Archive - Apr 14, 2014 - Story

What was worst, and naturally will not be discussed at all by the peanut gallery, about Citi's just announced results is that the amount of Citigroup mortgage originations - that key aspect of the trumpeted "housing market recovery" - did what it has done at every other bank. It plunged. Only at Citigroup, it plunged so badly, it just reached a new record low which at $5.2 billion is a 71% drop from a year ago! Long live the housing recovery... in which nobody seems to be participating.

Not entirely surprising given the data from the automakers in recent weeks, but the 3.4% jump in auto dealer sales provided enough juice to push overall retail sales in the US up 1.1% MoM (beating expectations of 0.8% and with last month's data revised higher). This is the biggest month-over-month jump in retail sales since Sept 2012. The question, of course, is whether this auto spike is sustainable to support the overall sales environment or will the ever lowering credit standards of the subprime auto loan market lead to the inevitable collapse in a few months?

The last few days have seen Western anti-Russian rhetoric and red lines escalate dramatically as the military and economic issues come to light in any push back against Putin's pressure. From NatGas export fallacies to "boomerang"-ing sanctions, the west seems stuck (for now).. which brings up the question - why is China and Russia making huge investments in commodity-miners? Russia's largest gold miner Polyus Gold is considering a complete onshoring of its activities and China is buying a huge Peruvian copper mine from Glencore. The outcome would appear to enable both firms to do away with USD but not having to buy this resource in the market... just mine it?

While US equities have spent much of the past several weeks under pressure (the NASDAQ bio tech index has fallen over 21%, the NASDAQ Comp is down over 8% and the S&P500 is down over 4%), BofAML's Macneil Curry is concerned that the VIX index suggests conditions should deteriorate further before greater signs of a base materialize.

• Three dead in shootings at Kansas Jewish centers; man to face charges (WSJ)
• Sanctions Blowback in Russia Targets Burgers to Movies (BBG)
• Deadly Virus's Spread Raises Alarms in Mideast (WSJ)
• China group buys $6bn Glencore Peru copper mine (BBG)
• Iran lodges complaint against United States over U.N. envoy ban (Reuters)
• Russian assets down sharply on Ukraine conflict fears (Reuters)
• ECB comments knock euro, but not much (Reuters)
• World-Leading $25 Hourly Wage Roils Swiss Businesses (BBG)

Futures are treading water once more now that Ukraine has stormed to center stage from the backburner after everyone was convinced Putin would let the situation cool off after annexing Crimea. Guess not. Adding the renewed geopolitical jitters to what has already been a beta stock bloodbath into a holiday shortened week assures some high volatility fireworks. Cautious sentiment was observed over in Asia (Nikkei 225 -0.36%) amid renewed fears that geopolitical tensions in Ukraine will flare up again following reports of exchange gunfire with pro-Russian militants. This sentiment carried over into the European session with stocks lower across the board (Eurostoxx50 -0.71%). EUR is lower after ECB’s Draghi said any further strengthening of the EUR would warrant further action by the ECB, including non-standard measures such as quantitative easing - it is amazing how frequently and often the Virtu algos still fall for Draghi's jawboning trick which has now become all too clear will never be implemented and certainly not if he keeps talking about it daily, as he does.

We have bad news for hedge funds who, like Hugh Hendry in December of last year, threw fundamentals and caution to the wind and, with great reservations, jumped into this momo bandwagon in which mere buying beget more buying until nobody knew why anyone bought in the first place... and then everything crashed, leading to the worst day for hedge funds in a decade: according to Goldman's David Kostin, whose job is to be a cheerleader for the intangible "wealth effect" leading to all too tangible Goldman bonuses: "The stock market will likely recover during the next few months... but not momentum stocks."