Archive - Nov 26, 2014 - Story

Having trended gradually higher for the last 5 weeks (missing expectations for 4 of them), initial jobless claims printed an uncomfortable 313k (against expectations of a 288k print - the biggest miss in over 11 months) pushing to its worst level in 3 months. This is the biggest week-over-week rise in almost 4 months. Continuing claims hovers at 14-year lows and dropped this week to 2.316 million. Perhaps worryingly, this rise in initial claims is considerably larger than the average shift for this time of year...

Who could have seen this coming? With oil prices holding at 4-year lows, heavily pressuring around half of US shale production economics, the "secret" US deal (see here and here) with Saudi Arabia to crush Russia via oil over-supply in a slumping demand world appears to be backfiring rapidly for John Kerry and his strategery team. Capable of withstanding considerably lower prices for longer, Saudi Arabia's oil minister Ali al-Naimi proclaimed "no one should cut production and the market will stabilize itself," adding rather ominously (for the US economy and HY default rates), "Why should Saudi Arabia cut? The U.S. is a big producer too now. Should they cut?" With prices expected to drop to $60 on no cut, maybe the "unequivocally good" news for the US economy from lower oil prices should be rethunk.

While the second day of protests in Ferguson were far more contained as a result of the tripled presence of national guard troops in the St. Louis suburb, with media instead focusing on events in New York, LA and other major metropolitan centers, St. Louis violence failed to avoid the headlines for another day when shortly before 3 am, two FBI agents were shot early Wednesday morning in north St. Louis County.  The good news according to Reuters, is that this latest assault was "not directly related" to racially charged unrest in and around nearby Ferguson, an agency spokeswoman said.   "The incident is not directly related to the Ferguson protests," Wu said, but did not elaborate further.

• National Guard, police curb Ferguson unrest as protests swell across U.S. (Reuters)
• Ferguson Reaction Across U.S. Shows Complex Racial Split (BBG)
• Democratic senator Schumer: Democrats Screwed Up By Passing Obamacare In 2010 (TPM)
• Veto threat derails Reid tax deal (Hill)
• Justice Department Investigating Possible HSBC Leak to Hedge Fund (WSJ)
• Merkel hits diplomatic dead-end with Putin (Reuters), and yet...
• Merkel Said to Reject Ukraine NATO Bid as Rousing Tension (BBG)
• HSBC, Goldman Rigged Metals’ Prices for Years, Suit Says (BBG)

While there has been no global economic outlook cut today, or no further pre-revision hints of "decoupling" by the appartchiks at the US Bureau of Economic Analysis,  both European and US equities are pointing at a higher open, because - you guessed it - there were more "suggestions" of "imminent" QE by a central bank, in this case it was again ECB's Constancio dropping further hints over a potential ECB QE programme, something the ECB has become the undisputed world champion in. The constant ECB jawboning, and relentless central bank interventions over the past 6 years, led to this:

• GERMANY SELLS 10-YEAR BUNDS AT RECORD-LOW YIELD OF 0.74%

The punchline: this was another technically "failed" auction as it was uncovered, the 10th of the year, as there was not enough investor demand at this low yield, and so the Buba had to retain a whopping 18.8% - the most since May - with just €3.250Bn of the €4Bn target sold, after receiving €3.67Bn in bids.