Archive - Sep 29, 2013 - Story

Reader's Digest wanted to know how honest world cities are, so it “lost” 192 wallets in 16 cities - that’s 12 wallets in each city - to see how many would be returned. Each wallet contained $50 equivalent of local currency, as well as a name, phone number, family photo, coupons, and business cards. The results, as IBTimes' Lisa Mahapatra illustrates are perhaps surprising. The US ranked well (with 8/12 wallets returned) but the troubled regions of Europe (Spain and Portugal) came a dismal last with only 2 and 1 wallets returned respectively.

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"One day this whole credit bubble will be deflated very badly - you are going to experience a complete implosion of all asset prices and the credit system..."

As JPY-crosses suggested in the early Asia session, US equity futures are off to a tough start. S&P 500 futures are down 14 points from Friday's close, testing down to their 50-day moving average and back to 3-week lows. The S&P 500 is now -3.2% from its post-Un-Taper highs. Treasury futures are at 3-month high (price) implying around a 4-5bps drop in yields to 2.58% for 10Y and 1.35% 5Y.

The situation in Italy appears to be going from bad to worse. With a confidence vote pending for Tuesday as the government dissolves into chaos for the umpteenth time, and following the resignation of the CEO of one of Italy's largest non-financial corporations (Telecom Italia), the largest bank (by assets) in Italy - Intesa SanPaolo has announced - effective immediately - the resignation of its CEO and replacement with Carlo Messina. According to sources, the now former CEO had lost the confidence of shareholders (which is odd given the bank's stock is near 2-year highs). We can't help but wonder Ayn Rand-like at the devolution of the ruling class in Italy and what happens next (in light of the crumbling manufacturing and production data).

With even the most compromising politicians on both sides of the aisle admitting at least a brief government shutdown is inevitable (and according to Stone McCarthy the shutdown will hardly be brief and will affect the timely release of such major economic indicators as construction spending, factory orders and the employment number on Friday), the next question arises: how have markets responded to not only shutdowns, but also debt ceiling impasse (with the memory of August 2011 still very vivid) in the past. Here is the full answer from Deutsche's Dominic Constam: "In a shutdown scenario, government agency-compiled economic data releases could be delayed, while essential services, such as Treasury auctions, interest and principal payments on Treasury securities will not be affected. Some federal workers could be furloughed. The most recent government shutdown occurred in late 1995 to early 1996, and lasted about three weeks. Payroll and retail sales data were delayed during that period."

It's never different this time. All too often we forget (whether by choice or happenstance) what occurred in the past - missing the lessons from history and, perhaps in an effort to deny the reality, maintaining the status quo that cradles us so warmly every night. In an effort to bring back some of that "memory" - and dispel the inevitable recency bias (and cognitive dissonance) as even the Fed is admitting markets are frothy, we bring you 1999's CNN Special "The New Economy - Boom Without End."

Back in August, just after the false flag chemical weapon attack in Syria, we showed that despite all the posturing by the Obama administration (and, of course, France's belligerent, socialist leader Francois Hollande), the nation behind the entire Syrian campaign was not one of the "democratic", Western nations but none other than close neighbor Saudi Arabia, and the brain orchestrating every move of the western puppets was one Bandar bin Sultan, the nation's influential intelligence chief. We also explained the plethora of geopolitical and mostly energy-related issues that Saudi and Qatar had at stake, which they were eager to launch a regional war over, just to promote their particular set of selfish interests. A month later, in clear confirmation that this was precisely the case, the WSJ reported that the recent overtures by Obama, brilliantly checkmated by Putin, to push for a peaceful resolution with not only Syria, but suddenly Iran as well, has managed to infuriate Saudi Arabia: traditionally one of the US' closest allies in the region and the key source of crude oil to the western world.

UPDATE: EURJPY -150pips

Between FX carry-based risk-off from the looming government shutdown in the US and the debacle that has become Italian politics, the EUR is getting pummeled out of the gate. EURJPY is down 100 pips - well below Un-Taper levels from 2 weeks ago and EURUSD is fading fast (down almost 50 pips). The EURJPY move implies a notably lower open for S&P futures. We suspect, given the 28-month highs in EUR net longs, that this drop may get bigger by the time Europe opens...

There may be temporary 'benefits in terms of employment gains' if the Fed creates an even more gigantic echo bubble than it has already done. We are willing to grant that much. The Fed apparently believes these days that there should be no limits whatsoever to the Fed's monetary pumping. 'Inflation' targets? Forget about it! Asset bubbles? Who cares! It is as if the past 20 years had not happened – as if they had simply erased the whole period from his memory. Do they really believe that pumping up another giant bubble will have more benefits than drawbacks? Where does it all end? However, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and there cannot be an 'eternal boom' by simply continuing to print, as once envisaged by Keynes. All that will happen is that the ultimate disaster will be even greater. In fact, is seems ever more likely that the next disaster will be the last one of the current monetary system.

Italian bank holdings of Italian debt: €400 billion, an all time high. Oops.

While bubbling assets are a major part of the history of the Greenspan/Bernanke economy, so too is unsustainable borrowing. It seems wise to keep an eye out for another borrowing binge, especially as policymakers are encouraging all forms of financial risk-taking.  And one place to check is the Fed’s quarterly “Flow of Funds” report, which recently took the fancy new title, “Financial Accounts of the United States,” but still goes by the nickname “Z1.” There’s a cautionary note in comparisons of today’s leverage ratio to the last three expansions. The last three times the ratio jumped above the current reading of 7.2 were Q1 1990, Q1 1999 and Q2 2007. And from these points in time, the economy fell into recession about a year later, or less, in each case. (The respective times to recession were two, four and two quarters.)

Following yesterday's unexpected (if not shocking) news that ministers from Berlusconi's PDL have resigned en masse in order to push for new elections, leading to the latest Italian government crisis (in a long and distinguished series), Italy's premier Letta and president Napolitano are scrambling to preserve some stability, and not only they but moments ago Ansa reported that the management and supervisory boards of Italian megabank Intesa are set to meet at 6 pm, as not even the most optimistic see an easy way out of the political dead end Italy has found itself in now.

With a government's October 1 shut down - temporary of course - now seemingly inevitable, and more importantly with the peak debt ceiling negotiations due in just about a week after which point the Treasury will run out of money, many wonder what comes next. That this is happening just two short years after the dramatic August 2011 debt ceiling impasse, when the market tumbled 20% and likely slowed economic growth is still fresh in everyone's mind, is hardly helping matters. Add a potential political crisis in Greece and Italy, and suddenly a whole lot of unexpected variables have to be "priced in."

Last Thursday when we reported the surreal sequence of investor disinformation events facilitated by both JCP's management team, CNBC and a conflicted "source", we said that "it was only a matter of time before lawyers started making phone calls, and before someone got implicated in what in retrospect can be construed as very serious, and costly, 10(b)-5 securities fraud." Sure enough, it took a little under 48 hours before the first (of many) lawyers smelled blood, and resulted in Shareholder Rights Law Firm Johnson & Weaver, LLP starting an investigation " if a securities violation was committed by J.C. Penney Company, Inc., when it made specific representations about the company's liquidity and the need to raise cash." The answer: yes. The only question is who is guilty, and how much the settlement will be for all those who lost cash on the second most active trading day of JCP stock in history (followed only by the next trading day in which the stock tumbled another 6% from the Goldman follow on offering price to a fresh 13 year low).