Archive - Jan 2014 - Story

Well, they did predict this would happen, even if it was in direct contradiction with the numerator part of Goldman's top trade of 2014 which is being long the S&P500.

While the world's talking heads are desperately opening their global financial crisis fire-extinguishing mouths that this time is different, Rick Santelli takes 4 minutes to highlight the problems associated with liquidity that is always leveraged to the max and the problems that now await us. "For a while," Santelli calmly explains, the fairy-dust commercial planners (Central banks) "at least for a while, made everything seem like it could work." However, with "no excess margin in the system," emerging-market-cannonball-driven ripples in the global pool of liquidity are a major problem. Slamming those who argue 'taper is small' or 'Argentina doesn't matter'; the ever-increasing central-bank-inspired interconnectedness means "the market is realizing in a hurry," as we have warned numerous times, "these [central bank] programs can't go on forever,"

Once upon a time, the only CME margin hike releases the investing population cared about were those for gold (because no matter how high the E-Mini went, the CME never seemed too bothered). Now, the CME has more "important" things to worry about - such as preventing the "heating bill shock" that will come in February when the majority of the population opens their electricity and heating statements for January (sorry, there goes the discretionary retail spending cash). And of course, the ongoing deterioration of the emerging markets, in this case led by Turkey and the absolute collapse in the Turkish Lira. Which is why about an hour ago, the CME decided to hike both TRY (to the USD and EUR) and Nat Gas margins, by 14 and 20% respectively. Will this normalize some of the vol seen around these products on Monday remains to be seen. Oh well, if not - the CME can just hike some more the same day, until it gets the desired outcome.

Having spent weeks talking amongst themselves about the chronic and dangerous rise of youth unemployment in Europe (as we warned here), the Center of planning and Economic Research in Greece has proposed a controversial measure. As GreekReporter reports, the measure includes unpaid work for the young and unemployed up to 24 years old, so that companies would have a strong motive to hire young employees. "Unpaid" work sounds a lot like slavery to us... but it gets better; the report also suggested "exporting young unemployed persons." No comment...

Curious why over the past few months JPM has quietly been accumulating a substantial amount of eligible physical gold (even as its registered gold inventory is the lowest it has ever been at just 87K ounces since December 13, 2013 when 147K ounces of gold was withdrawn - keep that date in mind for a few minutes)? This may have something to do with it: moments ago the daily Comex gold vault report confirmed what many expected, namely that the JPM accumulation was merely in advance anticipation of major withdrawals. How major? Well, on January 23, JPM saw 321,500 ounces of gold depart in one day. This was tied for the single biggest daily withdrawal in history!The last time JPM had an identically sized withdrawal? December 13.... 2012.

With Argentina's black-market peso (blue dolar rate) trading over 12, it would appear that the market is rapidly realizing the Central Bank's ammunition in its currency defense is likely to run out sooner rather than later. Perhaps it is time to get out that Soros' British Pound playbook?

Markets are deteriorating around the world but what could cause a real correction in the markets?

KIEV CLASHES RESUME BETWEEN PROTESTERS, POLICE: CHANNEL 5 TV
KIEV PROTESTERS ATTACKED AFTER POLICE INJURED ACTIVIST: TV 5
UKRAINE PROTESTERS THROW MOLOTOV COCKTAILS, ROCKS AT POLICE
UKRAINE POLICE RESPOND WITH RUBBER BULLETS, STUN GRENADES
UKRAINE POLICE BLAME PROTESTERS FOR BREAKING TRUCE: STATEMENT

The deer was back yesterday; but today "it's on..."

One of the greatest lies of the modern financial system (and that’s really saying something) is about inflation. The puppet masters who control the system have managed to convince people that deflation = bad, and inflation = necessary evil. Perhaps the even bigger lie is that of the actual inflation statistics. They tell us that there’s no inflation… or minimal inflation. But these figures are massively understated. And you don’t have to look hard for proof.

Gold...

VIX's 25% spike from yesterday's lows to over 17% is the largest jump in 7 months. Stocks are continuing to collapse broadly (even as Bonds are stable) with the Dow almost unchanged from Taper now. Trannies are back to their 50DMA for the first time in over 3 months and the Dow and S&P are well through the 50DMA. The USD is stable but JPY is leading the charge lower in stocks. Credit markets are at 7 week wides. Not "off the lows"

Back in the years just before the previous housing bubble burst (not to be confused with the current, even more acute one), one person did the math on subprime, realized that the housing - and credit bubble - collapse was imminent, and warned anyone who cared to listen - almost nobody did. That man was Kyle Bass, and because he had the guts to put the money where his mouth was, he made a lot of money. Fast forward to 2014 when subprime is all the rage again and the subprime bubble is bigger than ever: it may comes as a surprise to some that in 2013, subprime debt was one of the best performing fixed income instruments, returning a whopping 17% in a year when most other debt instruments generated negative returns. And this time, while Kyle Bass is busy - collecting nickels (each costing a dime) perhaps - it is someone else who has stepped into Bass' Cassandra shoes: that someone is Jeff Gundlach. “These properties are rotting away,”

Ukrainian protesters erected more street barricades and occupied another government ministry building on Friday after the failure of crisis talks with President Yanukovich, as opposition leader Klitschko feared "more deaths" pointing to a weekend of increasingly violent protests. Reuters reports that Yanukovich's party stated "the situation has grown sharper throughout the country," and called on people to disregard the calls of "radical troublemakers" to turn out for protest rallies. Klitschko punched back, "Yanukovich has declared war on his own people. He is trying to hold on to power at the price of blood and de-stabilization of the situation in the country. He has to be stopped." The international community is getting involved with Hollande calling for "dialogue" but it is Biden's threat of "consequences" that spurred a different protest at the US embassy - "The US is behind everything that is happening in Kiev’s downtown right now."

While the world of speculative capital is focused intently on the Twitter and Facebook #Ref/0 fundamental valuations in the publicly-traded equity markets, as the WSJ illustrates, the real dot-com 2.0 bubble is occurring in the private markets. Today there are more than 30 companies in the US, Europe, and China that are valued at $1 billion or more by venture-captal firms and the club is becoming less exclusive as venture capitalists (in their ever growing speculative fervor) funnel large sums of capital into start-ups.