Archive - Mar 12, 2014 - Story

Yes, rates can be raised too. Just out from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand which just hiked rates by 25bps to 2.75%, as was largely expected.

Wall Street bonuses (on average) in 2013 rose 15% to the highest since 2007. As OSC Tom DiNapoli notes, "Securities industry employees took home significantly higher bonuses on average... although profits were lower than the prior year." In fact, as we noted earlier, profits at the banks fell 30%. Average compensation for securities industry professionals in New York City ($360,700) were 5.2 times greater than the rest of the private sector ($69,200). Thank You Ben...

Despite the relentless protests of Kiev, and of course the G7 group of world's most indebted nations, in the past two weeks Vladimir Putin once again succeeded in outplaying the west and annexed the Crimea peninsula without firing a single shot (granted there is still potential for material situational deterioration, one which would involve military participation by NATO whose outcome is not exactly clear). The market has "priced in" as much, with prevailing consensus now dictating that Russia will preserve its foothold in the Crimea however without additional attempts for annexation: certainly Poland is hoping and praying as much. However, as the following photos taken on the Russian side of East Ukraine, next to Belgorod, the Russian airborne troops ("VDV") are now piling up, only not in Crimea, which needs no further Russian military presence, but ostensibly to prepare for the next part of the annexation: that of Russian-speaking east Ukraine.

Does anything about 2014 remind you of 2008? The long lists of visible stress in the global financial system and the almost laughably hollow assurances that there are no bubbles, everything is under control, etc. etc. etc.  certainly remind me of the late-2007-early 2008 period when the subprime mortgage meltdown was already visible and officialdom from Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan on down were mounting the bully pulpit at every opportunity to declare that there was no bubble in housing and the system was easily able to handle little things like defaulting mortgages. The party, once again, is clearly ending and raises the question: "If asset bubbles no longer boost full-time employment or incomes across the board, what is the broad-based, “social good” justification for inflating them?"

As is widely known, Ukraine's acting post-coup PM Arseniy Yatsenuk is currently in the US and holding heating talks with president Obama on just how to define the "costs" to Russia should Putin conclude his annexation of the Crimea this weekend in a way that the Russian leader will finally pay attention. As was less known, after his meeting, at 8 pm tonight, the PM was supposed to hold a press conference at the National Press Club.  As of moments ago, this propaganda meet and greet has been cancelled.

• DUE TO A SCHEDULING CHANGE, THE PRIME MINISTER HAS CANCELED THIS EVENT

Scheduling change? Really? Did Yatsenyuk ask Obama, in passing, to show him where the Ukraine gold, which as we reported a few days ago was rumored to have been airlifted to the NY Fed, which resulted in a less than pleasant response by the US president?

Yesterday we highlighted the dot-com-esque surge in earnings-less IPOs in the last few months. Today we point out two more Yellen-ignoring bubble-implying charts that must surely be ignored by the cognoscenti of all-knowing stock market gurus.

HERBALIFE RECEIVED TODAY A CIVIL INVESTIGATIVE DEMAND FROM FTC
HERBALIFE SAYS IT'S CONFIDENT IT'S IN COMPLIANCE
HERBALIFE COMMENTS ON FTC PROBE, WELCOME INQUIRY
HERBALIFE WON'T FURTHER COMMENT UNTIL MATERIAL DEVELOPMENTS

US equities surged... Japanese stocks soared.. and Europe recovered greatly but on a risk-adjusted-return basis, Goldman Sachs notes, nothing beat Bitcoin in 2013...

Moments ago the Treasury sold $21 billion in benchmark OTRs in the form of a 9-year-11-month reopening of Cusip B66, in a whopper of an auction that saw the high yield of 2.729% price 1.4 bps through the 2.743% When Issued. But more than just blistering demand at the pricing, all the internals were solid across the board: the Bid to Cover of 2.92x was well above the 2.54x from February, and the 2.68x TTM average. In fact, this was the highest BTC since March of last year. And in keeping with one year anniversary records, the Dealer Award was a paltry 29.1% which also was the lowest in a year. Indirects were 43.4%, down from 49.7% in February, which means that Direct soared, and sure enough they did, from 16.2% to 27.5%. Overall a stellar auction, and one confirming that the smart money continues to prefer allocation to fixed income, instead of believing the latest "growth stories" explaining away the second coming of the dot com bubble in Bernanke's centrally-planned farce of a market.

"Higher equity prices will boost consumer wealth and help increase confidence, which can spur spending" - Ben Bernanke, 2010 But history suggests the opposite: it is higher savings rates which lead to economic prosperity. Examine any economic success story such as modern China, nineteenth century America, or post-World War II Japan and South Korea: did their economic rise derive from unbridled consumption, or strict frugality? The answer is self-evident: it is the savings from the curtailment of consumption, combined with minimal government involvement in economic affairs, which generates economic growth.

"Daylight Savings Time"

Since Wall Street has been explicitly fighting the Fed (remember: the main reason there is no volume is because nobody is selling) Wall Street has once again lost, and despite its appeals, the time to pay the piper has come. Said payment will be taken out of bank Q1 earnings which as everyone knows, will continue the declining trend seen in recent years (so much for that whole Net Interest Margin fable), but to learn just how bad, we go to the FT which reports that fixed income groups across Wall Street "are set for their worst start to the year since before the financial crisis, with revenue declines of up to 25%." The punchline: "Analysts now expect Goldman Sachs to record its weakest first quarter since 2005 and JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America are forecast to see their lowest revenues since they bought Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch, respectively, in 2008."

Between AUDJPY and and VIX slamming, the S&P 500 is pushing back up towards green. However, a glance at gold prices (at six-month highs $1365), Treasuries (retraced all of Friday's non-farm-payrolls losses), and Swiss 2Y rates shows a safe-haven bid is alive and well. Yuan offshore rates are modestly strengthening and copper prices are bouncing as hopes remain that the unwind of the multi-trillion-dollar inflation of the Chinese shadow-banking system has run its course and all is well again. Perhaps the algos are confused once again that Europe does not close for another hour.

The truth is the Fed incentivizes and rewards the most parasitic, least productive sector of the economy and forcibly transfers the interest that was once earned by the productive middle class to the parasites. Though the multitudes of apologists, lackeys, toadies, minions and factotums of the Fed will frantically deny it, the inescapable truth is that the nation and the bottom 99.5% would be instantly and forever better off were the Fed closed down and its assets liquidated. The only way to eliminate the financial parasites is to stop subsidizing their skimming and scamming, and the only way to stop subsidizing the financial parasites is to shut down the Fed.

Despite promises by the West to do "whatever it takes" and Treasury Secretary Lew's note today that Ukraine aid could reach $15 billion, it appears the market is not buying it with June 2014 Ukraine government bond yields spiking above 53% today. Of course, this should be no surprise to Goldman Sachs clients who were told on Feb 21st that events were "unambiguously positive" for short-term bonds (then trading above 97) but are now trading below 90. It seems that the market believes default is highly likely and that any "aid" will flow directly to Russia for energy bills.