Archive - May 2014 - Story

All parties with a collective interest in seeing the North Dakota oil experiment succeed need to work together because, right now, the boss at the largest stakeholder in the Bakken shale says opponents are drawing a bead on the region. And it's not just exploration and production that's a concern.

If bigger is better then the following infographic is indeed the best that man has got...

There’s a long and comprehensive To-Do list that has been waiting for us since at least 2008, when the nation received one forceful blow upside its thick head. We refuse to pay attention.

When 2014 started, expectations were sky high and as Saxo Bank's Chief Economist Steen Jakobsen notes, policymakers and their support organisations like the OECD, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were all quick to call the crisis over and project a true recovery. Now just five month into the year we have seen nothing but disappointing data both relatively speaking but certainly also in absolute terms. As the following presentation outlines, Jakobsen believes we will see new low yields in this cycle this year and that 2014 will also be the year of the low in terms of: inflation expectations, wage/salary, velocity of money, loan demand, lack of reform, and innovation reforms.

As Americans celebrate the Memorial Day holiday, we should remember that though the VA’s alleged abuse and neglect of US veterans is scandalous, the worse abuse comes from a president and a compliant Congress that send the US military to cause harm and be harmed overseas in undeclared, unnecessary, and illegal interventions. The best way to honor the US military is to honor the Constitution, and to keep in mind the wise advice of our Founding Fathers to avoid all foreign interventionism.

We have discussed the 'downside' of America's "black gold" rush and the town of Williston, North Dakota is the poster child for the costs and benefits of this exuberance. But, as The BBC reports, there is some silver lining for those willing to deal..."Strippers can earn $2,500 per shift here," says a bouncer, "but the men here are 100% worse. It's horrible. They're animals."

UPDATE: Gold swung from $1,292 at futures close to $1,312 and is now trading at $1,275 - un-rigged!

Gold futures stopped trading at 1300ET for the Memorial Day holiday... seconds after that Spot Gold prices exploded higher from $1291 to $1312... of course liquidity is extremely light but it seems someone was anxious to get their hands on the real thing... Gold has breached its 200DMA, 100DMA, 50DMA, as well as the crucial $1300 (that Morgan Stanley said would never be seen again).

It's called a stereotype for a reason...

The recent public outcry over high frequency trading is pointless. Solutions exist. Virtually every comparable market in the world uses them already. But, some electronic exchanges may not willingly adopt them. Doing so may disrupt their current business model. The incentives are misaligned, and competitors or regulators may need to force the issue to see change. Luckily, the issue to be forced is far simpler than most think. It’s time to add quality to the matching process.

On this day when we should never forget, we are sure President Obama, fresh from his surprise snubbing of Karzai in Afghanistan, will try his best to remember who was in charge (and ultimately accountable) when the VA scandal broke.

It appears the tit-for-tat cyber-spying debacle between China and the US is escalating (unless it's all curious coincidence). Having blasted the US as a "mincing rascal" and "high-level hooligan" in the Chinese (state-run) media, The FT reports that authorities have ordered state-owned enterprises to cut ties with US consulting companies such as McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group because of fears they are spying on behalf of the US government. Furthermore, the crackdown is worse as, in the face of the "US hacker empire," China’s leaders announced on Thursday that all foreign IT products and services sold in China would be subject to a new security screening process. So it seems China has entered both the currency war (CNY weakness) and protectionism racket... now how has that ended for the world in the past?

There is evil, and then there's organized evil. Large-scale evil requires surrender of autonomy, coercion by a central authority and a willingness to follow orders.

For those pressed for time, here is the one-chart post-mortem of what happened in yesterday's elections for European Parliament: the malcontents block, or the anti-EU and protest parties, soar and now control nearly a third of all seats, up nearly by 33% from a fifth currently, in the parliament they all predominantly loathe.

Ukraine didn't waste much time after its presidential election, which appears to have been won outright by the chocolate tycoon Poroshenko much to the humiliation of once frontrunner Tymoshenko, to resume its military operation in the east. Early this morning, the newswires blasted that Ukraine warplanes have carried out an airstrike against pro-Russian separatists at the Donetsk International Airport. This happened after forces belonging to the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, which proclaimed its independence from Kiev last weekend, came to the airport demanding that Ukrainian troops leave it. The self-defense troops said some 200 Kiev soldiers were guarding the inner perimeter of the hub. All flights have been suspended.

S&P (futures over 1900 for first time), Dow, and Nasdaq futures markets are all pressing new higher-highs this morning on the heels of Europe's dismal election news overnight. Helped early on by JPY weakness, stocks now have a mind of their own and have disconnected from an unchanged Treasury futures market (cash is closed) and a fading EURJPY/USDJPY carry trade. European peripheral bonds are the must-have asset of the day with Portuguese bonds particularly loved. Italian stocks are the high-beta idiot-maker trade today (+2.8%).