Archive - Apr 2014 - Story

During her testimomy to the House Financial Services Committee, SEC's Mary Jo White confidently proclaimed (despite her questioner doubting her beliefs):

US SEC CHAIR MARY JO WHITE RESPONDS TO MICHAEL LEWIS BOOK IN TESTIMONY, TELLS CONGRESS "THE MARKETS ARE NOT RIGGED"

"Investors should be protected from shisters," blasted the committee member, as he took White to task..

The US non-recovery summarized in a nutshell: nobody can afford to buy anymore, so everyone is forced to rent. The result: homeownership rate plunging to 19 year lows, while median asking rents just soared to a new all time high. Thank you Ben Bernanke for the "New Normal American Dream."

Three months ago, we discussed the increasingly close eye that regulators were keeping on Deutsche Bank (and in fact many other precious metal fix providers) as manipulation concerns shifted from conspiracy theory to conspiracy fact. At the time, Deutsche - among other banks - had suggested it would relinquish its role on the London Fixing committee and was actively marketing its seat to other LBMA members - it failed to find a willing buyer; the WSJ now confirms...

DEUTSCHE BANK SAID TO BE UNABLE TO FIND BUYER FOR GOLD SEAT
DEUTSCHE BANK RESIGNS SEAT ON GOLD, SILVER FIX, GIVES TWO WEEKS NOTICE - SOURCE

This is hardly surprising given previous comments that possible manipulation of precious metals "is worse than the Libor-rigging scandal." but it does leave us wondering who is left to do the manipulating? It seems no one wants to be part of the fixing process (critical for so many derivatives contracts) unless they are allowed to manipulate it to their own needs.

“In light of deteriorating market conditions and recent excessive market volatility, the company, having consulted the joint sponsors, has decided that the global offering will not proceed at this time.”

After March's exuberant surge to the higest level since Jan 2008, serial extrapolators drew their lines and proclaimed that Consumer Confidence would jump further to 83.2 - it didn't. Confidence dropped from a revised 83.9 to 82.3 as Present Situation dropped its most in 15 months. Hope (expectations) remains at its highest in 8 months but plans to buy a car dropped to 1 year lows  (with its biggest 2-month drop in 11 years) and plans to buy a major appliance dropped to 5 month lows.

Since the headlines hit this morning of further escalation in Ukraine, no troop withdrawals and more building takeovers, gold and oil prices have surged higher as it is clear that any hope for de-escalation is just that - hope. Treasury yields remain up but notably less than equity markets would imply by their move as safe haven demand is confused with rate-locks for the massive AAPL new issue (and are misread by stocks as being bullish). Equity markets, of course, don't care, JPY leads the way and there are stops to run and it's Tuesday...

CNBC must be reeling this morning as probably the highest-rated rivalry among hedge-fund managers has ended. As The WSJ reports, the hatchet was buried on Thursday. Mr. Ackman spoke with Mr. Icahn's assistant on April 24 saying, "I am calling to forgive Carl," according to Mr. Ackman. Mr. Icahn, 78 years old, returned the call and told Mr. Ackman, 47, that "it is a blessing to forgive," Mr. Icahn said, "and I forgive you." The acrimonious activists thus closed the door on one of the ugliest spats in financial market history as forgiving being called "a crybaby" and forgetting being labelled "a dishonest man" has been trumped by. as Ackman notes, the "much greater possibility that we are on the same side than the opposite."

Even Case Shiller itself appears to have given up on housing as the driver of the wealth effect: "Five years into the recovery from the recession, the economy will need to look to gains in consumer  spending and business investment more than housing. Long overdue activity in residential  construction would be welcome, but is certainly not assured." And looking at actual city level data, we find that just 5 cities saw price increases in February; 13 of 20 cities saw their home prices decline.

UPDATE: Shooter found dead - from self-inflicted gunshot wound

Police are looking for a man (reportedly a baggage handler) suspected of shooting six people at the FedEx facility in Kennesaw. As NBC11 reports, the shooting occurred at 545am as the male suspect arrved at the facility and started shooting:

*POLICE CONFIRM 6 INJURED IN SHOOTING AT GEORGIA FEDEX FACILITY
*POLICE SAY 'ACTIVE AND FLUID' SITUATION AT FEDEX BUILDING

The facility is on lockdown with workers already at work being held in a warehouse and new arrivals turned away.

Another false de-escalation gambit in Ukraine, after as Reuters reported earlier, "NATO has seen no sign that tens of thousands of Russian troops are withdrawing from close to the Ukraine border, a NATO official said today, despite a Russian statement that the troops had returned to their permanent positions." But... the algos said that all is well again? Guess not. But perhaps the best example of what is really going on, we read this:

PROTESTERS STORMING REGIONAL BUILDING IN LUHANSK: INTERFAX
PRO-RUSSIA SEPARATISTS CONTROL ADMIN. BUILDING IN LUHANSK: RIA

Interfax adds that some of protesters are carrying sticks, batons, and probably other pain-creating objects. Oh well, the "de-escalation" was fun while it lasted. Back to the same old daily grind again.

In what turned out to be immaculate timing, it was only yesterday that we previewed the collapse in Apple's domestic cash hoard (at the expense of its soaring, if non-recourse offshore cash)  which we concluded by saying that "what this simply means is that after making the history books with the biggest ever, $17 billion bond offering 12 months ago, Apple is about to issue a whole lot more of debt." Less than 24 hours later, it did just that. Moments ago Apple filed a bond offering prospectus, in which it laid out a 7-part bond offering consisting of two FRN tranches (due 2017 and 2019), and 5 fixed rate tranches (due 2017, 2019, 2021, 2024 and 2044), with Goldman and Deustche Bank as lead underwrtiers.

• EU regulators unveil details of bank stress tests (FT)
• Just use NSAfari: U.S., UK advise avoiding Internet Explorer until bug fixed (Reuters)
• China’s Income Inequality Surpasses U.S., Posing Risk for Xi  (BBG)
• US races to refuel infrastructure fund as revenue dries up (FT)
• New Era Dawns at Nokia as Company Appoints CEO, Plans $1.4 Billion Special Dividend, Share-Repurchase Program (WSJ)
• Obama reassures allies, but doubts over 'pivot' to Asia persist (Reuters)
• Dissent at SEC over bank waivers (FT)
• U.S. Banks to Help Authorities with Tax Evasion Probe (WSJ)
• U.S., Europe Impose New Sanctions on Russia (WSJ)
• Why the U.S. Is Targeting the Business Empire of a Putin Ally (BBG)
• Euro-Area April Economic Confidence Unexpectedly Declines (BBG)
• Bitcoin traders settle class actions over failed Mt. Gox exchange (Reut

The bankruptcy of Energy Future Holdings, aka TXU, aka the largest LBO ever has been long in coming. As we previewed it most recently in September of last year, "if there was one deal that epitomized the last credit bubble, aside from the Blackstone IPO of course, it was the ginormous, $45 billion 2007 LBO of TXU, now Energy Future Holdings... the time to pay the piper for the last credit-fuelled binge has arrived and inevitable bankruptcy of this landmark deal is now just days away." It turned out it was more like months away, but it finally arrived, and moments ago, TXU finally succumbed to (lack of) cash flow reality, when it filed for a prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Tuesday morning after months of negotiations with creditors aimed at speeding the restructuring of the private-equity backed utility's debt load of more than $40 billion. While it is unclear just how much total debt the company will ultimately restructure, it is likely that the final number will be greater than Enron's, making this also the largest ever non-financial bankruptcy in history.

If one needed a flurry of "worse than expected" macro data to "explain" why European bourses and US futures are up, one got them: first with UK Q1 GDP printing at 0.8%, below the expected 0.9%, then German consumer prices falling 0.1% in April, and finally with Spanish unemployment actually rising from a revised 25.73% to 25.93%, above the 25.85% expected. All of this was "good enough" to allow Italy to price its latest batch of 10 Year paper at a yield of 3.22%, the lowest yield on record! Either way, something else had to catalyze what is shaping up as another 0.5% move higher in US stocks and that something is the old standby, the USDJPY, which ramped higher just before the European open and then ramped some more when European stocks opened for trading. Look for at least one or two more USDJPY momentum ignition moments at specific intervals before US stocks open for trading. But all of that is moot. Remember - the biggest catalyst of what promises to be the latest buying panic rampathon is simple: it's Tuesday (oh, and the $2-$2.5 billion POMO won't hurt).

As libertarianism begins to gain in popularity and seep into the youth culture, there is increasing pressure from certain strains of the movement to attempt to modify the theory and transform it into something that it is not.