Archive - Aug 2013 - Story

First it was BATS self-helping against NYSE Arca, now it's Nasdaq's turn to break. Joking aside, AAPL dipped below $500 literally minutes before the NASDAQ broke. We joked earlier when we said any selling is enough to break the market. Now, we are not so sure...

THE RESULTS OF THE 5-YEAR NOTE AUCTION COULD RESULT IN THE UNSCHEDULED REOPENING OF THE 7-YEAR NOTES OF SERIES P-2018 (CUSIP NO. 912828RE2)

If the auction of the 5-year Treasury notes to be held Wednesday, August 28, 2013, results in a high yield in a range of 1.500% through and including 1.624%, the 5-year notes will be considered an additional issue of the outstanding 1-1/2% 7-year notes of Series P-2018 (CUSIP No. 912828RE2) originally issued August 31, 2011. The additional issue of notes would have the same CUSIP number as the outstanding notes, which are currently outstanding in the amount of $29,886 million. If the auction results in the issuance of an additional amount of the outstanding 7-year notes rather than a new 5-year note, it will be indicated in the Treasury's auction results press release and by a special announcement. Any net long position reporting in this auction should be in regard to the 5-year notes.

Ever heard of BOSS? Didn’t think so. BOSS stands for Biometric Optical Surveillance System, and it is a crowd-scanning program that has been in development by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for almost three years now. Did you catch that? This is the DHS, the ridiculously dangerous, cancerous, gargantuan waste of money our “leaders” foolishly created after 9/11 to prevent “terrorism.” Whereas in the beginning most people actually believed the DHS was there to stop cave dwellers with terroristic tendencies, it is now completely clear that its primary mission is to protect the oligarchs and political criminals from domestic dissent.

Summarizing the entire speech in two words: "charge it"

After a self-imposed gag order by the mainstream media on any coverage of the Fukushima disaster (ostensibly the last thing the irradiated Japanese citizens needed is reading beyond the lies of their benevolent government, and TEPCO, and finding out just how bad the reality is especially since the key driver behind Abenomics is a return in confidence at all costs), the biggest nuclear catastrophe in history is once again receiving the attention it deserves. This follows the recent admission by TEPCO of the biggest leak reported at Fukushima to date, which forced the Japanese government to raise the assessment of Fukushima from Level 1 to Level 3, even though this is merely the catalyst of what has been a long and drawn out process in which Tepco has tried everything it could to contain the fallout from the exploded NPP, and failed. And today, in a startling and realistic assessment of Fukushima two and a half years after the explosion, the WSJ finally tells the truth: "Tepco Has Lost Control."

UPDATE: Looks like that Goldman loss may have been a bit bigger than expected. BATS just redeclared self-help against NYSE Arca. There was a time that a red DJIA was needed for the market to break. It has become any downtick.

It's happened again... Judging by the speed with which the latest NYSE Arca market failure was resolved, we can only assume the amount of Goldman Sachs losses that are about to be DK'ed is 'only' in the 10 million range at most...

Some bad news for Pvt. Bradley Chelsea Manning, who was sentenced to spend 35 years in male prison:

U.S. ARMY SAYS IT DOES NOT PROVIDE HORMONES OR SEX-REASSIGNMENT SURGERY AFTER WIKILEAKS CONVICT BRADLEY MANNING SAYS HE WANTS TO LIVE AS A WOMAN

Well, there goes that approach: it seems Chelsea's debut was short-lived.

There are all sorts of candidates for the root cause of the systemic global financial crisis, but if we separate the wheat from the chaff we're left with risk and moral hazard. Pointing to human greed and cupidity as the cause doesn't identify anything useful about this era's crisis, as human greed, self-interest and opportunism are default settings. Programs that backstop banks and social insurance systems like Medicare are not like fire or life insurance because they are effectively open-ended in terms of costs and in exposure to risk. A system which pools risk without distributing it to the participants and eliminates the causal connection between risk and consequence introduces moral hazard on a grand scale.

Gallup tracks daily the percentage of U.S. adults, aged 18 and older, who are underemployed, unemployed, and employed full-time for an employer, without seasonal adjustment. Due to the lack of Arima-X 'magic' the results are specifically not comparable to the BLS data, but, as the chart below suggests, the correlation is high. What is most worrying about the latest data is the rapid rise in both unemployment and underemployment that the Gallup poll finds (to 8.9% unemployment and 17.9% underemployment. Unemployment rates have jumped notably in the last month to their highest in 13 months. Will the Fed 'allow' this data to filter into the BLS data and 'avoid the Taper' or are there non-economic reasons (G-20, deficits, technicals, sentiment) that the Fed needs to SepTaper.

Schaeuble and Merkel have very recently confirmed what was leaked a month ago - that Greece will likely get yet another 'helping hand' aid program. Some have noted that this may be financed using EU funds instead of additional loans from EU-area countries (or the IMF) yet Merkel's comments (perhaps playing to her electioneering needs) appeared to dismiss this - prompting talk of a 'bail-in' based on the new normal 'template' applied to Cyprus. Greece has so far received two bailout packages totaling EUR240 billion (with about EUR22 billion still to be released) which is 130% of Greece's GDP (which stands at EUR186.2 billion) and while the thord package appears smaller (for now) at EUR10.9 billion (based on IMF funding gap forecasts), this covers only the period through 2015 (and we know how accurate the IMF has been in the past with its hockey-sticks). Greece remains  mired in the sixth year of a recession with more than 6 out of 10 young people unemployed.

While largely noise in the context of the big picture, last week's multi-year low in initial claims of 320K (revised upward as usual to 323K), driven in big part by the specific furlough situation at the automakers, reversed and rose by 13K to 330K, or 6K higher than expectations. This was the highest claims number since July 19, the biggest miss to expectations and also the largest weekly jump in 6 weeks. Notably, the entire move was due to seasonal adjustments: the unadjusted claims number declined even more, dropping from 283K to 279K, although with the market at a point where bad news is desperately needed to provide even the tiniest bounce to risk, the adjustment is now meant to distort the underlying data lower not higher.

Consumer confidence for those who earn $50,000 or more per year has recovered entirely to pre-Great Recession levels while lower income groups continue to lag. It seems, as Bloomberg's Rich Yamarone points out, money (or credit) really can buy happiness.

"As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible. I hope that you will support me in this transition. I also request that, starting today, you refer to me by my new name and use the feminine pronoun (except in official mail to the confinement facility). I look forward to receiving letters from supporters and having the opportunity to write back." Bradley Chelsea E. Manning

• SURPRISE - Goldman Sachs won a preliminary victory to limit losses from a wave of erroneous trades that roiled U.S. options markets (WSJ)
• HP’s Whitman abandons 2014 revenue growth target (FT) - just keep doing those buybacks and ignore CapEx: revenue growth estimated in 2022
• Republicans in Echo Before Big Burn Defy Affordable Care (BBG)
• China's banks to take next step in rate reform push  (Reuters)
• Berlin’s Consistency on Greece’s Rescue (FT) and lack thereof
• Summers as Obama Voice of Authority Rides Car Rescue in Fed Race (BBG)
• Cuomo in Manure Fight as New York Promotes Yogurt (BBG)
• Yellen’s Ties From London to Shanghai Bypass White House (BBG)
• Sanctions Gap Allows China to Import Iranian Oil (WSJ)

Following the market's shocking realization that the taper is coming prompting a kneejerk to the kneejerk reaction after the FOMC minutes, and yet another painful session in Asia, stocks were desperate for some good news from somewhere, which they got thanks to a Goldilocks PMI from China printing by the smallest possible expansionary quantum, or 50.1, and well above expectations, as well as a continuation of better than expected European PMI data with the August composite rising from 50.5 to 51.7 vs. Exp. 50.9, based pm a Services PMI rising into expansion to 51.0 from 49.8, (Exp. 50.2), and Manufacturing at 51.3 vs. Exp. 50.8 up from 50.3, the highest since June 2011. It is perhaps stunning just how conflicting this "improving" data is with private sector industrial and manufacturing company metrics, but with the credit creation situation in Europe (read: all that matters) at record lows, and with banks retrenching and needing to delever by trillions, it is only a matter of time before this latest propaganda wave is exposed for what it is. The net effect of the overnight data is to push the USDJPY to nearly 99.00 which thanks to the ubiquitous correlation algos has dragged US equity futures higher, if only briefly (the 10 Year is at 2.91% - under 10bps from redline territory), while slamming the offsetting EURUSD despite the "better" than expected European data.