Archive - Apr 8, 2013 - Story

• Finally the MSM catches up to reality: Workers Stuck in Disability Stunt Economic Recovery (WSJ)
• China opens Aussie dollar direct trading (FT)
• National Bank and Eurobank Fall as Merger Halted (BBG)
• Why Making Europe German Won’t Fix the Crisis - The Bulgarian case study (BBG)
• Nikkei hits new highs as yen slides (FT)
• Housing Prices Are on a Tear, Thanks to the Fed (WSJ)
• Why is Moody's exempt from justice, or the "Big Question in U.S. vs. S&P" (WSJ)
• Central banks move into riskier assets (FT)
• N. Korea May Conduct Joint Missile-Nuclear Tests, South Says (BBG)
• North Korea Pulls Workers From Factories It Runs With South (NYT)
• Illinois pension fix faces political, legal hurdles (Reuters)
• IPO Bankers Become Frogs in Hot Water Amid China Market Halt (BBG)
• Portugal Seeks New Cuts to Stay on Course (WSJ)

With every modestly positive datapoint being desperately clung to, now that even Goldman's Hatzius has once more thrown in the economic towel after proclaiming an economic renaissance in late 2012 just like he did in late 2010 only to issue a mea culpa a few months later (and just as we predicted - post coming up shortly), the key prerogative is to ignore the elephant in the room. That, of course, is that the JPY 1 quadrillion bond market had to be halted for the second day in a row as the Japanese capital markets are fast becoming a very big and sad joke. The resulting flight to safety from Japanese investors, who sense that their own bond market is on the verge of breaking down completely, has managed to send French and Belgian bonds to record lows, the Spanish 2 Year to sub 2%, the German 6 month bill negative in the primary market, the US 10/30 year constantly bid and so on. The immediate result is that the bond-equity disconnect continues to diverge until one day we may get negative 10 Year rates coupled with an all time high stock market. Gotta love the fake New Normal market, in which the Japanese penny stock market was up another 2.8% to well over 13,000 even as the Shanghai Composite plumbs ever redder territory for 2013 on fears the birdflu contagion will hurt the already struggling economy even more.