Archive - Dec 19, 2013 - Story

Today gold slid under $1200 per ounce, dropping to a level not seen in three years. Judging by the price action one would think that gold is not only overflowing from precious metal vaults everywhere, but can be found thrown away on the street, where nobody even bothers to pick it up. One would be wrong. In fact, as Bloomberg's Ken Goldman reports, "you could walk into a vault in London and they were packed to the rafter with gold, and the gold would trade from me to you to somebody else. You could walk into these vaults today and they are virtually empty. All that gold has been transferred out of London, 26 million ounces...." To find out where it has gone and why it is never coming back, watch the clip below.(spoiler alert: listen for the line: "the Chinese don't want US dollars anymore, they want gold"

While we joked on Monday this week with regard the Harvard evacuations, we were still a little shocked that, as the NY Post reports, a Harvard University student was due in court Wednesday after prosecutors said he made bomb threats to try to get out of a final exam. Eldo Kim, 20, acting alone, sent the bomb hoax messages to five or six Harvard email addresses he picked at random (via the Dark Web browser Tor), about half an hour before he was scheduled to take a final in Emerson Hall, one of the buildings threatened. The maximum penalties for a bomb hoax are five years in prison and a $250,000 fine - plenty of time to study there...

• the risk of runs and asset fire sales in repurchase (repo) markets;
• excessive credit risk-taking and weaker underwriting standards;
• exposure to duration risk in the event of a sudden, unanticipated rise in interest rates;
• exposure to shocks from greater risk-taking when volatility is low;
• the risk of impaired trading liquidity;
• spillovers to and from emerging markets;
• operational risk from automated trading systems, including high-frequency trading; and
• unresolved risks associated with uncertainty about the U.S. fiscal outlook.

Neoliberal economics has been a wonderful driving force for progress and material prosperity - but it cannot be the single ruling principle of our lives, of our government, or of our society. If we allow the profit motive to be the only motive, then we and our society are doomed. We are already seeing the shape of that doom, in our health care, our government, and our industry.

With gold plunging to multi-year lows, is JPM just taking advantage of the "blood on the streets" and becoming the helpful bidder of last (or first) resort and replenishing its record low depleted inventory by taking advantage of below production cost fire sales, or... is something else going on here? Inquiring minds want to know.

In order to achieve the greatest risk/reward asymmetry from the 2014 single-family housing stimulus “hangover”, or “reset”, happening right now you must change the way you think about this asset class.  When doing so, clarity emerges (at least to us)... This housing market is “resetting” right now;  for the third time in six years. It might look and feel a little different, but as we detail below, it’s not really different this time around.

"Step right up and try your luck...spin the wheel and watch where she lands...everybody's a winner" - sometimes if you listen hard enough you can almost hear the Carney coaxing unwary investors to step up and try their luck in a game that has been rigged against them. During the last two decades, we have been amazed to watch as individuals strolled through the doors of the Wall Street casino to try their luck by betting "against the house" for a dream of riches. Just as with anyone who has ever gone to Vegas - you will win sometimes but the "house" wins most of the time. However, there are always the "professional gamblers" that can do better than the average most of the time. Why? Because they understand "risk" in its various forms...

Although the probability of any one of the predictions coming true is low, they are deduced strategically by Saxo Bank analysts based on a feasible - if unlikely - series of market and political events. As Saxo's chief economist notes, "This isn't meant to be a pessimistic outlook. This is about critical events that could lead to change - hopefully for the better. After all, looking back through history, all changes, good or bad, are made after moments of crisis after a comprehensive failure of the old way of doing things. As things are now, global wealth and income distribution remain hugely lopsided which also has to mean that significant change is more likely than ever due to unsustainable imbalances. 2014 could and should be the year in which a mandate for change not only becomes necessary, but is also implemented."

Do we need a banking sector dominated by politically untouchable "Too Big to Fail" (TBTF) banks? Thanks to fast-advancing technology, the answer is a resounding no. Not only do we not need a banking sector, we would be immensely better off were the banking sector to wither and vanish from the face of the Earth, along with its parasitic class of political enablers, toadies and Federal Reserve apparatchiks.... An automated banking utility has no need for parasitic bankers or politicos or indeed, a central bank. The only legitimate regulatory function of the state is to enforce transparency; beyond that, its actions are all subsidies of one sort or another of politically powerful constituencies at the expense of the real economy's productive people, communities and enterprises.

Dear Federal Reserve: happy 100th birthday! What better way to celebrate it than with a balance sheet that just crossed above $4 trillion, or $4.01 trillion to be precise, which represents 24% of the recently upward revised US GDP, for the first (but certainly not last) time in history. Fingers crossed that promptly after next year's Untaper, the Fed can boast a $5 trillion balance sheet this time next year, and so on, and so forth.

While stocks were the headline-makers yesterday, they mostly range-traded today taking a breather to think (even with a double-POMO) as the rest of the world's asset classes did their thing. The Dow closed at a new recxord highs but the Russell 2000, however, lost over half its gains from yesterday! Markets everywhere saw major moves... in no particular order, JPY carry trades disconnected from stocks (EURJPY fading) - until the last few minutes of failed ramp-levitation; 5Y Treasuries underperformed back to 3-month highs (up 11bps - the most in over 5 months) and the Treasury complex saw its biggest bear-flattening (5s30s) in over 2 years; WTI crude rose notably on the day , back above $99; and gold (and silver) was monkey-hammered to 40-month lows - with the biggest 2-day drop in 6 months. Following yesterday's smackdown, VIX initially followed through but as the day wore on, demand for protection grew and VIX closed higher... oh, and it's not all glee in stocks as internals today triggered another Hindenburg Omen.

After 22 years of reviewing tech products for the Wall Street Journal, Walt Mossberg is leaving; but before he does, he unveils what he believes are the 12 products that were the most-influential during his tenure at the "paper" (remember that: paper?). Remember the Apple Newton? How about Netscape? Mossberg believes even if these products did not last until the present, they left their mark in the evolution of personal technology. Do readers agree or disagree? And if not, which product that did not make the list should be on it?

Predictions are that the oil boom is temporary and is expected to level off around 2020, but by then there should be a lot more fuel efficient cars on the roads that the drop in production will not be felt. While this new development will no doubt be welcomed by most Americans, it will bring additional joy to those who are fed up with the stagnation and violence that is perpetuated in the Middle East and will welcome this news amid hopes that the US will be less dependent on that turbulent part of the world for its fuel, thus less prone to the region’s unstable politics. But here there is the need for a word of caution. Being less dependent on Middle Eastern oil does not mean the United States should become a political recluse, retrench inside fortress America and damn the rest of the world and their problems...

So simple the underwear gnomes could do it:

1. Create a cartel
2. Corner and manipulate the market
3. Profit.

And that's why they (and Jamie Dimon) are richer than you.

US equity markets were the first to move yesterday on the news of the tapering which is a loosening and not a tightening move by the Fed. Overnight and today has seen stocks stabilize as the rest of the world wakes up to what this slowing of flow actually means... From EM FX to precious metals to colossal flattening in the US Treasury term structure, things are making major moves...