Archive - Apr 2014 - Story

• Why did Yellen use criminals in her employment case studies? Hilsenrath explainz (Hilsenrath)
• GM avoided defective switch redesign in 2005 to save a dollar each (Reuters)
• Xuzhou Zhongsen Said to Avert Bond Default on Guarantor Aid  (BBG)
• France's New Finance Minister Faces Fiscal Challenge (WSJ)
• The magic is gone: Draghi’s Attempt to Talk Down Euro Lost on Traders (BBG)
• Another John Kerry smashing success: U.S. Gambit on Mideast Peace Talks Falters (WSJ)
• Combat-Ready China Military Seen as Xi’s Goal in Graft Battle (BBG)
• Huge earthquake off Chile's north coast triggers tsunami (Reuters)
• Pressure rises on Gross as investors pull $3.1 billion from Pimco's flagship fund (Reuters)

Nikkei 225 (+1.04%) outperformed overnight, buoyed by S&P 500 posting a new all-time high, a dovish BoJ's Tankan inflation survey and reports that the GPIF is to invest in funds specializing in Japanese stocks with high returns. Overall, another quiet session this morning as market participants continued to position for the upcoming ECB meeting, with Bunds under pressure amid further unwind of expectation of more policy easing by the central bank. According to ECB sources, there is no clear consensus at present on policy action, intense debate seen on Thursday after March HICP data, adding that it fears "over-interpretation" by market of QE possibility.

As the following table also by RealtyTrace confirms, the US still has an abundance of "own-to-rent" cities, where one can generate a return as high as 30% in one year, if one is willing to drive through the downtown area at 65 mph. Places like bankrupt Detroit, where the median sales price is $45K, and somehow the average market rent is $1.1K, meaning one can recoup their investment in just over 3 years! (how Detroit's residents can afford $1K on rent is another of those great mysteries of life). In other words, the housing bubble will still be raging in these 20 cities, at least until such time as the yield drops sufficiently due to soaring prices that the Blackstones of the world are forced to dump other people's money in such undervalued places as Ulan Bator and Almaty.

Nothing like being close allies with one of the most despotic, Medieval and backwards societies on planet earth. Never forget, the USA brings democracy to the world! With the exception of puppet governments sitting on billions of barrels of oil reserves and disturbing ties to the 9/11 attacks. Those governments we love.

Five years ago, we were the first to bring the world's attention to the staggering profitability of several firms that engaged in 'high frequency' trading that presented themselves as 'liquidity providers' and suggested (in our ever so humble way) that mark liquidity was in fact shrinking and this could lead to a 'black swan of black swans' long before the flash crash was even dreamed of. Fast forwarding to today, after hundreds of articles, not only is the mainstream "getting it" but such behemoths as Cliff Asness - who happens to run one of the world's biggest quant funds - are forced to pen a WSJ op-ed to explain it's all a fallacy and blame a lowly blogger (or digital dickweed) for starting all this naysaying five years ago.

If bad news is good news; then devastating earthquakes are awesome... Copper prices popped and dropped on the new of the Chile quake (as it is near a mining region) but it is the price action in JPY (and therefore implicitly US equities) that is just farcical - and no, there's no news, no China stimulus, no Japan stimulus, no data... just this utter insanity...

Many commentators point to the potentially devastating effect on Russia’s economy that the sanctions put in place by the EU and the US might have, whilst others emphasise Russia’s moves to strengthen their ties to the East and reduce reliance upon their Western trading partners. But as Grant Wiliams notes in his latest letter, men like Putin understand the ruthlessness required to keep an iron grip on power, and the press is largely an irrelevance to them, while those in the West prefer the velvet glove approach — writing checks to their electorate, taking the softly, softly approach with their foreign policy, and constantly courting the press — desperate for approval (echoes of Sally Field once again). How this plays out is anybody’s guess right now, but this much I know: one should NEVER underestimate the ability of the average Russian to bear hardship, nor should one ever underestimate the West’s lack of fortitude once any situation becomes politically unpalatable.

What has worked for much of the last two years, and judging by today's epic squeeze in stocks, is still working... is to bet against the most extreme positioning. So, on that basis, the following rather contrarian pairs trade should be ripe for major convergence...

UPDATE: *FIRST TSUNAMI WAVES REACH CHILE COAST, RADIO COOPERATIVA SAYS

At shortly after 1945ET,  a massive 8.2 (revised up from 8.0) earthquake hit close to the coast of Chile:

*MAGNITUDE 8.0 QUAKE HITS OFF COAST OF CHILE, USGS REPORTS
*CHILE QUAKE MAGNITUDE REVISED UP FROM 8.0 TO 8.2 BY USGS
*FLASH: TSUNAMI WARNING ISSUED AFTER MAGNITUDE 8.0 QUAKE HITS OFF
*QUAKE CUTS ELECTRICITY SUPPLY TO MUCH OF ARICA, CHILE: TVN

The BBC reports the quake was shallow (which means it felt more powerful) and the tsunami wave's arrival is imminent. Copper prices are jumping on the news as the region is an active mining area.

We know what you're thinking... why didn't Virtu Financial's CEO Chris Concannon ban Twitter and YouTube? It seems that is the only thing the HFT firm is incapable of as just too much public scrutiny from various fact-full blogs and a major expose of the reality of the US stock 'market' was too much for even the greatest fools in the market to be fooled by:

• *VIRTU SAID TO DELAY IPO AMID FUROR OVER MICHAEL LEWIS BOOK

As we warned previously, it was only a matter of time before the hubris of VRTU's own trading perfection swung around and crushed it: "Simply put, first it was their boastful trading record that got the NYAG involved, and then Lewis slammed the door shut."

And by 'greatest fools' we mean sovereign wealth funds that stand ready to soak up any and every heavily-marketed pitch that comes their way...

To think all it took to wake up not only the FBI (which generously provided a phone number to all interested parties so others could do its work for it) but the porn-addicts at the most corrupt, complicit and clueless, not to mention bought and paid for, "regulator" in US history, the SEC from a five year slumber - yes, we started warning about HFT in April of 2009 - was one Michael Lewis book. Moments ago we learned that the SEC, with a five year delay, has opened several investigations into HFT.

No, this is not Tuesday Humor or an April Fool. As the WSJ's China Real-Time blog reports, this is also not a scene from Spaceballs. In the smog-ridden city of Zhengzhou, a Henan-based travel company shipped 20 bright blue bags of fresh mountain air to show oxygen-deprived city residents what they’re missing. Of course, as we have noted previously, the canned-air idea is hardly unique to Henan: Rags-to-riches Chinese tycoon Chen Guangbiao began selling such cans in 2012.

While QE may have tapered to a "measly" 55 billion per month, on just the first day of April risk assets experienced the additional benefit of over two full months of QE injected into the stock market in one single day!

Suddenly the world is a buzz with the revelations that High Frequency Trading (HFT) may be doing more than actually harming the markets, it might be destroying the illusion they still are markets. This past Sunday the world at large was introduced that maybe, just maybe, something was amiss in the financial markets. Between the Federal Reserve's massive QE experiment amplified by the arms race of algorithmic technologies (aka HFT) to shave off a piece of that pie for themselves, the last few years have been nothing less than breathtaking. The only good thing that has come out lately on this whole issue of HFT is maybe for the first time in years the cover has been thrown off exposing the parasitic beast that’s been living just beneath the surface passing itself off as a symbiotic entity, rather than the pernicious monster its grown to be. Now the only question left to ask is: Can they invoke the death penalty for this creature... Without killing the patient?