Archive - Sep 2013 - Story

Following yesterday's lies, lies, and more lies, is it any wonder that everyone and their mum is dumping JCPenney stock with both hands and feet this morning. It would appear that whatever Goldman said to 'pitch' the new shares to "investors", those muppets have seen their new prized portfolio additions at $9.65 monkey-hammered faster than Cramer changes his minds on trades. With a massive 80 million shares already traded (average daily volume is in the 10-15mm range), it would appear that all that fresh new capital to burn did nothing for investor confidence.

"This is the third act in an improbable triple-fucking of ordinary people that Wall Street is seeking to pull off as a shocker epilogue to the crisis era. Five years ago this fall, an epidemic of fraud and thievery in the financial-services industry triggered the collapse of our economy. The resultant loss of tax revenue plunged states everywhere into spiraling fiscal crises, and local governments suffered huge losses in their retirement portfolios – remember, these public pension funds were some of the most frequently targeted suckers upon whom Wall Street dumped its fraud-riddled mortgage-backed securities in the pre-crash years.... It's a scam of almost unmatchable balls and cruelty, accomplished with the aid of some singularly spineless politicians. And it hasn't happened overnight. This has been in the works for decades, and the fighting has been dirty all the way."

The Baltic Dry Index fell 3.2% today, and 4% in the last 2 days, the most in 3 months; and Capesize (the more frequently cited containers for iron-ore) plunged 6.8% to $38,023 (from highs of $42,211 a day just 2 days ago). Despite the mainstream media's seeming obsession with these indicators (when they rise only - not when they fall), illuustrated recently by Jim Cramer's diatribe on why the Baltic Dry's spike means that all is well in the world again, as Bloomberg notes, the biggest rally in freight costs since 2009 is temporary because there's still huge ship glut. Brazil’s iron-ore producers accelerated exports of the commodity in July and August, compensating for shipments that slumped to a two-year low in June, but the expansion in cargoes won't continue to grow at this pace.

There were no surprises in today's Personal Income and Spending report. At $14.188 trillion, Personal Income rose 0.4% in August, just as expected, and up from an upward revised 0.2% in July. On the spending side, US Personal Outlays were $11.94 trillion, an increase of 0.3% from July, and also higher than the upwardly revised July spending of 0.2%. The PCE Deflator came in at 0.1%, as expected, while the PCE Core rose 0.2% compared to expectations of 0.1% and up from 0.1% last month. The breakdown of components at both income and spending levels was uniformly distributed with nothing standing out. Real Disposable income rose 1.6% Y/Y but only due to a change in the current-dollar series as a result of an adjustment in the implicit price deflator which revised recent numbers to appear larger. Finally, since in nominal terms incomes rose a fraction more than spending, the implied savings rate rose by the same fraction: 4.5% to 4.6%, the highest since May.

It would appear that between the fears of a government shutdown and the battle over the 'full faith and credit' of the US, traders have decided that the stroke-of-midnight agreement is potentially less viable this time as both parties feel the other has more to lose. The USD is being sold against all majors and gold, silver, and WTI crude is well bid as investors seek the safety of hard assets over printable fiat. Of course, that could all change on the next economic data or Washington headline... buckle up...

Last night Japan reported August CPI/inflation news that at least on the surface were astoundingly good: at 0.8%, the core CPI (excluding fresh irradiated food) was more than expected and higher than July's 0.7%. And yet, even the most absurdly clueless economist is silent this morning in their praise of Abenomics, which supposedly has succeeded in its one goal - bringing sexy inflation back. Why? Perhaps the reason is that whereas Keynesian inflation in which prices and wages are broadly if modestly rising as a result of a properly functioning monetary system, is indeed just what the Doctor of modern economics ordered, soaring input costs driven by FX differentials and current account flows, "offset" by plunging wages is precisely the opposite of what Abenomics was supposed to be. Which is exactly what is going on in Japan.

Italy’s Stability Program targets a 5%-6% primary budget surplus, and 3% nominal GDP growth. Both strike JPMorgan's Michael Cembalest as unrealistic in the context of post-crisis Italy. Italy ran a 6% surplus for a brief moment in the 1990’s but it didn’t last, as it was the result of a prior devaluation helping growth, some asset sales and some tax increases. Only asset sales seem feasible in Italy right now, if anything. If Cembalest's concerns are correct, Italy will remain a country with almost twice the debt/GDP ratio as the US; unbreakable interdependency of the government, the banks, and the ECB; and low GDP and employment growth. If history is any guide, he will be right as the last few years have seen the biggest collapse in Italian GDP since The Unification in 1861...

• House GOP banking on Plan C (Politico)
• Pimco shook hands with the Fed - and made a killing (Reuters)
• BlackBerry's Torsten Heins has a $55 Million golden parachute (Reuters)
• JPMorgan Urged to Pay More in Mortgage Deal (NYT)
• Soros Adviser Turned Lawmaker Sees Crisis by 2020 (BBG)
• U.N. Members Agree on Syria Disarmament (WSJ)
• U.N. Says Humans Are 'Extremely Likely' Behind Global Warming (WSJ)
• The non-falsifiable threats emerge: Shutdown Would Shave Fourth-Quarter U.S. Growth as Much as 1.4% (BBG)
• Swaps Rules Worry Industry: Coming Regulations Have Market Players Concerned About Possible Disruption (WSJ)

It's official: the absolute wreck of a soon to be insolvent retailer that is JCPennyless, has just announced the pricing of its 84 million shares (thank you Goldman Sachs), and the price is $9.65. Putting this into context, this offering price is 25% below the $12.90 price at which Bill Ackman dumped his entire stake a month ago to even more clueless "investors", and about 26% below the $13/share price at which Vornado sold its entire stake last Friday. Existing shareholders: congratulations, you just got diluted by 44% (with the full overallotment), but at least you get to enjoy your misery for a few more months as the melting icecube of a company does what it does best: continues melting.

Following yesterday's modest bounce in equities punctuated by the traditional last minute spike, sentiment has reverted lower once again, driven by the uncertainty surrounding debt ceiling talks in the US, where lawmakers have until next Tuesday to agree to a spending bill, or much of the government will shut down. The Senate will vote on a spending bill later today, which will then be sent back to the House putting republicans in a quandary (Politico explains the complications surrounding the GOP's "Plan C"). It was reported that US House leaders are considering postponing action on a bill to extend the US government's borrowing power, with the leadership discussing a change of strategy to complete action on the stopgap spending bill before debating the debt-limit debate. In FX, GBP strengthened across the board this morning after BoE’s Carney said he does not see a case for more quantitative easing.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spoke yesterday at the Northern Virginia Technology Council’s (NVTC) Titans breakfast gathering in McLean, Virginia. He discussed the fact that prior to a Supreme Court decision in 1967, there were no constitutional prohibitions on wiretaps because conversations were not explicitly granted privacy protection under the Fourth Amendment. He goes on to imply that he thinks it was better before such privacy rights existed... describing privacy protections as (among other things) "...blah, blah, blah, garbage..." With Justices like this...

As we pointed out earlier, today the investing public was witness to perhaps one of the most epic (and backfiring) media PR clusterfucks in history. And it just got so much better.

Goldman Sachs Analyst Index (GSAI) tracks manufacturing and service sectors based on bottom-up analyst input on a firm by firm basis to generate a real-time indicator of US economic strength akin to the ISM data. After spiking to multi-year highs in August, it has collapsed by the most in a year in September as the New Orders sub-index retraced its outsized gains from August. The sales/shipments index fell, while the employment index stayed flat and below the 50 mark. The underlying composition of the GSAI weakened in September with a few sectors noting lower sales and/or a downgrade in expectations, and on balance sentiment with respect to business conditions seemed a touch weaker since August and employment remained below 50 for the sixth month.

If you want to live the high life, you don't have to become a rap star, a professional athlete or a Wall Street banker.  All it really takes is winning an election.  Right now, more than half of all the members of Congress are millionaires, and most of them leave "public service" far wealthier than when they entered it.  Since most of them have so much money, you would think that they would be willing to do a little "belt-tightening" for the sake of the American people.  After all, things are supposedly "extremely tight" in Washington D.C. right now.  In fact, just the other day Nancy Pelosi insisted that there were "no more cuts to make" to the federal budget.  But even as they claim that things are so tough right now, our politicians continue to live the high life at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.