Archive - Apr 3, 2014 - Story

We are adding one full percentage of growth back to our estimate of current quarter real GDP which is now 4.2%.

— Joseph A. LaVorgna (@Lavorgnanomics) April 3, 2014

Thanks to more jawboning promises of QE from Draghi this morning, peripheral bond yields in Europe have collapsed once again. Any minute now, Spain will be a lower-yielding bond than the US... and at this pace, you will have to pay Spain to lend it money within a few months... we are sure someone has figured out how entirely useless asset-purchases would be at these levels.. but for now, fight the fed in the US (they remind us that tapering is not tightening remember) but don't fight the promise of the ECB...

Markit's Services PMI missed expectations (55.3 vs 55.5 flash) and dropped from last month - as it seems an easing of the 'weather disruption' did nothing for pent-up services demand. Services employment growth slowed (suggesting a weak NFP) as did new business (very significantly) but optimism rose (so that's good). On the heels of that the ISM Services print missed expectations for the 4th month of the last 5 (53.1 vs 53.6) but rose modestly MoM.

"High-frequency traders are gaming the system, reaping billions in the process and undermining investor confidence in the fairness of the markets. It’s a growing cancer and needs to be addressed.  If confidence erodes further, the fuel of our free-enterprise system, capital formation, is at risk. We can’t allow that to happen. For sure, we still believe investing in equities is a primary path to long-term wealth creation, and we believe in the long-term structural integrity of the markets to deliver that over time for individual investors, which is all the more reason to be vigilant in removing anything that creates unfair advantage or undermines investor confidence... High-frequency trading isn’t providing more efficient, liquid markets; it is a technological arms race designed to pick the pockets of legitimate market participants. That flies in the face of our markets’ founding principles.

From Goldman's David Kostin, who first looks back: "S&P 500 began 2014 with a pullback of 6%, repeating its 2013 trend, but then rallied 8% to reach a new high of 1885. The market has not had a drawdown of 10% since the summer of 2012, rallying nearly 50% during that time. Gold and bonds have outperformed stocks YTD" and then forward: "S&P 500 rises 2% in 1Q to hit new high; we expect 3% appreciation during next 12 months" In other words, by the end of this week the Market should hit Goldman's 12 month forward price target.

Despite Draghi's explanation that a QE program in Europe (due to the greater extent of bank lending vs capital market financing) would not be "as efficient" as the Fed's program, his comment that:

*DRAGHI SAYS COUNCIL WILL REFLECT HARD ON DESIGN OF QE

Has provided just enough "hope" juice to drive the EUR lower and ramp bond and stock prices across Europe (for now). We will have to see what the half-life of this jawboning is. Of course, the EUR selling is USD buying and that is pumping USDJPY higher - and therefore a pre-open pump in US equities.

So much for those already abysmally low Q1 GDP forecasts. Moments ago, the Census Bureau released trade data for February which crushed expectations of an improvement from $39.1 billion (revised to $39.3 billion) to $38.5 billion, and instead rose 7.7% to $42.3 billion, the highest monthly trade deficit since September. This was driven by a 0.4% increase in imports to to $231.7 billion offset by a drop in exports of 1.1%  to $192.5 billion. The goods deficit increased $2.2 billion from January to $61.7 billion in February; the services surplus decreased $0.8 billion from January to $19.4 billion in February. Most notably however, is that as a result of this "unexpected" surge in the deficit, the Q1 GDP forecast cuts, anywhere between 0.2% and 0.4% are set to begin.

Despite hope that this time is different, and after a few weeks of improvement that was extrapolated as back-to-the-status-quo for us all, initial jobless claims rose by their most week-over-week in 10 weeks, missed expectations, and hover just below the average of the last year. Not exactly the positive trend that so many would like to use to build their "so buy stocks" thesis. This follows ADP's miss and the ISM reports' internal jobs indices misses. Of course, a 'bad' claims data is great news for more un-tapering.. the bulls, let down by Draghi, now need Friday's payroll data to be truly dismal.

As we noted previously, there was a low expectation that Mario Draghi would unleash a much-hoped-for QE but we suspect the devil of the dovish details will come in the press conference when the bespectacled banker will prove that open-mouth operations and the promise of "whatever it takes" at some point in the future are just as powerful (for now) as any actual monetary policy. Rates lower for much much longer... studying negative rates... contemplating asset purchases... preparing to fire OMT... Euro is too strong comments... expect a wild ride... EURUSD is at 1.3760 as he starts.

All talk, no action. That's what, as usual, happened at the ECB today where after much bluster and QE rhetoric from everyone including former permahawk Jens Weidmann, the ECB did precisely as most had expected. Nothing.

• Russia says expects answers on NATO troops in eastern Europe (Reuters)
• Dealers say GM customer anxiety rising, sales may take hit (Reuters)
• China Unveils Mini-Stimulus Measure (WSJ)
• Londoners Priced Out of Housing Blame Foreigners (BBG)
• New earthquake in Chile prompts tsunami alerts (Reuters)
• Ukrainian Billionaire Charged by U.S. With Bribe Scheme (BBG)
• Chinese Investments in U.S. Commercial Real Estate Surges (BBG)
• Old Math Casts Doubt on Accuracy of Oil Reserve Estimates (BBG)
• US secretly created 'Cuban Twitter' to stir unrest (AP)

Being that markets are unrigged and all, at least according to every single proponent of HFT that is, futures have done their overnight levitation as they have every day for the past month driven by the one staple - the Yen carry trade - even if in recent days the broader market slump during the actual daytrading session mostly impacted biotechs yesterday. And since any news is good news, we don't expect today's main event, the ECB's rate announcement and Draghi press conference, both of which are expected to announce nothing new despite Europe's outright inflationary collapse which most recently dropped to 0.5%, the lowest since 2009.