Archive - Jan 2014 - Story

Tomorrow we prepare for a “new” Fed.  It looks a lot like the old Fed, but one can hope. In the meantime we wonder if QE is worth it?  Does it do what it is “supposed” to do?  No.  We don’t think it has done much for jobs or inflation or housing.  We look at the pre QE data and the post QE data and we are underwhelmed. But what real evidence is there that QE is helping the economy?  Would we be the same without it?  Better even?  I am told no, but I am told a lot of things that turn out not to be true.  If it was clear that QE was really helping the economy, I wouldn’t be wondering why we do it. But is there any harm to QE?  That is the other side of the coin.  Ask any person from an Emerging Market whether QE is harmful and you will likely get a very different answer than the one Ben has given.

Beginning by disavowing Mario Gabelli of any belief that rising stock prices help 'most' people, Marc Faber discusses his increasingly imminent fears of the markets in this recent Barron's interview. Quoting Hussman as a caveat, "The problem with bubbles is that they force one to decide whether to look like an idiot before the peak, or an idiot after the peak. There's no calling the top," Faber warns there are a lot of questions about the quality of earnings but "statistics show that company insiders are selling their shares like crazy." His first recommendation - short the Russell 2000, buy 10-year US Treasuries ("there will be no magnificent US recovery"), and miners and adds "own physical gold because the old system will implode. Those who own paper assets are doomed."

Judging by the reaction from SocGen and JPY crosses (and thus global equity markets), the Turkish Central Bank's decision - to tighten aka ubertaper -has solved all the tapering, tantruming, turmoiling problems in markets. TRY obviously dumped on the news (now at 2.18 -2100 from highs). JPY crosses instantly exploded higher, automatically lifting US (Dow +60) and Japanese (NKY +110) stock futures markets before they closed. Gold fell very modestly ($1). JPY continued to weaken and when markets re-opened, gold dropped a little more but no sustained pressure; Dow is now +110 from pre-Turkey, NKY +175pts; S&P futures are up 10points on the news as stops are run to 1800 but the EEM ETF rallied around 1% (only).

"Governor Basci, you have avoided a domino crisis in EM.... I definitely feel much better about the TRY, at least on a tactical basis. The TRY crisis is over." - SocGen

The much anticipated Turkey Central Bank Decision is out and it is a stunner:

TURKEY'S CENTRAL BANK RAISES OVERNIGHT LENDING RATE TO 12.00% - this is the key rate, which was just hiked by an unprecedented 4.25%
TURKEY'S CENTRAL BANK RAISES BENCHMARK REPO RATE TO 10.00% - from 4.50%
TURKEY'S CENTRAL BANK RAISES OVERNIGHT BORROWING RATE TO 8.00% from 3.50%

Wondering who will take over the mantle of Treasury bond buyer now that the Fed is stepping away? Curious of the government's next steps towards repression and control of wealth? Wait no longer. As the AP reports, President Obama will unveil a new retirement savings plan tonight that allows first-time savers to buy US Treasury bonds tax-deferred for retirement. Of course, this is not the mandatory IRA that remains somewhat inevitable (as the muddle-through fails) but is certainly a step in the direction we alerted readers to a year ago by which the government generously offers to help manage your retirement savings. Two words spring to mind... remember Poland.

On Friday, when we remarked on the biggest recorded withdrawal from the JPM gold vault, we said: "Something tells us the next few days will see matching withdrawals from JPM's gold vault, which at last check was officially owned by the Chinese." As it turns out we were absolutely correct: according to the just released update from Comex, on Monday the infamous gold vault located below 1 C(hina)MP saw an identical withdrawal of 321,500 ounces, matching the record withdrawal, and amounting to 28% of all JPM gold in storage.

Despite AAPL's tumble (and Seagate), the NASDAQ ended the day green along with the rest of the major US indices as the Dow broke its 5-day losing streak. Stocks in general recovered from the pre-Taper levels but remain notably down on the year. Most of the day's gains occurred in the first hour of the day as "most shorted" names were ripped higher (+1.8% vs the market's +0.75% at 11ET) which helped the Trannies outperform. The USD oscillated once again but ended practically unchanged (on the day and week) as AUD strengthens and JPY weakens providing just enough support to hold stocks higher. The USD stability was entirely missing from commodities which cracked around teh durable goods data with oil surging and bullion bulls purging. Treasuries were mixed but practically unchanged (despite some notable volatility around the Dur Goods data) with very modest steepening. VIX dropped 1.6vols to 15.8% - its biggest drop in 6 weeks.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, fellow citizens:

...Make no mistake: the consequences of our actions are here. And the days of the United States as the world's dominant superpower are finished.

...No, this may not be the country that you all grew up in. But it is the state of our union... whatever remains of it.

Yesterday we covered the supply side of the gold market from the perspective of global mints, which were kind enough to advise that they "can’t meet the demand, even if we work overtime." Today, courtesy of Bloomberg, we take a closer look at the demand aspect of the physical gold market, which as most know by now can be described with just one word: China.

The topic of China's real estate bubble, its ghost cities, and its emerging middle class - who now have enough money to invest and have piled into houses not stocks - and have been dubbed "fang nu" or housing slaves (a reference to the lifetime of work needed to pay off their debts); is not a new one here but, as Bloomberg reports, the latest report from economist Gan Li shows China’s households are massively exposed to an oversupplied property market.

President Obama will proclaim that all is well but more is to be done tonight (we suspect) and lay out his agenda for fixing it all now (which we are sure will be different from the fixes of the last 5 years). However, as The WSJ reports, he faces a nation increasingly worried about his abilities, dissatisfied with the economy and fearful of the economy's future. Since the rise of modern polling in the 1930s, only George W. Bush has begun his sixth year in the White House on rockier ground than Mr. Obama. 59% are uncertain, worried, or pessimistic about the rest of Obama's term; 63% believe the US in on the wrong track; and, despite record high stock prices and 'wealth', 71% expressed some level of dissatisfaction with the broader economy.

People have a strange habit of ridiculing economics for its assumptions and [benchmark] models of optimality. While modern mathematical economics (i.e., professional mathturbation) admittedly rely on sometimes outrageous assumptions that make most of the resulting predictions irrelevant, there is nothing ridiculous or unscientific about economic reasoning. This is the problem of relying on induction, and while it might work well in the natural sciences, and is less reliable but likely more beneficial than not in applied natural science (such as medicine), it is impossible in the social sciences.

The President will do his best to put a positive spin on the current economic environment and the success of his policies to date when he gives his speech tonight.  However, how you define the current environment may have much to do with where you fall in current income distribution.  This was a point made by Mr. Boyer: "In 2012, the richest 10 percent of Americans earned their largest share of income since 1917, said Emmanuel Saez, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley. Meanwhile, Census Bureau statistics showed that real average income among the poorest 20 percent of families continued to fall each year from 2009 to 2011." As with all things - it is the lens from which you view the world that defines what you see.  In the end, it will be whether we choose to "see" the issues that currently weigh on economic prosperity and take action, or continue to look the other way.  History is replete with examples of the demise of empires that have done the latter.