Archive - Jan 26, 2014 - Story

After the worst week for the market in over a year, the US knows the drill. Must. Distract. Population. And if a drunk-driving, prepubescent Miley Cyrus Canadian lookalike on a work visa won't do the trick, then by all means resort to ye olde faithful - bombing the feces out of some "independent" nation. In this case Somalia. CNN reports that earlier today, the US conducted a missile strike in Southern Somalia. The target: a "senior leader" affiliated with al Qaeda and Al-Shabaab, al Qaeda's affiliate in Somalia. Supposedly this is the Al Qaeda that the US isn't officially funding and supporting in Qatar's desperate and ongoing attempt to push its pipeline under Syria.

Amid calls to spread the wealth (among the elites in Davos) and for an end to violence in Ukraine, the Pope released his "peace" doves today to send a message of hope to the world. However, the callous claws of capitalism (in the form of a black crow) and the sullen shape of social unrest (in the form of a seagull) decided to send their own message. As the sad images below show, the peaceful dove had his feathers ruffled following the callous attack by the winged avengers... As one wit noted, rumors that the end is nigh are as yet unconfirmed (although if Nomura loses control of the USDJPY levitation, and it breaches the 102 support, all bets are off).

As Citi's Tom Fitzpatrick, a number of local market currencies are increasingly coming under pressure and look likely to fall even further. Whether this will turn into a dynamic as severe as 1997-1998 in unclear; however, at minimum Citi believes the “change in course” by the Fed in December (guided since May) has become a “game changer” for the EM World. The greatest monetary experiment in the history of the World is being wound down. In a globally interlinked economy it would be “naïve” to believe that the big beneficiaries of this “monetary excess” in recent years would be immune to the “punch bowl” no longer being refilled constantly.

"The PBOC has not—repeat not—asked Citibank to stop customers from wiring funds. Customers can still log on to their account to put in fund transfer requests at any time. The receiving bank (non-Citibank) will process the funds to be transferred on the next business day, as it always does. Because of the Lunar New Year break, the next business day is Friday Feb. 7. This is no different from the practice of banks throughout the world. Chang's understanding of Chinese culture evidently does not extend to the timing of bank holidays."

As a prelude to the following dismal market update, Japan just posted the largest annual trade deficit ever (ever ever ever) at JPY 11.47 trillion... so much for Abenomics and the magic J-Curve as the year just got worse (not better). With the Nikkei 225 (cash) down over 400 points (as we would have expected given futures action) and back under 15,000; Japanese stocks are at 7-week lows but Japanese credit risk is rapidly accelerating lower at its riskiest in 10-weeks. Japanese government bonds are well bid with yields on the 20Y having dropped to 1.443% - the lowest since April 2013. Away from Japan, the iTraxx Asia index (which tracks credit risk of investment grade corporates) has soared in the last few days to almost 5-month highs. Emerging Market Sovereign CDS are all notably wider with Vietnam and Indonesia topping the relative moves so far (and most at multi-month wides). Chinese repo is stable for now (CDS are wider by 2bps at 7-month wides) but so far, no good, for those believing the contagion in EM FX will remain contained.

Given that Chinese GDP numbers are manufactured top-down and don't add-up; and that the US - in its wisdom - added "intangibles" to its GDP measure of economic progress and create $500 billion worth of growthiness out of thin air; it should not come as a huge surprise to learn that Greece is picking up bad habits. Following the realization that all their promises (and IMF forecasts are total bullshit), Eurostat will adopt a "new methodology" that will boost Greek GDP by 3 percentage points and historically reducing the depression in the Greek economy to a 0.3% shrinkage to be proud of. But where it gets downright idiotic, is that as a result of the methodology change, Greek GDP in 2014 will "grow" 3.6%, orders of magnitude above the previous forecast expansion of 0.6%, and also well above how much the US economy is expected to grow in 2014. Yup - good stuff.

China and Japan’s war of words reveals a larger struggle for regional influence akin to a mini Cold War. Last week's tempestuous pissing contest in Davos, which The FT's Gideon Rachman notes left people with the belief that "this is not a situation that is getting better; it is getting worse." Following Abe's analogies to WWI, China's Yi compared Abe's visit to the Yasukuni shrine to Merkel visiting the graves of Nazi war criminals and as the rhetoric grows the US has asked for reassurance from Abe that he will not do it again. So we have two countries, each building up their militaries while insisting they must do so to counter the threat of their regional rival. Added to this, a deep distrust of each other’s different political systems coupled with a history of animosity makes the two nations deeply suspicious of each other. Each country insists it loves peace, and uses scare tactics to try to paint its opponent as a hawkish boogeyman. Sound familiar to anyone else?

More of the same this evening as Friday's close not off-the-lows in stocks has seen no dead cat bounce yet in early trading. The 2nd worst trade deficit ever did not help USDJPY which was already sliding lower, back under 102.00 and to 7-week lows. Most of the USDJPY move was catch-down to US and Nikkei futures moves from late-Friday. Once it recoupled (briefly) JPY staged a small fade-back (off USD 102.00 and EUR 139.50) which dragged Gold back off its 2-month highs at $1,280 briefly. However, the rally in JPY carry is having no impact on US equity futures which remain marginally red... a problem for the momentum igniters... Perhaps even worse, the Nikkei is starting to lose its correlation with JPY once again.

Presented with no comment...

James Turk believes the time we live in now will be studied by future historians for generations to come. Just as we today marvel at the collective madness that resulted in the South Sea and Dutch tulip manias, our age will be known as the era when society lost sight of what money really is. And as result, the wrong kinds of wealth -- today, that's mostly financial assets -- are valued and pursued. And just like those bubbles from centuries ago, when the current asset boom goes bust, the value of paper wealth will vaporize.  In contrast, those holding tangible productive assets or real money will fare much better on a relative basis..."Because when this bust is over, promises are going to be broken left and right."

FX markets featured significant volatility in the past week, though the driver of that volatility was a combination of several idiosyncratic factors, rather than a core underlying narrative.  Widespread risk aversion and position unwinds dominated market trading with China PMI, weak US earnings, and BoJ un-dovishness cited among more systemic factors. Turkey and Argentina (among others) have more idiosyncratic risks (and limits approaching) but as Barclays notes, market positioning has played a major role in the moves as market volatility appears to have been the straw that broke the carry-trade's back - for now... as EM currency returns have notably decoupled from moves in US rates.

While 2014 has not quite panned out (so far) as the traveling-strategist-roadshow would have hoped, the last few days have been outright perilous for the record high numbers with bullish sentiment sucked into a world of central-bank-suppressed volatility and jawboned utopia. The following charts show where the pain has been (e.g. Greece, Spain, Argentina, European banks) and where it has not been (e.g. gold miners, China, Philipinnes, and Egypt) with the US indices sitting squarely in the middle with some of their biggest losses in months. For now, the BTFATH'ers are absent - even though the drooling mouths of asset-gatherers are demanding the 'cash on the sidelines' use this 2-3-4% drop from the all-time highs to load the boat for retirement heaven... However, some have increasing concerns...

First HSBC bungles up an attempt at pseudo-capital controls by explaining that large cash withdrawals need a justification, and are limited in order "to protect our customers" (from what - their money?), which will likely result in even faster deposit withdrawals, and now another major UK bank - Lloyds/TSB - has admitted it are experiencing cash separation anxiety manifesting itself in ATMs failing to work and a difficult in paying using debit cards. Sky reports that customers of Lloyds and TSB, as well as those with Halifax, have reported difficulties paying for goods in shops and getting money out of ATMs. All three banks are under the Lloyds Banking Group which said: "We are aware that some customers are unable to use their debit cards either to make purchases or to withdraw money from ATMs. "We are working hard to resolve this as swiftly as possible and apologise for any inconvenience caused."

Following the quiet update that HSBC had decided to withhold large cash withdrawals from some if its clients - demanding to know the purpose of the withdrawal before handing over the customers' money - it appears the anger among the over 60 thousand readers who found out about HSBC's implied capital shortfall just on this website, has forced HSBC's hands. The bank issued a statement (below) this morning defending their actions - it's for your own good - but rescinding the decision - "following feedback, we are immediately updating guidance to our customer facing staff to reiterate that it is not mandatory for customers to provide documentary evidence for large cash withdrawals." After all the last thing the bank, which over the past few years has been implicated in aiding an abetting terrorists and laundering pretty much anything, wants is an implied capital shortfall to become an all too explicit one.

Because only class war imposters spend anything less than CHF460 on "snacks."