Archive - Oct 14, 2014 - Story

To our rather great dismay, what is gong on with WTI is nothing compared to the move in Brent where as the weekly RSI indicator shows the selloff in Brent is now the worst, well, ever!

"...much like when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor, nothing is over yet. The Fed has not undone its extraordinary loose monetary policy and is just now stopping its direct QE purchases... Paul [Krugman] will continue to be mostly wrong, mostly dishonest about it, incredibly rude, and in a crass class by himself."

Firestone's success in containing Ebola shows that, far from justifying new state action, the Ebola crises demonstrates that individuals acting in the free market can do a better job of containing Ebola than can governments. The Ebola crisis is also another example of how US foreign aid harms the very people we are claiming to help. Limiting government at home and abroad is the best way to protect health and freedom.

"Investors around the world are shocked, shocked that the monetary wizards may have run out of magic tricks to revive global economic growth... Even the wizards are admitting that their powers to do so are limited."

Nearly two decades of central bank financial repression have created huge distortions and imbalances in the world economy. Now they are coming home to roost as the impossibility of ZIRP forever dawns on even our mad money printers. Having created yet another round of ebullient financial bubbles, they are now getting palpably nervous.

With oil prices crashing, as various OPEC members (cough Saudi Arabia cough) turn the screws on each other, we thought (after showing the US domestic pain) the following chart from The Economist would provide more context for which nations are feeling the most (and least) pain...

It would truly be the crowning achievement of Obama's career if, amazingly, he manages to bankrupt the US shale "miracle" next.

Most people that discuss the "economic collapse" focus on what is coming in the future.  And without a doubt, we are on the verge of some incredibly hard times.  But what often gets neglected is the immense permanent damage that has been done to the U.S. economy by the long-term economic collapse that we are already experiencing.  But because unprecedented levels of government debt and reckless money printing by the Federal Reserve have bought us a very short window of relative stability, most Americans don't seem too concerned about our long-term problems.  They seem to have faith that our "leaders" will be able to find a way to muddle through whatever challenges are ahead.  Hopefully the following 12 charts will be a wake up call.

"I am calm. But I am angry, too. It doesn’t have to be this way... this consensus-by-fiat style of policy leadership where we are always only one counter-factual reveal – the sick nurse or the sick economy – away from a breakdown in market or governmental confidence. I am angry that we have been consistently misjudged and underestimated, treated as children to be “educated” rather than as citizens to be trusted. I am angry that our most important political institutions have sacrificed their most important asset – not their credibility, but their authenticity – on the altar of political expediency, all in a misconceived notion of what it means to lead. And yet here we are. On the precipice of that breakdown in confidence. A cold wind of change is starting to blow. Can you feel it?"

One would think: i) French + ii) economist + iii) Nobel prize winner = the French version of Paul Krugman, which immediately means someone who exists in a permament state of eternal hubris and confused shock at the endless stupidity of all those others who (have a functioning frontal cortext and thus) fail to recognize his brilliance (hence, are capable of rational thought), whose only explanation for the failure of all his promoted policies is that not enough, never enough of them was attempted, and that, like a good socialist, the only thing better than a massive government apparatus is an infinite government apparatus, coupled with 10 Princeton economists sitting in a circle, chanting and micromanaging the world, the economy and the capital markets.

One would be wrong.

In a secular rally, pullbacks will inevitably arise. Market participants, though, should not view all drops in the same light. In addition to the differences in the depth of the collapse, the magnitude of the changes of critical investor sentiment statistics may differ greatly. Assessing the current retracement is a difficult prospect as we may have yet to reach its terminus.  Based on the initial sentiment statistics, the current decline has more similarity to the most significant historic collapses.

The fact that the US economy is nowhere near strong enough to offset the deflation it would import and is already importing through USD strength vs EUR and JPY in particular, has now become a key market theme. Crucially, markets are now collectively having to consider what Bob Janjuah thinks is the reality – that annual trend global growth is converging down at around 2.5%, well short of the pre-crisis levels of over 4%. Janjuah believes "we will see UST 10yr yields closer to 1.5% before they get anywhere near 3.5%, with 10yr Bund yields at 50bp; and a weekly close on the S&P 500 below 1905 was and remains his key pivot point - targeting 1770 as the next stop."

While today's trading volume was better than in recent weeks (as it has been for the last 4 days of collapse), quote activity spiked to the 2nd highest ever on record. As Nanex's Eric Hunsader notes, quote cancellations were higher than ever and are accelerating even as the overall market volume slides lower and lower. What is intriguing is that the last 3 times quote activity spiked this much corresponded with a 'sudden' v-shaped recovery from a significant market weakness - which extended notably for six months or more... is this time different?

In 2008, various liquidity facilities, designed by the Fed, unclogged broken capital markets and helped avert economic and financial disaster. The Fed’s (subsequent) QE and ZIRP policies have enabled fiscal stalemate, turbo-charged wealth inequality, and arguably led to financial asset bubbles. For these reasons, we believe they have become counter-productive. New tactics, should they be needed, would therefore be welcomed. The Fed claims it will turn to “macro-prudential” polices, but as Kevin Warch told The IMF, "macro-prudential policies are vital, but we have no idea what they are." We have a theory for what the Fed does next... and holders of capital (who have been so richly rewarded) will be badly hurt.