Archive - Jan 6, 2014 - Story

Bai Zhongren, the president of state-run China Railway Group - the state-owned engineering giant behind many of the country's largest railway projects - committed suicide over the weekend. As SCMP reports, Bai is among several senior railway officials and executives who have committed suicide since corruption scandals implicating the senior railway officials began to come to light three years ago. However, there have been no direct links between China Railway Group and the corruption cases (yet) but Chinese courts are about to hand down verdicts on several very senior executives.

"It's a very straightforward result," UCSD professors Joseph Engleberg calmly states, hospitalizations rise on days when shares fall, and "people are hospitalized disproportionately for mental conditions." Equity-market losses appeared to induce 3,700 market-related hospitalizations a year in California, which implies visits add roughly $650 million a year to U.S. health-care costs when data from the most-populous state are extrapolated nationally - another additional cost of QE? The findings, Bloomberg reports, show a one-day drop in equities of around 1.5% is followed by about a 0.26% increase in hospital admissions on average over the next two days.

In 2013, corporations injected roughly half of the total POMO cash used by the Fed to push the S&P straight-line higher.

The rise in equities does not mean stocks "buy" more commodities in the real world - they buy less.

"For Apple Computers to pay their workers $2 an hour while they have $150 billion in the bank is nothing short of obscene. They have workers who are doing back-breaking and eye-burning work in depressed states of mind and in many instances have already committed suicide. Instead of treating their employees like human beings, they are treated like animals. If it were not for their employees, Apple would not be where it is today. But instead of giving these people a better life, they give these people the bare minimum and defend this action with the argument that the wage is higher than the average there and in-line with what their competitors are paying."

•  'Life-threatening' cold bites Midwest, heads east (Reuters)
• Gold Analysts Get Most Bullish in a Year After Rout (BBG)
• Asian Stocks Fall Most in Three Weeks on China Services (BBG)
• Angela Merkel in skiing accident, cancels visits (Reuters)
• High-Speed Traders Form Trade Group to Press Case (WSJ)
• Toyota and Honda post record China sales (FT)
• China Shadow Banking Risks Exposed by Local Debt Audit (BBG)
• J.P. Morgan to Pay Over $2 Billion to U.S. in Penalties in Madoff Case (WSJ)
• Corruption trial of Trenton, N.J., mayor starts Monday (Reuters)
• Car Makers at Consumer Electronics Show Tout Ways to Plug Autos Into the Web (WSJ)

The "polar vortex" (no, really) which is about to unleash even record-er cold temperatures upon the US may be the greatest thing to happen to the economy: after all once Q1 GDP estimates miss once again, what better scapegoat to blame it on than cold winter weather during... the winter. However, for the overnight markets, the weather seems to have had an less than desired effect following both much weaker Services PMI data out of China, and after the entire USDJPY ramp achieved during Bernanke's late Friday speech evaporated in the span of two hours in Japanese Monday morning trading, sending the Nikkei reeling lower by 2.35%. One reason for this may be that like in the early summer when both the Yen and the Nikkei froze in a rangebound formation, South Korea has vocally started t0 complain about the weak Yen, which as readers may recall was one of the catalysts to put an end to the surge in the USDJPY and EURJPY. This time may not be different, furthermore as Goldman forecast overnight, it now expects a BOK rate cut of 25 bps as soon as this Thursday. Should that happen expect the JPY coiled-short spring to pounce.

Simply put, you have the right to remain out of prison... even if you are not a US citizen...