Archive - Mar 5, 2013 - Story

State and local governments nationwide have struggled to accommodate a homeless population that has changed in recent years - now including large numbers of families with young children. As the WSJ reports, more than 21,000 children - an unprecedented 1% of the city's youth - slept each night in a city shelter in January, an increase of 22% in the past year; as homeless families now spend more than a year in a shelter, on average, for the first time since 1987. New York City has seen one of the steepest increases in homeless families in the past decade, advocates said, growing 73% since 2002, and "is facing a homeless crisis worse than any time since the Great Depression."

First we got GM subprime interest-free car loans,  then we got subprime ABS securitizations, then we got soaring student loan defaults and delinquencies, then we got the opportunity to sell and short student loan exposure, and now, finally, the credit bubble is complete as FastFunds Financial Corporation is proud to announce that it has acquired exclusive mortgage servicing rights for an "Innovative New Mortgage Product." Why is it so innovative? Because it requires no credit verification, no credit history, no docs and needs no personal guarantees. In other words, it is the very worst of the worst lending practices we saw in 2006: the NINJA.

The United States desperately needs to formulate a grand strategy that reinforces the domestic foundations of American power while providing strategic guidance and direction to the nation’s actions in foreign policy. America must adapt with new ideas, tools and innovations if it is going to meet the opportunities and challenges of a rapidly changing world. To be successful, this strategy must embrace several overarching themes: first, the United States must remain committed to playing a leadership role; second, American grand strategy must promote a positive, hopeful, and optimistic vision for the world that it seeks to build; third, a grand strategy will be effective only if it commands broad and unequivocal support from the American public and their policymakers; and finally, the nation is long past the age when American grand strategy can pursue “cookie-cutter” or “school solutions” to challenges. What we are proposing is the hardly radical but often overlooked principle that American grand strategy should be, above all else, agile and flexible as it responds to the demands of the American people and the challenges of a rapidly evolving world.

In the face of Janet Napolitano's terrifying claims that major airports were already seeing lines "150 to 200 percent as long as we would normally expect" as a result of the budget-crushing sequestration cuts that went into force on Friday, The Telegraph reports that, in fact, LAX "haven't had any slowdowns." But how can that be? The government said it would all be horrible - and to think of the children... it appears Ms. Napolitano was speaking that dialect of English we call 'politician' as airports have 'received no reports of unusual security delays.' Unpossible. The DHS would not return calls questioning her exclamations that she "did not mean to scare, just inform," about LAX, O'Hare, and Atlanta's Hartfield-Jackson. This scare-mongery follows Maxine Waters' 170 million unemployed claim and Arne Duncan's teachers already being laid off claims. Trust, indeed.

In response to Rand Paul's letter asking whether "the President has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without trial," we now have an answer. Attorney General Holder responds, in a word "Yes." Of course, it is caveated with 'extraordinary circumstances' and 'necessity' but as Mike Krieger so subtly summarizes: "the military can assassinate U.S. citizens on U.S. soil." As NBC reports, the letter from Holder surfaced just as the Senate Intelligence Committee was voting 12-3 to approve White House counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan to be CIA director. The vote came after the White House agreed to share additional classified memos on targeted drone strikes against U.S. citizens overseas. As Rand Paul commented, "this is more than frightening... it is an affront to the Constitutional due process rights of all Americans."

As the investing world celebrates the all time nominal high of an archaically-weighted index of an ever-changing basket of stocks, there is another - this time unprintable asset - that appears in all-time high demand - firearms. Smith & Wesson just released earnings not only with record high revenues but increasing their outlook dramatically for fiscal year 2013. The surge in 'background checks' and sales since the election (and furthermore since the Tragedy in Newtown) continues (+29% YoY) and as SHWC notes "The tragedy in Newtown has understandably inspired an important national discussion about how to cope with violence in our communities - we possess a broad range of products and a highly flexible manufacturing operation. Taken together, these allow us to be highly responsive should the market and/or legislative developments drive a change in sales mix."

The most unsurprising news of the day has just hit, and while we have already had some 20+ rumors on this issue previously, this time it is official:

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez has died, says VP Maduro
Chavez who ruled Venezuela since 1999, died from cancer at the age of 58
Venezuela's army chiefs pledge to support President Nicolas Maduro after Hugo Chavez's death
Special deployment of armed forces announced in Venezuela after death of Hugo Chavez

Time to celebrate Hugo's memory with some more currency devaluation? It is unclear if Goldman's record profits on Venezuela exposure (see How The Glorious Socialist Revolution Generated A 681% Return For Goldman Sachs) are about to snap back with a vengeance.

The net effect of QE4EVA is that on average, every business day in March will see the Fed effectively seed a new $4.25bn AUM investment firm whose sole goal is to buy, not sell, securities. Some of you have worked in asset management your entire careers.  You know how hard it is raise assets. Out of thin air, a new $4.25bn competitor is starting up each and every business day in March, courtesy of the good folks in the Marriner-Eccles building in DC. It must be hard to sit by and watch while the Fed creates a new $4.25bn competitor every business day where the sole goal of that money is to buy simply because a Princeton academic thinks it should.  The Princeton academic thinks stocks should be high, so they are.  The Princeton academic thinks bond yields should be low, so they are.  Period.  Of course this makes a mockery of those of you who actually try to understand fundamental value, but hey, the Princeton academic gets what the Princeton academic wants.  The devil take the hindmost. However, I do know that what the Fed is doing now is unsustainable and certainly unfair to those of us who actually work for a living.  And what is unsustainable and unfair in the long-run does not last.

The political balance has changed substantially over the last year, from the cosy days when Merkel met Sarkozy and Monti kept the Italians in order. Germany faces full elections in September this year, and it will be difficult for Chancellor Merkel to win, given that her party, the Christian Democrats, did badly in the local German elections in January. The German voter has generally been more concerned with Germany’s relative economic success, bringing low unemployment, than the intractable problem of supporting other Eurozone nations. Given Merkel’s political difficulties, she is likely to be slow to subscribe Germany’s full commitment and can use the excuse that she can only be expected to match the other large contributors – who are by the way, France, Italy, and Spain. It is likely to be a political virtue for her to take a tougher line. It would therefore be a mistake to think that Germany is going to continue to fund profligate governments. Since the ECB has already created the precedent (quote from Mr Draghi: “Whatever it takes”), the ECB will have to end up creating the money required.

With central bank monetization supporting gold prices and fiscal deficits, DoubleLine's Jeffrey Gundlach's latest chart extravaganza contains more than a few charts you will have seen browsing these very pages. From Japanese demographics (and their apparent love of debasement) to US deficits (and US ignorance of them), from structural unemployment to ongoing private-to-public risk transfer, and from the diminishing returns from QE programs to the illusory nature of inflation; the new bond guru, as we noted yesterday, raises more than a few 'doubts' about the new reality in which our markets live - Gundlach fears 'trade protectionism' is coming (and will hurt the global economy); sees monetary easing going on for years (not months); dismisses the 'money on the sidelines' myth by noting that retail involvement is about the same as in 2007; thinks a 2% 10Y is 'reasonable' value; says to avoid banks; likes Silver; thinks the Student Loan debt market is a bubble set to burst; sees the perceived strength in housing as 'overblown'; blows the 'great rotation' meme away - "there can be no net rotation, for every buyer there's a seller"; and is sticking to his long Nikkei, Short S&P 500 trade.

Throughout history, bankrupt governments in decline almost ALWAYS fall back on a time-tested playbook. This includes imposing controls on everything - wage and price controls, trade controls, capital controls, border controls, people controls. Everything. And this idea goes back to the dawn of human civilization. From Mesopotamia to Rome and from France to Argentina, these policies have been a complete disaster for the country. But as the rest of the world looks on, people in ‘rich’ countries foolishly believe that ‘it can’t happen here.’ So, again, if you think that gold criminalization, price controls, and IRA/pension confiscation could never happen where you live, think again. This is wishful, ignorant, dangerous thinking. It can happen. It is already happening.

We could tell you all about the fact that high-yield credit did not play along with this rally today (and that the underlying cash market for corporate bonds has been weak for well over a week now); we could note that VIX did not take part in this surge today as the stops were run; we could point to the total lack of volume (NYSE or futures) confirming the move; we could highlight the fact that Treasury yields rose a de minimus 1.5bps on the day and while the USD slipped modestly on the day, it is only down 0.22% on the week and that Gold, Silver, and Oil are all unchanged on the week. But - all that matters, in this headline-driven algo-aided market is - The Dow hit all time highs - 'Mission Accomplished' Mr. Bernanke, well played - record stocks, record debt, record food stamps recipients.

Presented with no comment...

The following five charts reflect the hollowing out of the private-sector employment. This has profound implications for education, taxes, housing and inequality. What no one dares admit is that the U.S. economy is burdened by overcapacity (too many malls, restaurants, MRI machines, etc.) and too much debt, much of which was taken on to fund mal-investments. We suffer from a systemic failure of imagination. The financial and political Aristocracy that rules the neofeudal, financialized economy have no other model other than debt-based misallocation of capital and endless growth of debt-based consumption. That this model is broken and cannot possibly get us where we need to go does not matter; they will continue to do more of what's failed because they have no alternative model that leaves their power and wealth intact.

After exposing the stock market manipulative arsenal that is High Frequency Trading, quote stuffing, flash trading, packet churning, layering, sub-pennying, liquidity, latency and dark pool arbitrage, NBBO and Reg NMS exemptions, "hide-not-sliding", collocation, and much, much more for four years, or so long even Credit Suisse joined the chorus we started in April of 2009, we are glad to learn that finally, with a ridiculous Rip Van Winklesian delay, but better late than never, "the FBI has teamed up with securities regulators to tackle the potential threat of market manipulation posed by new computer trading methods that have taken operations beyond the scope of traditional policing." In other words, the SEC has finally realized it can no longer pretend it is not co-opted, but because it has no clue where to even start with HFT, has asked the help of the Feds. Which in itself is hardly reason for optimism, but if there is one thing Hans Gruber has taught us, it is that when the Feds get involved, the first thing they do is cut the power, and in this algo-based market that will end some 99% of all daily manipulative practices we have all grown to love and look forward to every single day.