Archive - Jan 2014 - Story

A paper currency system contains the seeds of its own destruction. The temptation for the monopolist money producer to increase the money supply is almost irresistible. In such a system with a constantly increasing money supply and, as a consequence, constantly increasing prices, it does not make much sense to save in cash to purchase assets later. A better strategy, given this scenario, is to go into debt to purchase assets and pay back the debts later with a devalued currency. Moreover, it makes sense to purchase assets that can later be pledged as collateral to obtain further bank loans. A paper money system leads to excessive debt. This is especially true of players that can expect that they will be bailed out with newly produced money such as big businesses, banks, and the government. We are now in a situation that looks like a dead end for the paper money system.

Davos is about to end, and there is much good news to report: you see, the billionaires in the lovely Swiss town, surrounded by their own private (or public) armies, have fixed record global wealth inequality, which just happens to be the result of actions by... of Davos billionaires. And just to top the surreal idiocy off, here is Mario Draghi, Goldman's best known banker at the ECB, with a special address titled "the Path from Crisis to Stability"... ostensibly on the back of bailout mechanism that don't exist, and facilitating "reforms" that promote more spending and less revenue in a continent that just happens to be insolvent. #Ref!

Think it's bad in the US (which it is), the high-beta momo-chasers are running for the hills from Europe's best-performers. European stocks are down 3.4% this week broadly - the worst week since June 2013 and 2nd worst week since May 2012. Spain and Greece are the worst on the week (-5.8% and 6.7% respectively) with Spain's drop the largest since September 2012. Bonds were not unscathed as Italy's sovereign bond spreads have jumped in the last 2 days by the most in 4 months and are now wider on the year. Europe's VIX has exploded 30% higher in the last 3 days (the biggest jump in 10 months) to its highest since October.

S&P 500 futures just crossed below 1,800 - its lowest since the FOMC's taper announcement on December 18th. The cash S&P 500 (and small cap S&P 600) have crossed below their crucial 50-day-moving average (with no sign of dip-buyers yet). This is the biggest drop through that historically critical technical support level since early October. Perhaps more notably, most of the go-go sectors that were heralded by all the talking head momo queens on mainstream media as leading the next leg of stock gains have seen their post-Taper gains gone. From Builders to Banks and Industrials, taper-gains are now a dim and distant memory.

With emerging market currencies collapsing, US equity hopes fading, bond yields tumbling, and 1.4 million people having fallen off the government transfer receipts bandwagon this week; what better way to distract the US public from that awkward reality that it's all fake...

Yesterday's BofA's MacNeill Curry warned that once above $1270, gold becomes "explosive" as the squeeze trap slams shut, which explains why the shorts are desperately defending the critical resistance redline. Today, the chief technician of Bank of Countrywide Lynch looks at the two other key correlation pairs: the S&P500 (via the Emini ESH4) and the USDJPY, which by virtue of being the key funding pair determines the price of risk in virtually every corner of the globe. He is not too happy with what he sees.

If, as we are constantly told by the mainstream media, equity market performance is all that matters in the real world, then the following chart from The Economist should provide much food for thought for those praying at the altar of the elites in Davos. Despite hanging on their every word as if handed down by The Oracle herself, 'companies that regularly attend Davos' have dramatically underperformed the broad market... so, in the modern parlance of 'stocks are all that matters' - Davos attendees are less smart than the average business manager (and perhaps less smart given the costs of attendance for this lack of edge).

Spain's unemployment rate hit 26% again this week. Despite Rajoy's please for people to believe things are getting better, that the crisis is over (even as Draghi proclaims it otherwise and Axel Weber warns it is still festering), Spanish local ex-pat newspaper "The Local" has uncovered seven statistics that will help you understand just how serious the situation is. What is perhaps even more surreal is that in a year in which the economy supposedly grew, they depleted their pension reserve fund by 15%...

*SPAIN WITHDREW EU11.6B FROM PENSION RESERVE FUND IN 2013; Spain pension reserve fund ends 2013 With EU53.7 bln

So apart from that, here is how bad it really is in Spain...

After escalating higher and higher in the last few days as the rest of the market slipped further into the red for 2014, the Dow Transports has collapsed 3.25% at this morning's open - its biggest drop in 9 months. This, along with the plunge in the NASDAQ and Russell has dragged every major US equity index into the red once again for 2014... The S&P 500 cash index is now the most below its 50-day moving average in almost 4 months. VIX has spiked to 15.4% - its highest since pre-Taper as JPY carry unwinds drag US equities lower once again... Credit markets have no retraced all post-Taper gains (and stocks are rapidly catching down).

On the heels of Shinzo Abe's seeming hyprocrisy in Davos, commenting that "if peace and stability were shaken in Asia, the knock-on effect for the entire world would be enormous," while he raises military budget, antagonizes China, and inflames the militaristic fervor in his own nation with war-crime shrine visits, the Chinese have struck back specifically at Abe's comparison of China and Japan's present tensions to Germany and Britain's in 1914... Foreign Minister Wang Yi - writing from the Chinese Embassy in the US, warned:

• *CHINA'S WANG CALLS ABE'S STATEMENT ON WW1 'ANACHRONISTIC'
• *CHINA HAPPY TO REVIEW WORLD HISTORY WITH ABE: WANG YI
• *CHINA WANTS ABE TO RETHINK OWN COMMENTS, ACTIONS: WANG YI

Adding that, as we warned last night (and described in great detail here), China and the US need to show mutual respect and avoid conflict and confrontation on the matter of Japan.

The elimination of low-risk interest income in favor of risky speculative credit/asset bubbles has led to a monumental misallocation of capital and the institutionalization of perverse and highly corrosive incentives. Needless to say, the current bubbles in stocks, bonds and real estate will implode, and the phantom wealth that the bubbles temporarily generated will vanish.

China faces a very significant test of its reform policy pursuit rhetoric. With China's Bank regulator set to issue an alert on coal-industry loans - "as a result of outout cuts, they don't have much cash flow and thus they can't repay loans and debt," the massive growth in wealth products such as the CEG#1 (which offered a 10% yield for a 3 year term) based on these loans leaves the Chinese with a moral hazard dilemma - bailout or no bailout. ICBC has made it clear it wil not bailout investors since reputational damage would be "well manageable," and former-PBOC adviser Li Daokui adds that "a controlled default is much better than no default," noting critically that trust defaults "will teach future investors a very important lesson." Belief that contagion can be "contained" brings back memories of 2008 in the US but a total (or even partial) bailout will merely increase the leverage and risk-taking problem and signal government talk of policy reform is not real.

Earlier this week we reported that at JPMorgan, the many will pay for the crimes of the few, after the bank revealed that compensation for most workers would be flat with 2012, and no raises were planned for the bank's employees as a result of the massive, $20+ billion legal bill the bank has raked up in recent months as one after another market manipulation, fraud and malfeasance by current and former JPM workers has been revealed. One person, however, will be exempt from this blanket punishment: the firm's CEO Jamie Dimon, of course. Because there is always a reason Jamie is richer than you...

Following yesterday's early morning surge when gold jumped $30 from the low $1230, on news that India may relax its gold capital controls, today's sharp spike follow through is more a function of ongoing emerging market currency devaluation and overall risk-offness hitting equities around the globe. And with Bitcoin going nowhere even as both Turkey and Argentina continue to turmoil, it means there is only one good old faithful fiat-alternative - the barbarous relic. Sure enough, at last check, gold was trading north of $1270, back to levels last seen in November, and one sovereign default away from soaring a few hundred fiat equivalents higher. And since all hopes now rest on more BOJ easing (or else watch out below), and more of the same pent up inflation, we may have seen recent lows in gold for quite some time, especially with Gartman once again openly "hating" gold.