Archive - Jan 2013 - Story

S&P 500 futures lurched in a vol-driven mania above their implicit QE3 highs (stop-run) and yay verily there was much rejoicing as cash S&P 500 reached closing levels not seen since December 2007. The only trouble with all this jubilation - Treasuries rallied all day (so no 'Great Rotation'), high-yield credit was having none of it, and AAPL positively hated it (though financials had their best week since the stress tests in March). Average trade size surged as did volume into these highs and as we noted before, the VIX term-structure is now at its steepest in 5 months - as hedgers shift their positions out past the debt-ceiling deadline (and implicitly crush short-term vol spurring the rally further). But, into the close, S&P 500 futures were decidedly skittish as it appeared we ran out of greater fools for a few seconds at the close (via @nanexllc $1.1B worth of $SPY and 25,000 eMinis in last few seconds). Equities pulled away from the rest of risk-assets in the last 30-minute ramp closing the week right at the QE3-day highs, with the USD +1% on the week.

Last week we introduced our readers to the BIS' Head of Foreign Exchange and Gold, Benoit Gilson. As this week's induction into the FleeceBook hall of fame of faceless individuals behind the scenes whose fingers are on all the relevant buttons, we present to you Michael Cross, Head of Foreign Exchange, and Executive Director for Markets, at the Bank of England, a role which with the arrival of the BoE's new Goldman leader will become quite crucial in the coming weeks as the race to debase finally crosses the English Channel and it is cable's turn to crash and burn against all other currencies.

We explicitly noted that the purchase of vol steepeners across the debt-ceiling deadlines was the short-term trade as soon as the ATRA deal was approved. In the brief period since, the VIX term-structure has smashed from its flattest (most inverted) in 2 months to its steepest now in 5 months as hedgers roll out to March and beyond. Of course, all algos know is that they can lever VXX (and other synthetics) in the short-term to ramp equities higher - and sure enough the S&P 500 just hit highs above the highest close since December 2007.

We first noted the shift to a barter economy that is occuring in Greece back in April. But Mike's excellent update below shows that this 'barter' has progressed to a new 'alternative' currency. The city of Volos, 200 miles north of Athens with a population of 170,000 is highlighted in the article due to the size of its alternative money market centered around a local currency call the Tem.  This sort of behavior will be the wave of the future in all countries, as Central Bank currencies are debased into extinction (and it's happening in the US already).

So you want a trillion dollar platinum coin? Ok: here are some facts...

Fed mouthpieces Bullard and Lacker are out in force this morning talking the market back from the edge of yesterday's FOMC Minutes and reassuring us that the economy is going to be weak enough for a lot longer to justify the Fed's actions. However, right at the end of Jim Bullard's interview with CNBC's Steve Liesman, we got a glimpse of the reality behind the curtain as the St. Louis Fed president threw Bernanke under the purge-ry perjury bus... Following a discussion of fiscal policy uncertainty and the need to carefully spend what money we have, Liesman jokingly commented to Bullard that it is "Easy for you to say, you have a lot of dollars to spend; you get to print them!" To which the now foot-in-mouth Bullard replied, "Aaahh; indeed we do." This seems a little different from what Bernanke previously told Congress.

In money management long term success lies not in garnering short term returns but avoiding the pitfalls that lead to large losses of invested capital.  While it is not popular in the media to point out the headwinds that face investors in the months ahead - it is also naive to only focus on the positives.  While it is true that markets rise more often than not, unfortunately, it is when markets don't that investors are critically set back from their long term goals.  It is not just the loss of capital that is devastating to the compounding effect of returns but, more importantly, it is the loss of "time" which is truly limited and never recoverable. Therefore, as we look forward into 2013, we want to review three reasons to be bullish about investing in the months to come but also review three risks that could derail the markets along the way. The reality is that no one knows for sure where the markets will end this year; and while it is true that "bull markets are more fun than bear markets" the damage to investment portfolios by not managing the risks can be catastrophic.

Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis made her ubiquitous post-NFP appearance on CNBC this morning and spouted the usual propaganda. However, while discussing how wonderful the ATRA was, the seemingly slap-happy Solis noted how great the fact that emergency unemployment benefits were extended for millions of people was - and that thanks to that (and the magic of the Keynesian multiplier), millions of jobs were saved. So, to sum up, paying people not to work, saved millions and millions of jobs? Indeed America, indeed.

Sometimes I just have to smile when faced with anti-gun propagandists, regardless of the vicious statements they make, because I know from years of past experience in this debate that because of their deep rooted hypocrisy, they will inevitably make my pro-gun case for me.  All I have to do is sit back and wait for them to contradict themselves. The gun grabber personality is interminably flawed, but it could be summarized thus: They believe the whole of society should cater to their personal concerns.  That we should give up our rights just to make them feel safer.  And, that they are somehow a step above the rest of us, and do not need to practice what they preach.  My question is, why should we go out of our way to please such weaklings and frauds?  I have yet to hear a good reason...

If you own the debt of Spain; sell it. If you are thinking about buying their sovereign debt; don’t. I hope that is clear enough. I don’t believe that I have left out any corner of my thinking or that there is any wavering on my part. All of the new Spanish debt will carry Collective Action Clauses which gives Spain the right to force bondholders to their knees. This is reminiscent of Greece and we should have all learned the lesson from that experience. It is my opinion that Spain will be forced to the till at the ECB and the EU and that the amount of financing that will be demanded will cause rancor in the fiscally disciplined nations.

It has been an 'epic' week in European sovereign bonds. Whether it was returning traders or pension fund asset managers forced to reach-around, Spain and Italy 10Y spreads are 44bps tighter this week and Portugal a ridiculous 92bps (on what!!? - US fiscal cliff?), though Spain and Italy stabilized today. Broad European equities surged the most during the first 3-days of 2013 in five months (with Spain and Italy up 3.6-4%) but today saw credit notably divergent from the ongoing exuberance in stocks. EURUSD gave up some significant strength this week as repatriation flows reversed but Europe's VIX has been crushed just like in the US. Europe's Composite PMI is still below (though modestly rising) but it is the stagnation of the New Orders sub-index that should be most concerning - perhaps that is what credit is anticipating.

We are living in the United States of Delusion. The delusion has four key sources. The irony is that clinging to delusion rather than face the necessity of deep cuts in borrow-and-squander budgets will lead to the involuntary reset of the entire system, depriving every vested interest of their share of the swag. Is delusion a sustainable state? No. Thus we can confidently predict that causality, factuality and karma will eventually sweep aside delusion and all those who cling to it.

And we're off to the races. Despite, or maybe thanks to, the relentless collapse in paper gold prices, US retail continues to ignore the day to day fluctuations in the stated value of the shiny metal (most of it driven by the BIS' Benoit Gilson), and instead has learned to take advantage of every drop to BTFD. As the US mint website reports, the very first day of 2013 saw a whopping 50,000 gold ounce sales, and another 7,000 on the second, which is nearly the entire amount sold by the mint in December, and just shy of half in all of January 2012. Which in turn means that gold raids are now becoming counterproductive: instead of disincentivizing retail purchases, they are merely accelerating them, in the process leading to ever more paper to physical currency conversion. The "trillion dollar platinum coin" may well be the dumbest idea around, but the "one ounce gold coin" idea is rapidly becoming the most popular one, shared by all who see that the only possible outcome for the "developed world" is more ceaseless devaluation of every paper currency in the world.

AAPL is now in the red for 2013 having filled its January 2nd opening gap. Down around 5% from its highs of that day, AAPL is down over 2% today alone (on decent volume) on the back of further concerns (prompted by Deutsche Bank) about iPhone 5 sales. It seems the meme on rotation from bonds to stocks is just not holding up for AAPL - perhaps it is time to plunder our Social Security fund to buy AAPL?