Archive - Jul 11, 2014 - Story

We've noticed a bizarre trend this year - Northeast establishment politicians attacking the state of Colorado for its own internal decisions. This time, the man who puts his foot in his mouth more than pretty much anyone else, former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, called Colorado “rural” and “roadless” in a recent Rolling Stone article (which has since been pulled, but is supposed to be back up Monday) for the backlash against his gun control agenda from parts of the state.

Moments ago, at 4:22am local time, a major 6.8 magnitude quake struck eastern Japan, off the Fukushima coast.

FLASH:M6.8 QUAKE JOLTS OFF FUKUSHIMA, JAPAN, TSUNAMI ALERT
EARTHQUAKE EARLY WARNING ISSUED FOR JAPAN, OFF FUKUSHIMA:JMA
EARTHQUAKE EARLY WARNING ISSUED FOR JAPAN, OFF FUKUSHIMA:JMA
TSUNAMI WARNING ISSUED AFTER JAPAN QUAKE: AP

"To make this perfectly clear, extreme views on the left or the right end up meeting in the same back parking lot where they agree the people are the great unwashed and are too stupid to see they need to be manipulated and controlled." The people behind the curtain do not change with the change between left and right up in front of the curtain. It is always about power regardless of the side of politics.

As the US spreads its message of cheer around the world, it appears an increasing number of trade 'partners' are more than willing to consider alternatives to the hegemony. As AFP reports, China's Yuan usage in global trade and finance has more than doubled this year. While still notably below USD usage in international payments it remains firmly in second place for trade finance and according to a recent survey by HSBC, the number of US companies planning to use Yuan has almost tripled this year (from 8% to 22%). De-dollarization continues...

Economic analysts are torn as to how important Saudi Arabia will prove to the global economy in years ahead. In the first half of 2014, the US surpassed Saudi Arabia to become the world’s foremost oil producer. This sparked widespread predictions that the US would soon become an oil exporter, reducing its dependency on Riyadh and harming Saudi Arabia’s leading role in the Middle-East. However, the ISIS invasion of Iraq and Syria, the Boko Haram insurgency and continued oil theft in Nigeria, unrest in Venezuela and ongoing violence in Sudan and South Sudan have changed the deal.

When even the Fed is lamenting the VIX's summer doldrums, having recently printing at all time lows on an unadjusted basis, one knows that Kevin Henry's VIX selling skills will soon be obsolete. In fact he may even have to learn how to, gasp, buy VIX (with Citadel's help of course). But maybe he won't have to As FBN's JC O'Hara shows, one of the factors contributing to the record low VIX may not just be the global central banks' attempts at vol supression: it may be the seasons themselves. As the chart below shows, every year vol tends to hit its lowest level, at least based purely on annual trading patterns, just around independence day. After that it goes in a straight line higher, until it hits its annual peak in the first half of October before it once again tumbles just in time for Christmas.

Worried about tensions in Kuwait, Jordan, and Iraq... the 'market' is not. With the spec positioning significantly net long, it appears 'they' have found another pain trade... as WTI Crude loses $101 and drops to 2-month lows...

Syrian refugees, whose numbers are set to pass 3 million in the next few weeks, are almost all in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, with smaller numbers in Iraq and Egypt. But, as Reuters reports, that looks set to change: UNHCR chief spokeswoman Melissa Fleming exclaimed that Europe must open its doors to more Syrian refugees, having welcomed only a "miniscule" number while Syria's neighbors have reached "saturation point."

The person in charge of navigating the "transition" from the old fixing mechanism, of which he was part as recently as April, was a person who was, drumroll, supervising said transition. Surely, his "consulting" was fair and impartial. Naturally, Mr. Spall is no longer at gold-rigging Barclays, a bank which is for all intents and purposes, falling apart but at GCubed Consultants: enjoy perusing the company at the following link.Said another way, one of the Barclays guys who was accountable in the Gold Market Fixing Company for the price manipulation of his trader (the infamous Daniel Plunkett) is then rewarded by the LBMA to conduct an independent review of the applicants to run the Silver fix!

America, Europe or Asia: those are the usual continental suspects which come to mind when asked where the world's most expensive cities for expats are located. They are also incorrect. According to the most recent study conducted by Mercer consultants not only the world's most expensive city, but also the second most expensive place for foreigners to live at this moment, are located in the one continent which we predicted two years ago, would become a Chinese colonial feeding ground. Africa.

Congratulations America: after severing ties with Russia, crushing cordial relations with China (leading to this stunning announcement by China's president), alienating France (which is now openly calling for an end to the petrodollar), the Obama administration - following not one, not two, but three spying scandals in just the past year - has managed to sour relations with Germany to a point where one wonders just who is a remaining US ally in Europe these days. According to Bloomberg, the German chancellor’s office has issued instructions to national intelligence services to limit cooperation with U.S. following alleged U.S. spying case, Bild reports without saying where it got information.

We promise to read BusinessWeek's cover story on the Viagra-fueled rise and subsequent droop of American Apparel's sleaze king, Dov Charney, just as soon as we are done admiring the cover.

There has been an informational overload this morning, when as we reported previously, one after another bank scrambled to issue reports, some full of typos and clearly unvetted by compliance, calming the market and desperate to see all important confidence return to the peripheral market. Most of these notes have been nothing short of outright propaganda and disinformation, or a confirmation the analysts had zero idea what they were doing (case in point Goldman which had the stock at a Buy rating until this morning, even as the stock was virtually wiped out in recent weeks). Some, actually, have done the work. Below we provide some of the less then insightful reports, as conveniently summarized by Bloomberg, and we conclude with perhaps the best piece so far - one written by Bank of America's Richard Thomas who alone among the sell-side penguin circus, was as close as he could be, to predicting this week's outcome.

"Whatever one feels about financials and the wider financial system, credit markets did arguably get a small glimpse of what things will be like when this cycle does actually end as the structurally impaired liquidity that exists in credit caused a small amount of panic yesterday morning before markets recovered in the European afternoon session. Liquidity is really poor in credit these days which doesn't matter when markets are in buy only mode as they have been for many quarters now, but it does matter on the days when you get a negative story."