Archive - Jan 2013 - Story

It is impossible to understand job creation without understanding value creation and labor/overhead costs. People hire other people when their labor creates more value than it costs to hire them. When labor costs are high, the value created must also be high; it makes no sense to hire someone if doing so generates a loss. When labor is cheap, the bar of value creation is lowered, and so the risk of hiring a worker is also lower: they don't have to add much value to be worth their wage. This is why you see many low-value jobs in developing-world countries.  If overhead costs - the cost-basis of doing business in the U.S. - keep rising faster than gross profits (out of which overhead is paid), then the owners have little choice: they can either close the business before they are personally bankrupted, cut everyone's pay or lay off some employees and somehow raise the productivity of the remaining workers to maintain enough value creation to survive. This is the U.S. economy in a nutshell.

It would appear that the hike in taxes on 77% of Americans that was heralded as a success, has dented confidence just a little. As the efficient stock market moves to all-time nominal highs in many cases, Consumer Confidence just fell off a cliff. The conference board printed at the worst level in 13 months - so all those 2012 gains are gone - and fell month-over-month by the most since the August 2011 fiscal cliff debacle. For every income levels (except those earning under $15k) confidence plunged with the $35k-$50k bracket crashing the most. It would appear that the driver of 70% of the US economy is not buying the new normal being fed to us daily by any and every media outlet possible. No matter how much the market is held up by mysterious runs in FX markets or volatility compression, it would appear that - just as we have been noting - the underlying macro fundamentals will eventually be priced in, as this does not bode well for retail sales.

We could tell readers' that earlier today, just like two weeks ago when Beijing was blanketed by the worst smog on record, the official reading of Beijing air quality moved from "hazardous (at a 24 hour exposure at this level)" to the laughable "Beyond Index" reading (which maybe means Beijing needs a bigger index) ... or we could just show these two pictures of Beijing before and after the smog

The Case-Shiller Home Price Index is unique among other economic data indicators for recommending that analysts focus solely on its Non-seasonal adjusted data series, as this is what the report uses in its own headline figures. It adds that "for analytical purposes, S&P Dow Jones Indices publishes a seasonally adjusted data set covered in the headline indices" - a far cry from the BLS, whose Arima X 12 models are the basis of the data "moves" on a monthly basis: moves which are based not so much in the underlying data but on the seasonal adjustment and fudging the government employees apply to it. And it is the unadjusted Case Shiller data that showed that in November, the 20 City Composite index posted its second consecutive monthly price decline in a row. Yes: on a year over year basis home prices did rise some 5.5%, but on the other hand, "average home prices across the United States are back to their autumn 2003 levels for both the 10-City and 20-City Composites." And while the price decline into the year end is somewhat seasonal, it certainly does not fit with all the other economic data released by the government showing a housing picture so bright not even the tiniest drops in prices were allowed.

Following his impromptu discussion early this morning with Mario Draghi, Italy's finance minister has proudly stepped before the cameras to discuss the farce that has become Monte Paschi. In a stream of seemingly incredulous hypocrisy, the minister explains that:

• *GRILLI SAYS MONTE PASCHI IS SOLID
• *MONTI BOND HELPED MONTE PASCHI MEET EBA RULES: GRILLI
• *GRILLI SAYS OVERSIGHT OF MONTE PASCHI WAS CONTINUOUS, THOROUGH
• *GRILLI SAYS GOVT AID TO PASCHI NOT TO HELP AN INSOLVENT BANK
• *GRILLI SAYS ITALY BANKING SYSTEM UNIQUE FOR NO BAILOUTS

Indeed, it seems that Juncker-ism has leaked across to all the ministers as a new realm of reality strikes the Italian banking system. So the 'bank is solid', 'aid is not a bailout', and 'water is not wet'.

In a shocking development, one which comes out of central planning left field, after eight years in his role as safe-guarder of the Shekel, the head of the Bank of Israel Stanley Fischer - Ben Bernanke's personal mentor, and famous underwater investor in AAPL - has announced his intention to step down. This resignation comes 10 months (and $100 less in AAPL) after the central bank's announcement to begin buying foreign stocks. Is this a harbinger of the change in the old brigade, and does it make Bernanke's departure one year from today virtually assured - we hope to find out, unless, of course, the most aggressive and ambitious central banking experiment in history to keep the global house of cards afloat fails in the meantime.

The one thing that all of us know, surely all of us must know at least this, is that markets do not go forever in one direction. I am not speaking here of the pecularities of a day or of trying to eke out some trade but of shifts in circumstances and sentiments that sets the direction upon a new course. We live in a world recently comprised of three basic tenets; postpone, make up facts to suit the goals of some nation or nations and throw money at anything that moves. This is an inherently unstable construct and yet that is what our brilliant leaders have embraced. I will tell you this; when chicanery is trotted out as truth, when liabilities are not counted, when losses are termed investments, when the only answer to anything is the printing of more small pieces of green and blue paper then trouble is approaching with a capital “T” and the future is a bleak cloud of foreboding.

A quick ranking of the world's most "miserable" countries, based on the conventional measure of the Misery Index which is simply the Unemployment Rate plus Inflation, shows just why most people in Spain are, well, less than happy (and Spain is damn lucky there is no subset of the Misery index for just those aged 25 and under as we would certainly need a bigger chart). As the chart below shows, the Spanish "misery" is now the greatest in the world, at some 30%, and is worse than South Africa, Greece, Venezuela, Argentina and Egypt.

Yesterday $42 billion tech behemoth VMWare stunned its investors when not only did it cut guidance, announcing that global demand is sliding, scaling back products but also disclosing a 7% workforce cut: hardly the stuff that global recoveries are made of. Sure enough, the stock is getting clobbered -17% lower this morning with the weakness likely to spread to the rest of the tech space. But just in case there was any confusion who was making money into last night's epic collapse, and was selling the stock to muppets who were told it was not only a Buy, but a "Conviction Buy", and to buy with both hands no questions asked, look no further than the usual suspect.

• U.S. Wants Criminal Charges for RBS (WSJ)
• Bernanke Seen Buying $1.14 Trillion in Assets in 2014 (BBG)
• Irish banks at mercy of international paymasters (Reuters)
• Do badly, and we will let you do even worse: Rehn Signals EU May Ease Spain Budget Goal in Austerity Retreat (BBG)
• Too Soon to Celebrate for Europe's Banks (WSJ)
• Army says political strife taking Egypt to brink (Reuters)
• Media Firms Probed on Data Release (WSJ) - No Criminal Charges Seen
• Japan’s Government Proposes First Spending Cut in 7 Years (BBG)
• Nazi Goebbels’ Step-Grandchildren Are Hidden Billionaires (BBG)
• Goldman seeks to reduce China exposure (FT)
• More than 70% of Chinese airports generate losses (People's Daily)

Following yet another quiet overnight session, futures have surprised many walking into work today as the traditional overnight levitation is strangely missing. The reason for that may be the lack of the traditional for 2013 lift in various funding currency pairs, with both the USDJPY and the EURUSD lower. While there was no major macro news, the former may have been dragged lower by various comments from the German BDI industry federation chief who said he is worried about the devaluation race stemming from Japan's central bank policy echoing Merkel's comparable sentiment and revealing that the EURUSD may have topped out, while the latter was pushed lower following today's 7 day ECB MRO, which saw some €124.1 billion allotted at a 0.75% yield. This was largely in line with expectations, with Barclays seeing some €135.4 billion maturing, while BNP had expected modestly more, or some €150 billion. The MRO is the first such operation, with tomorrow's 3 month refinancing operation likely to give a better glimpse of the bank's post-LTRO repayment funding needs. Whether it is this, or the market finally demanding some action out of central banks which, except for the Fed, have been in constant promise mode, or just a random walk, is unknown, but for now the carry funded nominal devaluation of risk may have topped out.

The hypocrisy of the government knows no bounds. The writing on the wall couldn’t be clearer.

Beginning with the "Yes or No" questions only, everyone's favorite talk-show host takes on The Bernank in this earth-shattering interview. While Lance Armstrong managed to keep the dream alive for over a decade as all around him showed point-blank-proof of artificial stimulation, it took Oprah to get the truth from his lips (oh and a USADA threat). It seems The Federal Reserve has been forced to 'fess up in this entertaining interview as Bernanke sits sobbing across from Ms. Winfrey - and comes clean to years of monetary policy artificial stimulation and performance-enhancing economic-doping. Just like Armstrong, Bernanke admits that it is widespread and that this generation of central bankers "all do it" as he notes that "some retard from the FT or NYT will write excruciatingly thoughtful op-eds about how this is actually a good thing." From the raging parties at Club-Fed to "good f##king times" with Alan Greenspan to "telling people to chillax and enjoy the good times" as the housing bubble popped, Bernanke leaves us with these chilling words: "Buy food, guns, and gold, this $hit is about to get real!" Print-strong.

"Jesse Litvak arranged trades for customers as part of his job as a managing director on the MBS desk at Jefferies.  Litvak would buy a MBS from one customer and sell it to another customer, but on many occasions he lied about the price at which his firm had bought the MBS so he could re-sell it to the other customer at a higher price and keep more money for the firm.  On other occasions, Litvak misled purchasers by creating a fictional seller to purport that he was arranging a MBS trade between customers when in reality he was just selling MBS out of his firm’s inventory at a higher price.  Because MBS are generally illiquid and difficult to price, it is particularly important for brokers to provide honest and accurate information. The SEC alleges that Litvak generated more than $2.7 million in additional revenue for Jefferies through his deceit.  His misconduct helped him improve his own standing at the firm, as his bonuses were determined in part by the amount of revenue he generated for the firm."