Archive - Sep 2013 - Story

A few days ago, when we reported that the largest federation of unions, the AFL-CIO, had figured out that Obamacare was not all it was craked up to be and demanded changes be implemented to appease their constituency as pertains to multi-employer group health plans, many wondered if the administration would not simply cave and pass an exemption giving unions a sidedeal at the expense of all other participants. Last night that option was taken off the table when the Obama administration appeared to rule out giving unions a special deal to offer their workers extra ObamaCare subsidies. As AP reports, "on Friday night, the White House said the Treasury Department had issued a letter making clear that it does not see a legal way for individuals in multi-employer group health plans to receive individual market tax credits as well as the favorable tax treatment associated with employer-provided health insurance at the same time."

If Fed governor Jeremy Stein had concerns about a resurgent credit bubble in February when he wrote his warning about "Overheating in Credit Markets: Origins, Measurement, and Policy Responses" then he should certainly not look at the bubbly ferocity that is taking place in the bond world just half a year after his letter failed to make any dent in the yield-chasing animal spirits.

As economist Jesús Huerta de Soto documents in his tour de force Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles, government has played a leading role in fostering this banking fraud for centuries. The state is forever on the search for more resources to carry out its bidding. Cooperation with the leading money-lending institutions was an obvious route for subverting the moral means to wealth creation. Since the days of classical Greece, it was well understood that transactions of present goods fundamentally differed from those involving future goods. In practical terms, deposits for safekeeping were of considerable difference to those made for the strict purpose of lending out and garnering a return. Bankers who misappropriated funds were often found guilty of fraud and forced to pay restitution. In one recorded episode, ancient Grecian legal scholar Isocrates lambasted Athenian banker Passio for reneging on a client’s depository claim. After being entrusted to hold a select amount of money, the sly banker loaned out a portion of the funds in the hopes of earning a profit. When asked to make due on the deposit, the timid Passio pleaded to his accuser to keep the transgression “a secret so it would not be discovered he had committed fraud.”

Following two days of negotiations in Geneva, this morning John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov announced they have reached an agreement for a framework on how Syria would destroy its chemical weapons, and would also seek a UN Security Council resolution that would authorize sanctions, but not military action as per Russia's demand, if Assad failed to comply. The diplomats announced on the third day of intense negotiations in Geneva that some elements of the deal include a timetable and how Syria must comply. At a news conference at the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva, Kerry said the inspectors must be on the ground by November and destruction or removal of the chemical weapons must be completed by mid-2014.

It’s always a good sign for an empire’s fortunes when the commander in chief of the armed forces completely loses the confidence and trust of the troops.

To say that bonds are under pressure would be an understatement. Over the last few months, sentiment about fixed income has flipped dramatically: from a favored investment destination that is deemed to benefit from exceptional support from central banks, to an asset class experiencing large outflows, negative returns and reduced standing as an anchor of a well-diversified asset allocation. Similar to prior periods, history will regard the ongoing phase of dislocations in the bond market as a transitional period of adjustment triggered by changing expectations about policy, the economy and asset preferences – all of which have been significantly turbocharged by a set of temporary and ultimately reversible technical factors. By contrast, history is unlikely to record a change in the important role that fixed income plays over time in prudent asset allocations and diversified investment portfolios – in generating returns, reducing volatility and lowering the risk of severe capital loss. Understanding well what created this change is critical to how investors may think about the future.

Despite Hank Paulson's recent re-emergence basking in the glory of his miracle, the 'too-big-to-fail' problem is bigger and more prone to fail than ever before (M&A dominance, capital cost advantages, major AFS loss potential and huge reliance on repo funding). The following excellent infographic from The FT succinctly summarises the reasons why banks failed last time... and what lessons - if any - we have learnt...

Faber begins by noting that "a deflationary bust, whenever it may happen (tomorrow or 10 years), is inevitable; and is the opposite of an increase in prices from inflation." Of course, it is the central banks' response to even the fears of that bust (e.g. whether it washes around the world - from EM to DM) that will turn an asset-deflationary bust into a hyperinflationary collapse in fiat currencies; and focused on the long-term, 'Gloom, Boom, & Doom Report's' Marc Faber looks at how to preserve wealth through this as he ranges from the obsolescence risk of equities to the political risk of real estate and banking risks of cash and deposits. Faber reflects on various lessons from the past (hyperinflations, wars, banking crises) and geographies as he moves from asset class to asset class highlighting the pros and cons of each. Preferring a mix of gold and diversified real estate (and not government bonds), Faber warns investors to be highly skeptical of anyone who believes they can forecast what is going to happen over the next 5-10 years.

Still believe in humans buying and selling stocks, influencing the machinations of broad-based equity valuations based on their aggregate (rational, frictionless, technical, fundamental, and infinitely liquid) beliefs... then what the f**k is this?

Until six days before Lehman Brothers collapsed five years ago, the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s maintained the firm’s investment-grade rating of “A.” Moody’s waited even longer, downgrading Lehman one business day before it collapsed. How could reputable ratings agencies – and investment banks – misjudge things so badly? Regulators, bankers, and ratings agencies bear much of the blame for the crisis. But the near-meltdown was not so much a failure of capitalism as it was a failure of contemporary economic models’ understanding of the role and functioning of financial markets – and, more broadly, instability – in capitalist economies. Yet the mainstream of the economics profession insists that such mechanistic models retain validity.

While we await Obama's response to the Putin NYT op-ed from Wednesday night, the "pen-pal by proxy" pissing contest just got a new contender: the Tea Party's own, and current Heritage foundation president, Jim DeMint. And while DeMint's thesis is certainly admirable, namely that America is exceptional, his argument is that this is due to the... limited power of government!? Jim, and the NSA probably had the same question ahead of us when it was intercepting this letter as it was being transmitted in TCP/IP space and then saved among a plethora of cloud servers, we wonder: wasn't the point to refute Putin, not admit he is correct?

"The Bank of England now has the ability to take the froth out of future housing market booms, without having to resort to interest rate increases," is the way the UK's realtor association explains their demand that the BoE limit national house price growth to 5% a year. While they would benefit from short-term gains, it seems the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) sees the dangers of another unsustainable housing boom outweigh them. As The FT reports, RICS adds, "this cap would send a clear and simple statement to the public and the banking sector, managing expectations as to how much future house prices are going to rise. We believe firmly anchored house price expectations would limit excessive risk taking and, as a result, limit an unsustainable rise in debt." Or will it merely lead to further financial engineering and leverage?

On a day when the CBOE was struggling to disseminate data, exchanges proclaiming self-help against one another, weekly expirations and an AAPL share price well below early week pin-risk levels, it makes perfect sense that it would be a VIX-sparked momentum ignition algo that would lift a super-low-volume day in US stocks from perfectly at VWAP to close at their highs (banging them 0.25% higher in the last 3 minutes of the day)... all we can say is WTF...

"A broad-based tax cut, for example, accommodated by a program of open-market purchases to alleviate any tendency for interest rates to increase, would almost certainly be an effective stimulant to consumption and hence to prices. Even if households decided not to increase consumption but instead re-balanced their portfolios by using their extra cash to acquire real and financial assets, the resulting increase in asset values would lower the cost of capital and improve the balance sheet positions of potential borrowers. A money-financed tax cut is essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman's famous "helicopter drop" of money ."

- Ben Bernanke, Deflation: Making Sure "It" Doesn't Happen Here, November 21, 2002