Credit markets continue to disagree with the equity exuberance of the last 5 days...

Imagine for a moment what might happen if the government were to get out of healthcare altogether and there would be free competition between all health care service providers. What would happen to prices in that case? It is probably fair to assume that they would come down precipitously even from the low prices free market doctors are already able to obtain for their patients nowadays. It is actually a good bet that the onerous red tape and the likely explosion in costs due to Obamacare will accelerate the move toward a free market in health care – unless the government explicitly forbids it, that is (unfortunately we cannot rule out completely that such tyrannical steps will eventually be taken – the government generally doesn't like it when its 'help' is refused). If so, the Obamacare Act could turn out to become a win-win by mistake so to speak, as more and more people decide to opt out of the system.