Archive - Jan 2014 - Story

"As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life. I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol,” Obama told the weekly magazine. The president said pot was actually less dangerous than alcohol “in terms of its impact on the individual consumer.”

Despite record levels of unemployment across Europe (most specifically among the youth), record high (and surging) levels of loan delinquencies, and collapsing credit creation, the leaders of the EU continue to peddle their own brand of dis-information and willful blindness. While UKIP's Nigel Farage tongue-lashings are normally enough, EU's Barroso this morning unleashed the following:

*EU'S BARROSO SAYS ECONOMIC GROWTH 'SLOWLY RETURNING'; SAYS EU AT TURNING POINT IN CRISIS

However, as the following chart of earnings estimated for European firms shows, there is absolutely none, zero, nada sign on a 'turning point' and, as we have noted previously, unless the EUR weakens significantly, Europe will rapidly dip back into re-re-recession once again.

Judging by the collapsing Greek yields, which at this rate may drop below US bonds soon enough, the Greek economy has never been stronger. Sadly, manipulated bond levels driven by yet another bout of pre-QE euphoria (suddenly the conventional wisdom is that the ECB will conduct QE in a few months as first explained here in November) no longer reflect anything besides a massive liquidity glut and momentum chasing lemmings. Alas, as usual the reality on the European ground is much worse. The latest example comes from the Greek Public Power Corporation which has reported that Greek households and corporations are finding it increasingly difficult to pay their electricity bills. In total, debts to the power utility from unpaid bills currently amount to some €1.3 billion and growing at an average rate of €4 million per day. Also known as the Grecovery.

"It's dangerous to be short still, but we might be building toward a moment where the market becomes quite vulnerable," warns Bill Fleckenstein who is finishing up the documentation on a new short fund he is about to start marketing. With the slowing growth of the Fed balance sheet, over 70% of the S&P's gains since 2011 from hope-driven multiple-expansion alone, bond and equity market sentiment at extremes, and (as Goldman warned) valuations anything cheap; it is hardly a surprise that, as Reuters reports, after years of hiding under their desks, short sellers are re-emerging - slowly. Whether outright short or long/short funds, the market-share of this corner of the business bottomed at approximately 25% in 2013, but in the last weeks, several S&P 500 companies have seen large increases in shares borrowed for short bets; and the "tide might be turning."

As we have discussed numerous times, India's ban and tariffs on gold imports (supposedly to protect their current account balance) is having numerous unintended consequences. From flights full of gold-laden passengers entering the country,  to trying to roll-back centuries of tradition surrounding Indian weddings, the capital control efforts are back-firing as the smuggling epidemic spreads. The foolishness of this 'control' is also spreading as Pakistan has noticed the surge in smuggling, concerned at a steep increase in import duties on gold in a "neighboring country," and has imposed a 30-day ban on gold imports to curb the 'trade'.

If ever a chart provided unequivocal proof the economic recovery storyline is a fraud, the one below is the smoking gun.

While momentum has been with the hopes that Iran has gone full-peace-tard and following Iran's foreign ministry stating earlier that it would attend the conference on Syria, known as Geneva II; senior US officials have stepped in...

• *IRAN NOT ELIGIBLE FOR SYRIA CONFERENCE, US OFFICALS SAY: AP
• *U.S. SAID TO WANT UN TO RESCIND IRAN INVIATION TO SYRIA TALK
• *IRAN FAILS TO MEET REQUIREMENTS FOR GENEVA II TALKS:US OFFICIAL

After practically inviting them, the US demands that the UN rescind the invitation to Iran to attend since it "falls well short" of what is required.

A scatterplot of the gold price (in USD) vs the USDX index highlights provides informative hyperbolae (or isoquants) that appear to be of some importance in constraining the evaolution of the gold price over time.

• New York, Chicago trading floors: closed
• CME Equity products closes at 11:30 AM Eastern, resume trading at 6:00 PM Eastern
• CME and CBOT Interest Rate & FX Products close early at 1:00 PM; resume trading at 6:00 PM
• NYMEX, COMEX early close 1:15 Eastern; resume trading at 6:00 PM Eastern
• NYSE Liffe – Normal close
• Eurex – Normal close

Markets have started the week on the back foot, despite a brief rally following a better-than-expected Q4 GDP print in China. Indeed, Asian equities recorded a small pop following the GDP report, but the gains were shortlived as the general negativity on China’s growth trajectory continues to weigh on Asian markets. In terms of the data itself, China’s Q4 GDP (7.7% YoY) was slightly ahead of expectations of 7.6% but it was slower than Q3’s 7.8%. DB’s China economist Jun Ma maintains his view that economic growth will likely accelerate in 2014 on stronger external demand and the benefits from deregulation. The slight slowdown was also evident in China’s December industrial production (9.7% YoY vs 10% previous), fixed asset investment (19.6% YoY vs 19.9% previous) and retail sales (13.6% vs 13.7% previous) data which were all released overnight. Gains in Chinese growth assets were quickly pared and as we type the Shanghai Composite (-0.8%), HSCEI (-1.1%) and AUDUSD (-0.1%) are all trading weaker on the day. On a more positive note, the stocks of mining companies BHP (+0.29%) and Rio Tinto (+0.26%) are trading flat to slightly firmer and LME copper is up 0.1%. Across the region, equities are generally trading lower paced by the Nikkei (-0.5%) and the Hang Seng (-0.7%). Staying in China, the 7 day repo rate is another 50bp higher to a three month high of 9.0% with many investors continuing to focus on the Chinese shadow banking system following the looming restructuring of a $500m trust product that was sold to ICBC’s customers.

On December 24, we posted an update on Germany's gold repatriation process: a year after the Bundesbank announced its stunning decision, driven by Zero Hedge revelations, to repatriate 674 tons of gold from the New York Fed and the French Central Bank, it had managed to transfer a paltry 37 tons. This amount represents just 5% of the stated target, and was well below the 84 tons that the Bundesbank would need to transport each year to collect the 674 tons ratably over the 8 year interval between 2013 and 2020. The release of these numbers promptly angered Germans, and led to the rise of numerous allegations that the reason why the transfer is taking so long is that the gold simply is not in the possession of the offshore custodians, having been leased, or worse, sold without any formal or informal announcement. However, what will certainly not help mute "conspiracy theorists" is today's update from today's edition of Die Welt, in which we learn that only a tiny 5 tons of gold were sent from the NY Fed. The rest came from Paris.

We have shown the charts; explained the implications; but perhaps nothing sums up the situation in the US labor force than "the other ongoing bridge scandal" in the following cartoon...

Following China's pledge to seize another South China Sea island, The Philippine navy hopes to add two more warships to its fleet as Southeast Asian countries continue to expand their militaries in response to the Chinese government’s increasingly assertive territorial ambitions. “An army that fails to achieve victory is nothing,” China's Liu was quoted as saying by a defense magazine “Those borders where our army has won victories are more peaceful and stable, but those where we were too timid have more disputes.” That type of language again irritated its neighbors.

UPDATE: China overnight repo rates just spiked to 6% - the worst since June...

Chinese overnight repo rates were already on the rise (several trades at 5.5%: 200bps above Friday's close) as contagion concerns over wealth management product default spreads and the Chinese Business Climate Index tumbled to its lowest since June 09. Equity futures were sliding also with JPY strength and the Shanghai Composite was testing down towards the 1-handle once again. Then, amid the glorious nashing of spreadsheets and in the face of missed manufacturing and services PMIs, Chinese GDP (according to the Chinese government) came in at a better-than-expected 7.7% YoY (7.6% exp.) and handily above the all-too-crucial-to-hit 7.5% target GDP growth - but in keeping with the Schrodinger plan missed QoQ expectations (+1.8% vs +2.0% exp.). Industrial production also miraculously met expectations of 9.7% perfectly; and (shocker) Retail Sales perfectly matched expectations of 13.6% YoY. The results of all this 'meeting expectations' - JPY weakness (back down to 104 instantaneously) and implicitly US equity futures regain some momentum and scramble back close to unchanged.