Archive - Feb 7, 2014 - Story

Today, we got the credit side of the "savings debit" ledger with the December consumer credit report, in which we learned that in addition to the now traditional draw of Car and Student loans, which came out to $13.8 billion, or exactly in line with the 12 month average draw, sending the total notional to a record $2.24 trillion, it was revolving credit, i.e., credit cards, which saw a substantial $5 billion increase in outstandings - the most since May 2013 - bringing total revolving credit to $862 billion if still far below the nearly $1.1 trillion in student loans outstanding. So just as the US consumer was tapped out, and saw their personal income remain unchanged from November and real disposable income cratered, as a result having to draw down on their savings, the remainder of all purchases was funded through the use of credit cards, which may or may not be repaid in 2014. There is always hope that this time will be different and incomes finally pick up.

Whether driven by real supply-demand issues, concerns over terrorism (sparked by the Sochi plane debacle), or hopes a renewed un-tapered QE on the basis of 2 piss-poor jobs reports in a row is unclear. What is clear is that WTI crude is having its best day in over 2 months - now at its highest in 2014, back above $100 a barrel and its most expensive in history for this time of year.

As natural gas prices climb, reaching over $5/mcf again on 4 February, and with an unseasonably cold winter, local utilities say that natural gas customers’ bills are 30-40% higher now than last winter.

Is it any wonder Mario Draghi didn't lift a quantitative-easing finger this week? Despite record unemployment, record (and disastrous youth unemployment), record suicide rates, record non-performing loans, and an inextricably-linked banking system facing $3 trillion in exposure to emerging markets... Spanish bond yields have collapsed to their lowest since 2006 (and Italian close behind). With an entirely broken transmission mechanism of monetary policy, it seems the "market" for European bonds knows no bounds as spreads on the riskiest sovereigns drop to pre-crisis levels and 10Y Spain yields are now lower than 30Y US Treasuries.

Three days ago it was S&P that opened the can of Puerto Rico junk worms. Moments ago it was Moody's turn to downgrade the General Obligation rating of the Commonwealth from Baa3 to Ba2, aka junk status. We note this just in case someone is confused what the catalyst was that just sent stock to a new intraday high in the aftermath of today's disappointing jobs number which until this moment barely managed to push the S&P higher by 1%. From the report: "While some economic indicators point to a preliminary stabilization, we do not see evidence of economic growth sufficient to reverse the commonwealth's negative financial trends. Without an economic revival, the commonwealth will face difficult decisions in coming years, as its debt and pension costs rise. The negative outlook signals the remaining challenges facing the commonwealth."

Trinkets and Ads trump global energy provision...

One look at the chart below from the NYT, and a pattern emerges...

Turkey scrambled an F-16 fighter jet following a bomb-threat aboard a Ukraine-outbound plane. A passenger, among 110 on the plane, made a bomb threat and demanded the plane be diverted to Sochi. The plane eventually landed in Istanbul - after crew calmed down the man who had reportedly been drinking. This threat follows the US' warning of "toothpaste" bombs.

Having benefited from the earlier QE-un-taper hope, the Turkish Lira is dropping rapidly following the move by S&P to put Turky on negative outlook:

• *TURKEY'S OUTLOOK TO NEGATIVE FROM STABLE BY S&P
• *S&P SEES RISKS OF HARD ECONOMIC LANDING IN TURKEY

Furthermore, the ratings agency raising questions over the Central Bank:

• *TURKEY SUFFERING EROSION OF GOVERNANCE STANDARDS, S&P SAYS
• *TURKEY SUFFERING EROSION OF CHECKS AND BALANCES, S&P SAYS
• *CONSTRAINTS ON TURKEY CENBANK INDEPENDENCE: S&P.

EM Un-fixed.

The problem for the state is that its success in imposing exorbitant fees and taxes will simply drive low-income people scratching out a minimal living in the gray market to other networks that do not even have a corporate structure to tax. To wit: "The more you tighten your grip, the more systems will slip through your fingers." Phantom economies tend to give rise to gray and black markets in proportion to the deviance of the phantom economy from reality.

Mt.Gox, the largest exchange for the online digital currency, was forced to halt withdrawals (but not trading) this morning. Due to an increase in withdrawal requests the exchange's systems had technical problems and in order "to understand the issue thoroughly, the system must be in static state," they reported. The exchange said it would resolve the problem as soon as possible and "apologize[d] for the sudden short notice." Interestingly this seemed to rapidly remove Mt.Gox's modest premium to the other exchanges and bring them all back inline around $700 as the price recovered.

Raise your hands if you are surprised that, as has emerged, virtually every major bank was manipulating currencies (and everything else) whether as part of the "Bandits' Club", the "Cartel" or some other - until recently- secret message room. That's what we thought. Now raise your hand if you thought the manipulation could be so pervasive, so glaring and so in your face, that even the oldest central bank - the Bank of England - and who knows how many other monetary authorities, were openly encouraging traders from these private banks to do more of the illegal activity they had been engaging in - namely manipulating currencies - with their explicit blessing knowing very well such behavior is undisputedly illegal. We hope at least one or two hands went up, because which it is one thing to be cynical about what is going on behind the scenes, it is something else to see the edifice of global corruption and criminality, whose only purpose was to preserve the status quo, unwinding before your very eyes substantiated by actual facts.

It was all going so well. It appeared the "market" had decided that this was not weather-related (as we showed) but real weakness and that real weakness can mean only one thing - a fickle Fed re-primes the pump by un-tapering the taper. However, as we noted last night, it is Jon Hilsenrath of the Wall Street Journal that creates the "common knowledge" upon which we should act. The bounce in stocks was evidently hope of the un-taper for as Hilsy noted in a Q&A that the "Fed is likely to stick to its course on rates and bond-buying in the wake of the mixed jobs report," stocks, USDJPY, and Emerging Market FX started to fade.

When you have one after another "polar vortex" out there, and feet of snow covering the country and supposedly crushing economic activity, what do you do? Why you hire construction workers of course. As the following breakdown of the best and worst jobs of December shows, the one job category to benefit the most from January's horrifying weather which was the reason for all those weak January numbers (if one listens to the propaganda pundits and other TV anchors) was construction workers, which saw 48K jobs created. Which in some parallel universe surely makes sense. Just not this one.