Archive - Jun 2014 - Story

"While some may cheer an earlier Fed rate hike, its hard to see the recent growth-inflation mix as anything other than discouraging." - JPMorgan

Do you remember the serfs and servants and villeins and peasants in the good old times of feudalism and the Middle Ages? If you don’t, I have good news for you! The custom of working in return of goods instead of salary revives in Greece of modern European Union and of exquisite Euro area. The results of a survey conducted by the Labor Institute of the Confederation of Labor Union (GSEE) are shocking but not unexpected...

Just minutes after claiming the 'explosion' at "The Brotherhood" pipeline in Ukraine was not an explosion but a 'fire', Ukraine's interior minister Arsen Avakov has stated that:

*UKRAINE SAYS GAS PIPELINE EXPLOSION PROBABLY TERROR ATTACK

Of course, the question is which 'terrorists'? The Right Sector or the Russian separatists. According to reports from UKRTransGas, the fire has now been extinguished but it is the rhetoric of Ukraine's Yatsenyuk "Russia's gas halt aims to destroy Ukraine" that is most troubling as, like Russia's Pushkov warned, Ukraine-Russia tensions have reached a new stage.

A month ago, using the latest UK housing data from Rightmove, we asked a simple question: whose housing bubble is bigger: China's, or the place where increasingly more of China's $25 trillion in bank assets are being parked: the UK (specifically London). Using then available data, the answer was still a toss-up, even if the divergence in directions was quite clear. Earlier today, we finally got the official data from the UK's Office for National Statistics, and we politely retract our question, as rhetorical as it may have been. The reason: there is no contest - the UK's housing bubble has officially slammed China's, and the result is nothing short of a knock out.

In 2006, I invited the late General Bill Odom to address my Thursday Congressional luncheon group. Gen. Odom, a former NSA director, called the Iraq war “the greatest strategic disaster in American history," and told the surprised audience that he could not understand why Congress had not impeached the president for pushing this disaster on the United States. History continues to prove the General’s assessment absolutely correct.

As reported moments ago by the BLS, real average hourly earnings just posted their third sequential decline in a row, dropping from $10.33 in February, to $10.32 in March, to $10.30 in April, to $10.28 in May.  Furthermore, this was the first year over year decline since October 2012. And to put today's $10.28 real average hourly earnings number in context, this is the same real wage seen last in July 2013, July 2012, March 2011 and then, if one goes further back... the month after Lehman failed!

In what we are sure will be a reassuring hearing full of confirmation that markets are unrigged, safe for investors, and why retail has never had it better, the Permanent Subcommitte on Investigations will start by hearing from IEX's Brad Katusyama who will, as he did before, put them straight on the real actions of the high frequency trading community... Remember the last time HFTs tried to defend themselves... they lied.

Blame it on the... spring?

The Fed is losing its reasons for printing, leaving it desperate to revive the meme that the US economy is in self-sustaining recovery mode. At 2.0% Core CPI has caught up with the hot-flation of PPI removing the crutch of low-flation easement the Fed has been relying on. While Ex-Food-and-Energy is surging (well above expectations), the food index rose 0.5% in May after increasing 0.4% in each of the three previous months; and the index for food at home increased 0.7%, its largest increase since July 2011. This is all happening against a backdrop of real hourly wages dropping 0.1% YoY.

An indication of just how off the charts the 2014 edition of the full retard bond bubble is comes from Kenya which priced a debut $2bn eurobond yesterday and in the process managed to break the record for the largest debut for an African country in the sovereign bond market. One tranche of the offering was a $1.5bn 10 year note that priced at a yield of 6.875%. Kenya is rated B+ and the deal came several days after a large-scale terrorist attack in Kenya. The punchline: according to the FT, the orderbook was more than four times oversubscribed which is roughly equivalent to around 20% of the country’s GDP according to Bloomberg data.

Events in Iraq are changing by the hour, now that US combat boots are "on the ground", expect them to change even faster. For those looking to catch up on the most recent overnight news out of this latest civil war torn country, here is the full update.

• Obama to tout manufacturing gains, highlight economic progress (Reuters)
• Iraq Gunmen Attack North of Baghdad as Obama Weighs Plan (BBG)
• Chinese Regulators Block Shipping Alliance Abandoned Deal (WSJ)
• Russian $8.2 Trillion Oil Trove Locked Without U.S. Tech (BBG)
• Ukrainian forces, rebels clash near Russian border (Reuters)
• M&A talk lifts stocks, Iraq tensions ease slightly (Reuters)
• Wealthy Clintons Use Trusts to Limit Estate Tax They Back (BBG)
• Argentina vows to service debt despite new legal blow (Reuters)
• Allergan's Bitter Pill for Morgan Stanley (WSJ)
• Islamists kill 50 in Kenya, some during World Cup screening (Reuters)
• American Express Revs Up Pursuit of the Masses (WSJ)

With newsflow out of Iraq having slowed down as has the ISIS offensive, which appears to have been halted north of Baghdad, the market now shifts its attention to the Fed's two-day meeting which begins today and continues through tomorrow afternoon, when it will be leaked by media outlets to ultra-wealthy speculators and robots, breaching the embargo (in exchange for a hefty payoff) some 10 minutes before 2 pm.

With this unprecedented step, the Fed is sending a very clear message: it may be next year, or next month, or next week, but quite soon you, dear retail bond-fund investor, will be gated and will be unable to pull your money.... So wouldn't you rather just keep said money in the "safety" of stock funds, none of which will ever, ever be gated, pinky swear.... Unless the market crashes one final time of course, at which point the Fed will be on the first flight out to non-extradition countries.

The situation in Iraq is serious, and is probably going to get worse before it gets better. The potential for this recent action to morph into a regional conflict is very high. That means that oil could go a lot higher, and if it does, we can expect the odds of a global economic recession and an attendant financial crisis to go up considerably from here. Before we dive into what's actually happening over there right now, we need to begin with a longer and deeper historical context of the region, which is essential to understanding pretty much everything in the Middle East. The western press likes to report on things as if they suddenly occur for no discernible reason, context-free and unconnected to our actions and activities over there. But the story of the Middle East is a story of intense external meddling -- especially by the US, recently.