Archive - Apr 17, 2014 - Story

Those munificently rising stock prices and options cash-outs owe much to the Fed’s campaign to suppress interest rates and fuel stock market based ”wealth effects”, but the CEOs are doing their part, too. They have become full-time financial engineers who use the Fed’s flood of liquidity, cheap debt and soaring stock prices to perform a giant strip-mining operation on their own companies.  That is, through endless stock buybacks and M&A maneuvers they create the appearance of “growth” while actually liquidating the balance sheet equity and future asset base on which legitimate earnings growth depends. The poster boy for this deformation is IBM which for all intents and purposes has become a stock buyback machine on steroids. It had a bad hair day yesterday, reporting still another year/year decline in sales, but that goes right to the heart of the matter. During the last seven years IBM has been a stock traders dream, climbing an almost picture perfect chart from $94 per share in March 2007 to a recent peak of $212.

First it was Lavrov announcing the "roadmap" to de-escalate Ukraine tensions. Now it is the turn of John Kerry.

Considering how successful diplomatic "solutions" to the Ukraine crisis have been in the past, it is no wonder almost nobody was paying attention to Geneva where today the four parties were holding talks to resolve the Ukraine situation, and moments ago they released, via Russia's Lavrov, a joint statement on "de-escalating the situation." From Bloomberg:

• LAVROV SAYS DOCUMENT APPROVED ON UKRAINE
• 4 PARTIES CALL FOR ILLEGAL ARMED GROUPS TO BE DISARMED: LAVROV
• UKRAINIANS MUST RESOLVE CRISIS THEMSELVES, LAVROV SAYS
• PARTIES URGE AMNESTY FOR PROTESTERS IN UKRAINE'S EAST: LAVROV

And, approrpiately enough, the Easter Egg:

• UKRAINE NEEDS DECENTRALIZATION, MORE REGIONAL POWERS: LAVROV

In other words, more referendums? For now stocks aren't reacting bullishly (perhaps because as UBS recently suggested, war may be bullish for US stocks), however, oil is lower on the news.

Moments ago Weibo opened at a price that shocked pretty much everyone following the story of China's twitter, which had already cut overnight the number of shares it was taking public:

WEIBO CORP OPENS AT $16.27, IPO AT $17.00

However, within moments of opening the underwriters did everything they can to avoid another Facebook and defended the IPO price, promptly sending the stock above $17.00 where it was trading as of this second. Will they succeed, or will the Chinese social networking invasion also be Candy Crushed? The next few hours will likely give the answer.

Moments ago, in a show of continued solidarity with the people of (West) Ukraine, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced the latest batch of "non-lethal" aid to Ukraine. Among the items that would be shipped are:

• Sleeping mats;
• Water purification systems;
• Medial supplies; and
• Helmets

Why no healthcare plans? Hagel added that while US actions are "provocative" and "heighten tensions", the US supply of equipment to non-NATO member Ukraine is not meant to "provoke or threaten Russia" and will review providing Ukraine with more support, also saying that the US is offering "planners" to help NATO update plans. The same NATO which as we reported yesterday, is preparing to expand its air and water presence around Russia... also obviously in a way that is not meant to threaten provoke Russia.

  No, not the S&P 500.

As it turns out, in their euphoria to lower EPS estimates, the sellside lemmings forgot all about revenues.  Oops.  Because according to the Deutsche Bank Q1 earnings tracker, while two thirds may have beat earnings, a stunning 51%, or a majority of the reporting companies have missed Q1 revenue estimates.

The Philly Fed Business Outlook survey surged to 16.6, beating expectations by the most since September and rising to 7-month highs. Most subindices rose with shipments surging and new orders rising but prices paid flat. The big worry though is that this six-month forward expectations collapsed to their lowest since April 2013. So the pent-up-weather-demand is being seen as entirely unsustainable by the survey respondents...

In a somewhat stunning turn of events, entry to Ukraine is being dramatically restricted to Russian men. Interfax reports, Ukraine border service officials "significantly restricting" entry of adult males from Russia.

UKRAINE BANS ENTRY TO RUSSIAN MEN OVER TERROR THREAT: ASTAKHOV

Aeroflot notes on their website that entry will be denied to "all citizens of Russia male aged 16 to 60 years" and "citizens of Ukraine who are registered in Crimea."

A few days ago, in an attempt to regain the Krematorsk air base in the "separatist" eastern region, as part of the "counter-terrorist" offensive launched against the pro-Russians, Kiev also started what according to reports was an airborne press by Ukraine Mig fight jets. The condemnation by Russia to such an escalation against the country's own people was swift, and curiously, so was that by Ukraine's own troops which deserted the country's army to join eastern forces, taking with them an unknown number of tanks and APCs. So in what perhaps is a follow on attempt to preempt further escalation, Ukraine's air force has adopted a maneuver taken straight out of Top Gun's "Buzzing the Tower" approach, only this one involves "Buzzing the Tress." Watch as a Ukraine pilot does a fly by and narrowly misses hitting a tree.

Keynesianism is a fraud. Supply-siderism is a con. The dollar is a scam. All were developed by people with good intentions. But these good intentions not only paved the road to Hell, they greased it. There was no point putting on the brakes. Once underway, there was no stopping it. Right now, the US slides towards some sort of Hell. Half a century of deceit has produced a nation that is ready to believe anything … and go along with anything … provided it promises to make them rich.

Just a couple of hours ago we noted the odd lack of total buying panic that the market was seeing ahead of option-expiration. However, we did not have to wait long to be greeted with the now ubiquitous "vertical-straight-line-up" formation. Beware though USDJPY just rolled over...

While the western media paints Vladmir Putin as some cross between Napoleon and Hitler marauding across Europe breaking international laws willy-nilly, there is one red line he is apparently unwilling to cross. In a somewhat surprising turn of events, none other than Edward Snowden called in to a Putin live telethon and asked the Russian President: "Does Russia intercept millions of citizens’ data?" Putin's response (whether true or not) is worth paying attention to by his opponent on the world stage: "Russia uses surveillance techniques for spying on individuals only with the sanction of a court order. This is our law, and therefore there is no mass surveillance in our country."

Initial jobless claims rose very modestly from last week's near 7-year lows but handily beat expectations with the 4-week average at its lowest since September 2007. Of course, as Yellen explained yesterday, none of this matters as if one indicator of jobs improvement gets too strong to enable more easy money, we simply flip to another that indicates a different worse (more real) reality. Continuing Claims also dropped (beating expectations) to uits lowest since Dec 2007 (as if the whole crisis never happened).