Archive - Aug 2013 - Story

For many years before 2007-9 a few analysts have warned that rising consumer credit in the US and peripheral Europe was unsustainable. They warned that rising debt to support misallocated investment in China was also unsustainable. They warned that soaring US mortgages backed by little more than the hope that land prices could only rise would lead to a real estate crisis. They warned that commodity-exporting countries that did not hedge their bets would find themselves in serious trouble when commodity prices collapsed. Of course you could not have had a bubble unless the majority of analysts disagreed with these warnings, and most analysts did indeed disagree. So what happened when the warnings turned out to be right? The former bulls immediately trotted out the stopped-clock analogy. The reason the worriers turned out to be right, they earnestly explained, is that they are perma-bears, and as everyone knows a stopped clock will always be right twice a day... As China’s growth continues to slow and as its debt problems become obvious to even the most bullish, the stopped clock analogy is working overtime.

Just when you thought it was safe to travel the world and spend time in a consulate overseas...

• U.S. HAS ELIMINATED 'ALMOST ALL' AL-QAEDA LEADERS IN PAKISTAN

... the State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki reminds us:

• 'WE DO THINK A THREAT STILL REMAINS' FROM AL-QAEDA: PSAKI

So be afraid, maybe slightly less afraid, "but keep funding us too"...

• U.S. STILL CONCERNED ABOUT AL-QAEDA AFFILIATES

because, after all there are many other countries in the world where Al-Qaeda brass is hiding and where US drones haven't murdered thousands of women and children in their quest to "eliminate" whatever threat du jour the US makes up.

The sharpening international geopolitical competition over natural resources has turned some strategic resources into engines of power struggle. Transnational water resources have become an especially active source of competition and conflict, triggering a dam-building race and prompting growing calls for the United Nations to recognize water as a key security concern. With the era of cheap, bountiful water having been replaced by increasing supply and quality constraints, many investors are beginning to view water as the new oil. Political and economic water wars are already being waged in several regions, reflected in dam construction on international rivers and coercive diplomacy or other means to prevent such works. The World Bank estimates that such constraints are costing China 2.3% of GDP. In short, we must focus on addressing our water-supply problems as if our lives depended on it. In fact, they do.

If it was the Treasury's intent to make auctioning of Treasury paper increasingly more fraught with risk, it has succeeded. Moments ago, in the second auction of the week and month, another $24 billion were added to the gross US debt, when the Treasury sold 10 year paper at a yield of 2.620%, pricing through the When Issued yield of 2.623% So far so good. However, as was shown last week, the trouble is in the internals. Recall that as Zero hedge first demonstrated in January and as the TBAC reconfirmed in their refunding presentation, the Bid to Covers have been declining across the curve. It should perhaps come as no surprise then that the just completed 10 Year auction was completed at the lowest Bid To Cover, or 2.44, going all the way back to March 2009.

Following yesterday's soundbite-generating speech, President Obama will continue his 'victory lap' over housing. In a social-media event (#AskObamaHousing), Obama will join the CEO of Zillow to answer all your housing questions. From "which market do I buy/invest in to make the most money in the next 3 months flipping dat house?" to "how will my new rent-backed-securities hold their value if you cap rates?", and from "Isn't Eminent Domain just another wealth transfer plan from a large diversified group of investors to a small of group of people?" to "have you got naked pictures of Larry Summers to ensure that he instantly un-Tapers upon appointment and smashes rates back down?", we cant wait to hear the public's questions... especially as homeownership plunges to 18 year lows and rent costs surge, the 'recovery' is stalling as hedgies flee, and affordability retreats dramatically. With Zillow's dismal earnings it seems they need Obama as much as he needs housing hope...

There was a time when wealthy foreigners would frequently travel all the way to these United States in order to receive top notch medical attention. Fast forward a decade or two, and all we hear about now is how it is us Americans being forced abroad in order to receive affordable care. From a hip and knee implant cartel of five companies, kickbacks to surgeons, salespeople in the operating room, massive bureaucratic red tape and rampant price gouging, in complete contrast to the Hippocratic Oath; it is perhaps no surprise that "the list price of a total hip implant increased nearly 300 percent from 1998 to 2011."

"Financial institutions have intentionally made a mockery of market logic, forcing end-users to keep paying more despite rising global aluminum supplies. As the Times points out, each time you “open a can of soda, beer or juice,” GOLDMAN SACHS gets a cut....  By inserting itself into a healthy industry producing widely needed commodities, severely degrading functionality, and widely distributing costs while itself benefiting, GOLDMAN SACHS and JP MORGAN couldn’t fit a more archetypal description of a parasite on the markets. Hoarding in aluminum, however, is just one in a bevy of ever-multiplying non-innovations, demonstrating how the leeching of productive society has emerged as finance’s guiding light, and leeching that antitrust laws are designed to prohibit and make the economic sanctions and repayment to consumers for entering such destructive enterprises too high to pursue."

President Obama said yesterday that he wouldn't support restoring FNMA and Freddie Mac to the status they enjoyed before the credit crisis, which let Fannie and Freddie make profits during good times, "knowing that if their bets went bad, taxpayers would be left holding the bag." The implications loom large not just for property owners but for investors if there will not be any "implicitly guaranteed" Agencies. For home owners it is likely to mean that their cost of mortgage products will rise and perhaps significantly if this task is left totally to the private sector. We suspect that in times of trouble then no one will lend and the volatility in the housing sector will increase dramatically.

This is how those, who still haven't made up their minds about what the Fed will announce next month, should think of the two key market catalysts going forward.

One of these charts represents the equity market of an over-levered, recovery-hoping, money-printing nation that shows no signs of removing its training-wheels-efforts to devalue its currency and reflate its economy... the other is Japan.

Gross: So #QE 1, 2 & 3 lifted stock prices by nearly unanimous agreement. When the #Fed #tapers, stocks will keep climbing?

— PIMCO (@PIMCO) August 7, 2013

Ripped from the pages of Marvel Comics, Japanese Anime, or Game of Thrones; the latest cunning solution to what the Japanese admit is an ongoing emergency in Fukushima is, well, creative... Now that TEPCO has been shown to be inept, Abe and his government have sanctioned the funding of a 1.4km wall of ice to surround the building that holds Reactors 1 to 4. No this is not Pacific Rim; as Kyodo reports, chemical refrigerants will keep the underground wall frozen to stop the 400 tons of ground water being pumped into the reactors to cool them from leaking further into the sea water surrounding the catastrophe. This must be a positive for GDP, if 'broken windows' can help the Keynesians (and digging and refilling holes) then why not build a giant ice wall that will require unending energy to refrigerate what is a constantly melting-down core of nuclear awfulness. We wish them luck.

The country which over the past decade is most synonymous with "financial innovation" of the less than desirable kind, such as hyperinflation, complete currency and economic collapse and wholesale property confiscation, has just taken financial central-planning brilliance to the next level and following dictator Robert Mugabe's "reelection" has announced plans to open a new and "racially exclusive" stock exchange, allowing blacks alone to trade. And not trade just anything, but shares of recently nationalized foreign companies, most of which are South African-owned miners. Or rather were, because following the most recent nationalization round, Zimbabwe would take a 51% stake in all major foreign-owned companies valued at over $7 billion. No compensation will be paid.

Obama cancels meeting with Putin in Moscow amid tensions over NSA leaker Edward Snowden. http://t.co/Wdy2SYXvSt

— WSJ Breaking News (@WSJbreakingnews) August 7, 2013

Two weeks ago, Larry Summers was a long-shot 4/1 odds of becoming the next Fed Chair while Janet Yellen (at 1/3) was a 75% probable shoe-in. What a difference an onslaught of PR makes... According to PaddyPower's now re-started odds for the next chair(wo)man, the 'smart' money has piled into Larry Summers shifting his odds to a remarkable 7/4 (or triple the probability of 2 weeks ago at 60%). Yellen has dropped to a 36% probability (halving her likelihood) and Roger Ferguson has dropped off the front-runners sheet. Is the market jittery as the 'conscientious objecter to QE' rises in certainty.