Archive - Feb 15, 2013 - Story

And so the surreal criminal saga of former Illinois Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. has ended. Jackson, 47, a prominent Chicagoan son of the civil-rights leader of the same name for the handful of people who are unaware, was a national co-chairman of President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign and an advocate of traditional Democratic Party constituencies. He disappeared in June, and it was later revealed that he was being treated at the Mayo Clinic for bipolar disorder and gastrointestinal issues, although now it appears kleptomania may have been one of the afflictions treated too. He returned to his Washington home in September but went back to the clinic the next month. As Bloomberg summarizes, "he pushed to maintain government support for the poor, including welfare, assistance for heating bills and the Head Start early education program." He certainly was very generous with other people's money. So generous, in fact, that hours ago he was charged with "misusing", also known as stealing, some $750,000 in campaign funds for purchases including a $43,350 gold Rolex watch, $5,150 for fur capes and parkas, $10,000 worth of "children's furniture", Michael Jackson and Bruce Lee memorabilia and much more.

If you're one of the 1% of Americans who control over 40% of the country's wealth, life is full of choices. Among them - how best to keep all that money away from the government? The U.S. economic system offers no shortage of loopholes allowing the ultra-rich to shortchange Uncle Sam. The following infographic explains how exactly do the super rich hide that much money from the government every year?

This objective report concisely summarizes important macro events over the past week.  It is not geared to push an agenda.  Impartiality is necessary to avoid costly psychological traps, which all investors are prone to, such as confirmation, conservatism, and endowment biases. Also - from Citi's Steven Englander - what to worry about from this weekend's G-20 extravaganza...

TrimTabs' CEO Charles Biderman finds it hard to hide his disdain for the omnipotent reality that President Obama espoused of a non-deficit increasing State of the Union solution to all our ills (from climate, income inequality, opportunity, and health) as he notes the politicians "do not seem to understand is that big government is, in fact, the problem, not the solution." The problem is it is hard to find one service the government provides that is effective, other then writing checks. We have not won the federal wars on poverty, or drugs, nor overseas wars in Iraq, and Afghanistan - so although governments have rarely successfully provided services, we have a government committed to doing just that. This faith in government omnipotence is now bleeding over into stocks, as Biderman notes "since January 1, investors are pouring billions into the markets in the mistaken belief that the “fake” money created by central banks is just as good as previously existing money, and the markets will keep soaring. But for how long?" He is clear on the implication of this "magical thinking" At some point "the markets will have an “aha” moment and stop allowing central banks to use newly created money with which to pay government bills. When that happens the markets will crash."

We’ve discussed many times before - hardly a month goes by without some major action against Internet users... from Obama’s ‘kill switch’, to ACTA, SOPA and PIPA, to stasi tactics against people like Kim Dotcom. Online privacy is becoming more important by the day. And nobody is going to give it to you, you have to take steps yourself to secure it. Below are five different tools and services that will get you started...

"It’s not going away, it’s going to get worse," is how PIMCO's Mohamed El-Erian warns Yahoo's Lauren Lyster about central bank policy and the currency wars that are so much in discussion currently. Central banks have been compelled to undertake unconventional measures, things they haven’t done before, because other policymakers are not stepping up to take responsibility on the fiscal side. These implicit devaluations and beggar-thy-neighbor policies force a lot of liquidity into the system and by pushing up asset prices, central banks believe, create a 'weath effect'. It can also trigger “animal spirits” – we get all excited and invest more. In terms of equity markets, El-Erian says investors are split into two camps. One camp believes that everything will go higher and central banks will succeed in their efforts. The other camp believes asset prices are going to come down to meet the fundamentals. El-Erian puts himself in the second camp. “We think that prices are artificially high, that maintaining them here is going to be hard as central banks become less effective, and that it’s time to book some profits and to wait for some better entry points,” he explains. He clarifies that this is not a “Lehman moment." But “prices that have gotten way ahead of what policy can deliver,"

Based on Heinz' new best friend from Omaha's "best single measure of where valuations stand at any given momen," US equities are now over-valued for the first time since 2007. Buffett's measure - the percentage of total market cap (TMC) relative to the US GNP - as Cullen Roche indicates on Bloomberg's Chart of the Day, crossed 100% this week into stretched territory. As Gurufocus notes, this implies a mere return of around 3.3% annualized (including dividends) ove rthe folowing years - though as is clear from the chart below - the ride is extremely bumpy...

Yesterday, after the news of the Heinz acquisition hit the market just in time to wipe away the bitter aftertaste of the biggest GDP drop in Europe since 2009, we brought you the undisputed fact that someone made nearly $2 million in call options, which soared 1700% overnight and was bought the day before. It appears even the SEC finally is back to doing what its historic task was before it discovered internet porn, and one day after the report, has charged unidentified traders operating or trading out of Zurich, Switzerland with generating some $1.8 million in profits. Notably, the trade occurred through an "omnibus account located in Zurich, Switzerland in the name of GS Bank IC Buy Open List Options GS & Co c/o Zurich Office (the "GS Account")." Does GS stand for Goldman Sachs one wonders? And while we commend the SEC on finally doing its job, our original question still stands: who leaked the details of the transaction one day before its formal announcement?

JPY dumping early as G-20 showed they were as much use as a chocolate fireguard. Precious metals (then the rest of the commodity complex) cracked lower in the pre-open and USD strength but vol-crushing was not taking a day off and VIX-compression led S&P futures to test new highs (actually a tick off the week's highs) on dismal volume. Treasury yields pushed higher (though we note the 2s10s30s butterfly was the main carry driver). Correlations in general drifted lower as stocks slipped gently off their highs on mixed ECO data. As Europe closed, selling began but we noticed an odd thing - the selling continued - it was a non-POMO day! Then the WMT news broke and there was no POMO ammo to soak up the selling as the stock chipped away chunks of the Dow... but sure enough, the huge volume surge into the downturn was tickled all the way back up (as stocks tried to recouple with their more exuberant VIX neighbor) and touched VWAP into the last few minutes. VIX selling pressure into a long-weekend is not unusual but to new multi-year lows is becoming farcical. Gold -3.5%, Silver -5%, 10Y +6bps, USD +0.3%, Oil Unch, S&P +3pts, VIX -0.5vols. Quite a week of volumeless lethargy as the S&P 500 closed 1518, 1517, 1519, 1520, 1521, 1518.

Bulls make money; Bears make money; but Pigs get slaughtered - in massive amounts in China compared to the rest of the world... and unlike Ben Bernanke's apparent life-long vendetta against bears and their deflationary threat, this post actually means real pigs...

While everyone is very familiar, and at times hypnotized, with the plain vanilla equity chart of stock prices which at least in the US are near all time highs, and where the small-cup Russell 2000 - long the object of Bernanke's affection - is already at never before seen levels, one chart virtually nobody has seen, perhaps the most important chart for the global capital markets right now, is the following from Goldman, which shows that while outright market cap for the G7 countries (ex basket case Japan) is near all time highs courtesy of the $15 trillion in liquidity pumped by central banks, the ratio of equity market cap to the outstanding value of debt securities underlying this equity is near all time lows!

Wal-Mart shares are plunging as the firm reports a 'total disaster' in its February sales. Bloomberg obtained internal emails that note:

"In case you haven’t seen a sales report these days, February MTD sales are a total disaster,” Jerry Murray, Wal-Mart’s vice president of finance and logistics, said in a Feb. 12 e-mail to other executives, referring to month-to-date sales. “The worst start to a month I have seen in my ~7 years with the company.... That points to our competitive landscape, which means everyone is suffering and probably worse than we are”

Things must not be serious over in Bentonville for this much truth to suddenly hit the tape. One senior executive summed it up perfectly - “Well, we just had one of those weeks here at Walmart U.S. Where are all the customers? And where’s their money?” The company notes the end of the payroll tax cut by Obama and asks "We need to stop the stupid."

Update: it missed.

It is only fitting that in the aftermath of the earlier meteor explosion above the Russian Urals, that the world's attention next shifts to yet another historic celestial event, this time of near-Earth asteroid 2012 DA14, which will make a historic flyby of the planet, missing Earth by some 17,500 miles. According to scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Labs, the asteroid, which is 150 feet in size, an object of this size makes a close approach like this every 40 years. The likelihood of a strike is every 1,200 years. Of course, the neo Keynesian among us would wish the latter number was much smaller: just think of the untapped GDP potential that would result from the epic destruction. And while a direct impact would not lead to any mass extinctions as was the case 65 million years ago, when the earth was hit by a meteor 6 miles across, this rock could still do immense damage if it struck given its 143,000-ton heft, releasing 2.4 megatons of energy and wiping out 750 square miles. The closest approach will take place at 2:25 pm Eastern, and NASA will be covering the event live below.

Taxpayer-funded bank rescues in the euro area so far already amount to €300 billion, and that is not counting what might be used to bail out Cypriot banks and what may still be required in Italy and Spain. A recent study by Ernst & Young has revealed that euro-land banks in the aggregate now hold € 918 billion ($1.23 trn.) in non-performing loans (7.6% of all loans outstanding). In light of such staggering numbers, the idea to use the ESM for direct bank recapitalization seems somewhat ambitious. This is especially so as the idea to employ the ESM to take over the costs of already bailed out banks is being pushed by a number of euro area members. But then again, whatever they say, we seem happy to believe for now...