Archive - Oct 2013 - Story

While the October T-Bills have seen yield drop in the last 24 hours, they remain notably elevated relative to both longer-dated yields and the equity-market's exuberance. What is much more worrisome for the markets - most explicitly the repo markets - is the blow-outs now being seen in the Nov/Dec T-Bill yields as the can-kicking deadline gets priced in for another round of chaos in 6-8 weeks. 

The Dec T-Bills are now higher in yield than the Oct T-Bills were on Tuesday!!!

In what world is it rational to decide that dumping 800,000 ounces of notional gold into the London Fix (or COMEX open) makes sense? In the space of 4 minutes, almost 2 million ounces notional were flushed into the gold futures markets dumping the price of gold to 3-month lows. This is the 4th down-day in a row and yet another "spike" around the open/close that regulators remains ignorant of.

Take all the talk about how "soaring" (to below 3%) rates will not impact housing, or that rising rates are great for banks because they help boost Net Interest Margins, and dump it in the trash. Why? Exhibit A - Wells Fargo, the bank which is most reliant on the housing market (unlike such prop trading powerhouses as JPM and Goldman) to generate revenues (which missed expectations) which just announced its Q3 earnings. The numbers of note were not among the fudged top or bottom-line headline grabbers. They were far uglier, and were as follows.

Equity markets are holding their gains despite the bond-market's bid this morning (and weakness in Nov bills).. it seems the optimism is a little premature...

Source close to last night's talks tell me CR deal is not as close as many press reports; House Rs far from ready to move on a clean CR

— Robert Costa (@robertcostaNRO) October 11, 2013

Everyone is pointing to national polls blaming the Repblicans and this there is pressure to act... do not forget "All politics is local"

A plausible debt ceiling agreement is finally on the table, but BofAML doesn't expect a deal until next week or later.

With 81% "Dissatisfied" and somehow 18% "Satisfied" there has never been more disappointment at the way the nation is being governed... Still, X-Factor is on later so that doesn't really matter...

So much for the JPM "fortress balance sheet." Moments ago the bank which 18 months ago stunned the world with the biggest prop trading loss in history, just reported its first quarterly loss under Jamie Dimon, missing expected revenue of $24 billion with a print of $23.88 billion, but it was net income where the stunner was in the form of a $0.4 billion net income. The reason: the fact that from the government's best friend, Jamie Dimon has become the punching bag du jour, and having to pay $9.15 billion in pretax legal expenses, the biggest in company history. Considering that the other key component of Q3 net income was a whopping $1.6 billion in loan loss reserve releases, one wonders just how truly strong Q3 earnings really were. But of course, this being Wall Street, all negative news is "one-time" and to be added back. Which is why JPM promptly took benefit for all charges, which means adding back the $7.2 billion legal expense and $992 MM reserve release after tax benefit. In short: of the firm's $1.42 in pro forma EPS, a whopping $1.59 was purely from the addback of these two items.

• Dot Com part deux: Investors are showing increasing hunger for initial public offerings of unprofitable technology companies  (WSJ)
• Poll Finds GOP Blamed More for Shutdown (WSJ)
• House, Senate Republicans Offer Competing Plans on Debt-Limit, Government Shutdown (WAPO)
• Obama, Republicans aim to end crisis after meeting, hurdles remain (Reuters)
• US Rethinks How to Release Sensitive Economic Data (WSJ)
• Chinese East Oil Fuels Fresh China-US Tensions (WSJ)
• ECB Agrees on Swap Line With PBOC as Trade Increases (BBG)
• China September Auto Sales Surge 21% on Japanese Rebound (BBG)
• JPMorgan Taps Taxpayer-Backed Banks for Basel Rules (BBG)

Despite stock (not bond) euphoria yesterday that a DC debt ceiling deal was sealed leading to the second largest risk ramp of 2013, last night was spent diffusing the excitement as one after another politician talked back the success of a "non-deal" that Obama rejected, at least according to the NYT. As a result, with both retail sales data and the PPI not being released (and the only data of note the always leaked UMichigan consumer confidence) markets will again be at the behest of developments on Capitol Hill, with some talk from Republicans suggesting a deal as early as today could be possible in an effort to reopen government on Monday. It is entirely possible that talks could continue over the weekend though, which would ensure a gappy open to Asian markets on Monday.

Presented with no comment...

Only a week ago, the consensus among most mainstream economic analysts and even some alternative analysts was that a government shutdown was not going to happen. The Republicans would fold in the shadow of President Barack Obama’s overwhelming drive for socialization, spending would continue to grow unabated, and the debt ceiling would be vaulted yet again to feed the bureaucratic machine with more fiat. Today, there is no consensus, very few people continue to be so blithely self-assured and even the mainstream is beginning to wonder if a much bigger game is afoot here.

After seven months of investigating Goldman Sachs' legal and compliance divisions, former NYFed examiner Carmen Segarra found numerous conflicts of interest and breach of client ethics (specifically related to three transactions - Solyndra, Capmark, and the El Paso / Kinder Morgan deal) that she believed warranted a downgrade of Goldman's regulatory rating. Her bosses were not happy, concerned that this action would hurt Goldman's ability to do business, and, she alleges, they urged her to change her position. She refused, and as Reuters reports, she was fired and escorted from the building. “I was just documenting what Goldman was doing,” she said. “If I was not able to push through something that obvious, the [NY Fed] certainly won’t be capable of supervising banks when even more serious issues arise.”

Hard to argue with this... just one more quarter, and everything will be fixed... Of course, when you've got Abenomics, Yellenomics, and Draghinomics on your side, what does it matter?

The U.S. Constitution leaves too many areas open to interpretation; a New Constitution of 2,300 pages (+ 200 redacted secret pages) is the solution.

UPDATE: The Day in Washington in 2 minutes added

In what can at best be described as a "fluid" situation, one in which according to initial press reports the White House and the GOP couldn't even compromise on what had actually been said, it seems that while both sides are eager to move on with the debt ceiling extension, the GOP is still hoping in trying to preserve some political capital, of which it will be left with virtually nil if it caves to every last demand by the democrats, namely "reopen the government and then we can negotiate" losing all leverage in the process. And a loss of all capital and leverage is precisely what the GOP will "achieve" according to Politico, which clarified that "House Republicans told Obama that they could reopen the federal government by early next week if the president and Senate Democrats agree to their debt-ceiling proposal" - a proposal which Obama has already said he would accept. In other words, full capitulation by Boehner appears imminent. Politico adds: "President Barack Obama and House Republicans clashed in a meeting Thursday afternoon over how soon the government can be reopened, even as the GOP offered to lift the debt limit for six weeks, according to sources familiar with the session. Aides will continue the discussion through the night to see if they could find common ground on how to move forward on the debt limit and government funding."