Archive - Apr 7, 2014 - Story

The blog posts and defenses of high frequency trading in the past week have come with dizzying high frequency. Flash Boys has struck many a nerve; the truth can be a bitter pill at times. And of course, the pro-HFT defenses are all made by many who are very, very staked in the status quo of our market structure. Now, bloggers using twitter is one thing; conflicted insiders using television to make their HFT defenses are another. 

Putting this in context, in the past 12 months, a record 98% of all credit - $162 billion - has gone into non-revolving debt, i.e., student and car loans. How much has been added to credit card balances? An absolutely meaningless $4 billion, or 2% of total. Shown below, the "consumer recovery" is the bar chart on the left.

Over the weekend, Nigeria’s government made an accounting adjustment in how it calculates its GDP statistics. By changing the base-year in GDP calculations from 1990 to 2010, Nigeria increased the reported size of its economy by 89% over the weekend. So with a stroke of a pen, the West African nation leapfrogged South Africa to become the continent’s largest economy. And in doing so the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio fell below 20%. Of course, the US government does exactly the same thing… often conveniently leaving out huge portions of its total debt such as the non-marketable securities it owes to the Social Security trust funds. It’s all about maintaining a false sense of confidence at all costs, no matter what lies they have to fabricate, no matter what fraud they have to commit.

While the Fed's official 'mandate' is do no evil maximize employment with stable prices, it is perhaps better understood (in recent decades) as pump credit, create bubbles, hope for job creation, and hope that inflation does not get out of control. So the following two charts from Citi suggest the Fed, no matter how much Taper or un-Taper they do, face some serious demographic headwinds from rising inflation and plunging stock valuations.

In what would likely get her a daily (armed) drone surveillance package with blanket NSA supervision, if not outright burned at the stake in the US, Leonie Ki - who is the new head of Hong Kong's government campaign to alleviate poverty - dared to suggest what is the absolute anathema to any nanny state such as the US: instead of relying on the government for everything, people should achieve prosperity by their own hard work. Surely in the US words such as these would result in her being tar and feathered by at least half the population for daring to suggest something so loathsome to a nation which is increasingly convinced personal prosperity comes courtesy of government handouts of everything: from Obamaphones to Obamacare and, coming soon, Obamafood.

Guess what? There is none. Rather, the Federal Reserve practice of Delphically divulging its intentions ought to be understood as the master pretense of US economic life — the delusion that wise persons are actually in control of anything. The result of this guidance continues to be the mis-pricing of everything, especially the cost of money as represented in the operations of debt, and hence the value of everything denominated in money. One thing we really do know, as good old Herb Stein put it, is that things go on until they can’t, and then they don’t.

Well that didn't take long... Friday morning's post-payrolls record all-time high in the S&P 500 (because, as Steve Liesman said, "he can't find any reason to be bearish about jobs data") has rapidly collapsed to being negative year-to-date (and worst start to a year since 2009's crash). Only the Transports remain green in 2014, with the Dow, Nasdaq (worst start to a year since 2008), and Russell all coincidentally gathered around a 2% negative return YTD.

Employment is a function of demand by customers on businesses. As opposed to many economists and politicians, businesses do not hire employees to be "good samaritans." While such a utopian concept is fine in theory, the reality is that businesses operate from a "profit motive." The problem is quite clear. With the consumer heavily leveraged, the inability to "spend and borrow" is reducing aggregate demand.  As stated, the current level of aggregate demand simply isn't strong enough to offset the rising costs of taxes, benefits and healthcare (a significant consideration due to the onset of the Affordable Care Act) associated with hiring full-time employees. Therefore, businesses initially opt for cost efficient productivity increases, and only hire as necessary to meet marginal increases in customer demand which has come from population growth.

The relative calm of the last two weeks as US talking-heads proclaim Ukraine 'fixed', Russia 'under control', and Europe 'recovering' is being obliterated this morning. The storming of various non-Crimean Ukrainian city government buildings suggest round two of the push is beginning and Russia is wasting no time explaining how this will go down. Russian Senator Viktor Ozerov stated that "Russia has no right to [send peacekeepers] unilaterally" to Eastern and Southern Ukraine (unless the UN agrees)... but... "Russia is interested in stability in Ukraine. At the same time, the will of the people must be documented. A referendum is the most democratic way of expressing one's will." In other words, "we can't help you unless you hold a referendum to annex." Stage 2 is beginning... and it seems Ukraine is getting it as they are preparing to issue a state of emergency.

In the days after the Crimean referendum, we presented our take on "who is next" in the great annexation scramble and said that the most likely region to enter the USSR 2.0 next is Moldova's Transnistira region, where in a 2006 referendum some 97% of the population had voted to become part of Russia.  Moments ago this appears to have been confirmed after the president of the territory said the following, via Bloomberg:

MOLDOVA'S TRANSNISTRIA REGION SEEKS TO JOIN RUSSIA: PRESIDENT

One thing is certain: the "west" will not be happy as the Russian territorial expansion continues.

New mortgage originations fell over 23% month-over-month and a stunning 47% year-to-date according to Black Knight (formerly LPS). As they show in their detailed presentation, with a 65% year-over-year drop, new mortgage originations are at their lowest since their records began and what is perhaps more concerning is prepayment speeds signal further declines are ahead and the ratio of serious deterioration to foreclosure (along with huge numbers of loan mods due to reset) suggest the housing market is anything but recovering fundamentally with the average loan in foreclosure now 2.6 years past due.

Over the weekend the world was gripped by the drama surrounding the mysterious murder-homicide of the former CEO of Dutch bank ABN Amro and members of his family, and whether there is more foul play than meets the eye. However, that is nothing compared to what just happened in the tiny, and all too quiet Principality of Lichtenstein, where moments ago the CEO of local financial institution Bank Frick & Co. AG, Juergen Frick, was shot dead in the underground garage of the bank located in the city of Balzers.

UPDATE: V-shaped recovery in stocks as 103 USDJPY marks line in the sand...

BTFD failed and momentum has broken. Growth stocks and Biotech dreams are lying shattered in a pool of margin calls once again this morning. Nasdaq being dragged by another more-than-1% drop in Biotechs (now negative year-to-date) and nearing the 20% high-to-low drop of a bear market. Bonds are bid as JPY carry unwinds drag broad US equity markets lower... The USD is weaker (led by EUR strength) and precious metals are down modestly (gold at $1300)

Brad Katsuyama played by Brad Pitt? We wouldn't have too much of a problem with that.