Archive - Jul 2013 - Story

Presented with little comment aside to note that US equities are once again resurgent near all-time highs fully supported by err... umm... fundamentals.

Still confused how Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crashed yesterday, leading to the first fatalities associated with a Boeing 777 airplane? The following just released video from CNN should answer all lingering questions, and also explain why all airport landing systems should always be turned on (especially to assist those who apparently are clueless when it comes to operating without computer assistance, such as 9 out of 10 modern equity "traders").

Earlier today, among other lies statements to New Democracy party supporters in Athens, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said (with a straight face) that the country is now the only oasis of stability in wider region, in contrast to the past. Which, in addition to the obvious, is ironic for the following rather amusing reason.

Professor Art Carden has developed some exceptionally silly walks and is seeking payment for his work. Since he cannot find anyone to pay him voluntarily, perhaps he should apply for a government subsidy for producing silly walks. But while silly walks may benefit society, the fact that people will not pay for their development voluntarily indicates that people do not value silly walks as much as other things people would pay him to do. Are some subsidies valid, though? What about for food? Or for education? How about subsidies for clean energy? Is government assistance definitely better for society?

At an incredible $9.98 per gallon, Turkey has the most expensive gasoline in the world - almost triple that of the US - closely followed by Norway at $9.97. In fact, as Bloomberg notes, the US can celebrate its good fortune at being only the 51st most expensive country in the world for gasoline. So why is it then that so much is made of a rising gas price in the US? Why do we fear $3.80 when Turkey shows us things could be a lot worse? The simple answer lies in the chart below. The US spends the 7th most in the world on gasoline as a percentage of income and is by far the largest among developed economies as a percentage of income. At 3.06% of income, and being that the US is a consumption-based, low-quality-job, unaffordable-housing-means-driving-to-work nation, the possibility of $4 gas in the not-too-distant future (as Egyptian instability leaks into WTI prices) has a far greater impact on the US than any other of the world's large economies. But then again, we are sure it is all transitory.

Trying to find a job in America today can be an incredibly frustrating experience.  Most of the jobs that are available seem to pay very little, and there is intense competition for just about any job that is open.  But it wasn't always like this. Our economy simply does not produce enough jobs for everyone anymore, and the percentage of "good jobs" continues to decline.  That means that it is getting really hard to find a job that will enable you to support a family, and a lot of people end up doing jobs that they are massively overqualified for.  But when times are tough, people are going to do what they have to do in order to survive. Once upon a time, just about any adult that was willing to work hard in America could go out and find a good paying job that would support a middle class lifestyle. Now those days are gone forever.

Congress wanted to know what would happen if such a “glitch” ate a hole in the balance sheet of a Too Big to Fail bank? The answer: yet another round of tax-payer bailouts.

There was more. BATS, Facebook, and Knight were just the three most prominent computer glitches of the year. Outsiders were realizing what the insiders had known for years: The U.S. stock market was plagued with glitches that happened on a daily basis, and not just in stocks. Markets for commodities, bonds, and currencies all had their fair share of computer-driven mishaps. Increasingly, investors were wondering not only if the market was rigged, but whether it was completely broken. Indeed, the trade publication Traders Magazine called 2012 “The Year of the Glitch.”

If there is one equivalent to Goldman's FX "strategist" Tom Stolper in the macroeconomic arena when it comes to perpetually inaccurate, flawed and flat out wrong predictions about the future, it is the IMF. Previously we compiled a brief history of their consistently overoptimistic, (downward) revisionistic forecasts based on their semi-annual reports which can only be summarized as "laughable." And, sure enough, we just learned that the IMF is about to trim its unrealistic optimism some more.

"The China Radio International sponsored newspaper World News Journal (Shijie Xinwenbao)(04/28): "According to China's National Foreign Exchanges Administration China's gold reserves have recently increased. Currently, the majority of its gold reserves have been located in the U.S. and European countries. The U.S. and Europe have always suppressed the rising price of gold. They intend to weaken gold's function as an international reserve currency. They don't want to see other countries turning to gold reserves instead of the U.S. dollar or Euro. Therefore, suppressing the price of gold is very beneficial for the U.S. in maintaining the U.S. dollar's role as the international reserve currency. China's increased gold reserves will thus act as a model and lead other countries towards reserving more gold. Large gold reserves are also beneficial in promoting the internationalization of the RMB."

It is hard to square the economic circle of homebuilder/REIT-related equities falling (given concerns about the higher-rate environment) with a broad equity market rally as much predicated on the re-blowing of a real-estate bubble as any other real fundamental basis. The conundrum is perhaps even greater when we note that in spite of an unprecedented surge in mortgage rates, pending home sales surged in the most recent data. However, as the following chart makes all too clear, home sales lag mortgage rates with a very high level of correlation and it appears, we suspect, that this most recent surge in home sales (extrapolated by those of that bias to mean that the housing recovery is sustainable even with higher rates already crushing affordability) is merely a pulling forward of activity and will lead to a significant softening in coming months (especially relative to expectations) should the taper-tantrum in bonds remain.

Last week we defined the golden sentiment rule as "anything that isn't off the chart soon will be." This will happen in a "perfectly sustainable" fashion, where increasingly more paper gold is shorted to record levels even as actual physical holdings held by official Comex vaults continues to drop. For one particular reason why the price of paper gold may be at 3 year lows, we will provide some formerly classified perspective shortly in a post. But in the meantime, and while we await the weekly CFTC commitment of traders report (delayed until Monday due to the July 4 holiday), we are happy to report that the JPM disconnect between the epic delivery requests and its reported gold holdings (for which the "Commodity Exchange, Inc. disclaims all liability whatsoever with regard to its accuracy or completeness") reconnected modestly, and as per the latest Comex update, another 6.8k ounces of gold was pulled from JPM's 1 CMP world's biggest gold vault, dropping its total gold inventory to a fresh record low.

Marc Faber noted recently, "markets will punish the interventionists one day," and while we are already seeing 'accidents' occurring in JGBs, Gold, EM debt, and now US Treasuries; US equities remain immune. However, given the current uncertainty of macro-economic data, high-leverage, fear of rising interest rates, and instability of currency markets, all of the same conditions that led to the 1987 crash are now present in financial markets. Does this mean the markets are going to crash? Certainly not; but the conditions may be right for another 'market accident' to happen.

While global equity markets (alone) celebrated what appeared to be a somewhat lackluster jobs data dump yesterday, it's not all rainbows and unicorns for the US employee. It is not just manufacturing jobs that are bleeding (as bartenders and waitresses surge), but the following 14 professions have been in decline for the last decade and are projected to drop even further going forward. From shipping clerks to sewing machine operators and typists, the new normal looks a little different from the old normal of the last century.

UPDATE: NBC Reporting 2 Dead, *SF GENERAL HAS '10 TO 12' CRITICALLY INJURED FROM JET CRASH

Just over an hour ago an Asiana plane inbound from Seoul, South Korea, crash landed at San Francisco airport. Given the images below, it is a miracle no one is reported dead (among the 291 passengers and 12 crew). An eyewitness noted:

*AIRLINER TAIL HIT NEAR END OF RUNWAY, EYEWITNESS TELLS CNN,
*AIRLINER SPUN COMPLETELY AROUND ON LANDING, WITNESS TELLS CNN

As far as they know, NBC reports, the pilot made no distress calls prior to landing and Federal officials indicate no indication of terrorism. The San Francisco airport will be holding a press conference shortly.

 Local NBC news is reporting that the plane appeared to power-up as it was landing short and its tail hit the seawall.