Archive - Jan 2014 - Story

Any day, month, quarter, year, decade now; Goldman Sachs' mythical J-Curve will arise from the cinder-strewn ashes of Japan's current account. Japanese bond markets are rallying and JPY is weakening modestly after Abe's increasingly disapproved-of government announced the worst balance of payments current account deficit on record. At JPY -592bn vs expectations of JPY -36bbn and its 5th miss in the last 7 months as economists and analysts and pretend portfolio managers just keep getting it wrong. The trade deficit plunged once again, missed expectations once again and printed at the 3rd worst deficit ever with the 16th monthly trade deficit in a row. But apart from that, the Nikkei is -1000 points from the 2013 close highs and apart from rumors of a big bank selling JPY to defend 103, the trend ain't Abe's friend for now...

Russia is spending $51 billion on the Sochi Games; far exceeding the lavish-at-the-time $40 billion spent on China's 2008 Summer Olympics - which, as BusinessWeek notes, had more than three time the events. However, it is Sochi Organizing Committee President Dmitry Chernyshenko's promise that it will be "the safest games ever" that is really starting to add up in the face of suicide bombings and explosive device discoveries. As Al Jazeera shows, securing Sochi is costing twice the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and involves double the security forces of the London Olympics...

By now the distinction that "enrollment" in Obamacare does not actually mean coverage should be painfully clear: one still has to pay, and according to a recent analysis up to 50% of "enrollees" in any given state have not paid, which means the White House's number of 2.1 million sign ups through December 28 is vastly overstating the reality (especially if one ignores the 5+ million of torn up, lost insurance policies as a result of Obamacare). But even if one clearly delineates what is meant by "enrollment" in the most epic failure of a ponzi scheme to ever emerge from a developed nation (with a recently disclosed penchant for Big Brother-yness), what conclusions can one draw about the current participants in obligatory, socialized insurance as most recently disclosed by the administration? Here is the summary: only 24% of all new insured are in the targeted 28-34 age group; only 21% of participants will get no subsidy (which means 79% will be subsidized), and finally more women (54%) than men have signed up.

While McDonalds "coffee is hot" warning labels and litigation was a farce of lowest-common-denominator American exceptionalism; SirGriorgio Clardy, a Portland pimp, is suing Nike for not specifying that his trainers could be used as a dangerous weapon. As NBC News reports, Clardy is seeking $100 million from the Oregon sportswear company after he was sentenced to 100 years in prison for brutally beating a 'john' with his sneaker (apparently unaware of their potential for danger when one stomps on the face of another human being).

In January 2009, the number of "officially unemployed" workers plus the number of Americans "not in the labor force" was sitting at a grand total of 92.6 million.  Today, that number has risen to 102.2 million.  That means that the number of working age Americans that are not working has grown by close to 10 million since Barack Obama first took office.  The cold, hard reality of the matter is that there has not been an economic recovery in this nation. Anyone that tries to tell you that is lying to you.  If we were going to have a recovery, it would have happened by this point.  In fact, this is all the "recovery" that we are going to experience. From here on out, this is about as good as things are going to get. 

While the Fed pays lip-service to its increased transparency, the volumes of caveats and wordsmithing we exposed last week continue to surge. The problem is becoming worse for the Fed and is showing up in the oddest correlation to the Fed Balance Sheet we have found yet. As Deutsche Bank's Thorsten Slok shows, as the 'unemployment rate' approaches the 6.5% 'threshold', FOMC statements have surged in their verbiosity. Simply put, as Slok quantifies, it is becoming more and more difficult for the Fed to explain (away) what it is doing (and more and more expensive). And another thing we can look forward to: when the Fed's balance sheet hits $1 quadrillion in a few short years, at the current pace of expansion the FOMC statement will be 25,000 words, or the equivalent of a 100 page book.

As 11.3 million Americans spend more than half their income on rent, a record increase of 28% in four years, increasingly more are faced with the core "New normal recovery" choice: “We either eat, or we pay rent.”  Welcome to the Blackstone recovery...

For most of the major US equity indices today's plunge was the worst day since August 27th. All indices are now negative year-to-date once again as the outperforming Dow Transports were smacked over 1.8% from its intraday highs. NASDAQ once again touched green year-to-date early on in the day, then tumbled aggressively. Some of the best post-Taper performing sectors were slammed hard today with builders, financials, and discretionary spanked.  USDJPY 103 was defended heavily but stocks had already lost any connection as correlations broke rather notably. As we noted earlier, short-term bills were in heavy demand (and yields turned negative); Treasury notes and bonds rallied 3-4bps. Early weakness in gold and silver were rapidly dismissed with as PMs surged to fresh one-month highs ($1255 gold) and 2-month highs ($20.47 silver). VIX, after dropping below 12% early on smashed higher to close at 13.6% (following Friday's extreme steep close).

The Taxpayer Advocate Service, which is an independent office within the IRS, has just released a two-volume report describing the tactics that are being employed by the tax collectors in the Land of the Free. It’s not exactly Emperor Caracalla pointing to his sword... but IRS’s policies and tactics are not so far off from a police agency. They disregard the law and the advice of their own counsel. They disproportionately burden honest individuals. They flout due process. And they push people to abandon their citizenship. These are mafia tactics, plain and simple.

With today's biggest drop in stocks in over 4 months, we are reminded of three recent charts that raise considerable questions as to the path forward. From Mclellan's 1928 analog to Hussman's bubble trajectory and the extremes of bullish sentiment, this week marks a 'line in the sand' for bulls to take this to the Hendry moon or for it not to be different this time...

After a banner year for the former KGB spy, who first neutralized Prince Bandar and John Kerry (not to mention the president of the US), and subsequently reannexed the Ukraine into the Russian sphere of influence now that the second coming of the former USSR is in the works, it should come as no surprise that Russia's Vladimir Putin has been named the third most admired person in the world. Then again when one considers who is ahead of Putin in the Time poll, perhaps this distinction is nothing to write to the NSA about - third spot is located behind Microsoft founder Bill Gates and US President Barack Obama. Indicatively, this also means that Barack Obama is inexplicably still the second most respected person in the world.

As stocks have vascillated in a worryingly not-straight-up manner for the last few days with today's weakness taking the Dow and S&P 500 pre-holiday lows (with th ebiggest drop in a month), it would appear more than a few 'investors' are greatly unrotating into the very shortest-term Treasuries as a safe-haven from the turbulence. The last few days have seen Treasury-Bill yields swing negative in the less-than-1-month maturity indicating anythng but risk appetite as a scramble for safety is strong enough to warrant paying (albeit marginally) for it. As we noted previously, the driver of Bill Gross' 'bet' on the short-end will not be based on always wrong expectations of what Fed monetary policy does to prices, but the exodus of speculative money from equities into safe havens, call it the Great Unrotation.

Most are aware of Alan Greenspan’s 1966 essay - written when he was an acolyte of Ayn Rand - in which he sang the praises of the gold standard. Obviously, that early work would later prove awkward for Greenspan, as he held the reins of the fiat money engine known as the Federal Reserve. However, a reporter for Barron's unearthed a copy of Greenspan’s NYU doctoral dissertation, which he took great pains to bury, showing that when his professional ambition wasn’t involved, Greenspan could understand perfectly well  (a) the virtues of a commodity money and (b) the dangers of a housing bubble. If the Austrians are right in laying the blame for the housing bubble on Greenspan’s loose monetary policy following the dot-com crash, then Greenspan can’t plead ignorance: He knew what he was doing.

With the wild world of central bankers full of double-speak, counter-factuals and well-chosen anecdotes, statements of questionable sanity are not difficult to find. However, Dennis Lockhart, who has already done his optimistic economic damage to stocks this morning just outdid himself. Speaking in his home town, the Atlanta Fed President stated confidently in the Q&A after his speech:

“One of the stupidest things a central banker could do is comment on the stock market."

Then added:

The stock market is not "a bubble in any way"

"Stupid" indeed, Mr Lockhart...

The Nikkei 225 is at its 'cheapest' relative to the Dow Industrials in the last two months as the behcmark Japanese stock index has now lost all of its gains post the US Taper decision in mid-December. With USDJPY breaking back below 103 and the correlation between it and stocks as high as it has ever been, if BAML is right with its sub-100 target for the FX pair, then the Nikkei could be looking at 14,500 (or an 11% tumble from the highs).