Archive - Jul 14, 2014 - Story

Three months ago we discussed in detail the growing anti-dollar hegemony alliances that were building across the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). Their efforts at the time, to create a structure that would serve as an alternative to the IMF and the World Bank (which are dominated by the U.S. and the EU), appear to be nearing completion. As AP reports, Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff and Russia's Vladimir Putin have discussed the creation of a development bank to promote growth across the BRICS and hope to produce an agreement on the proposed institution at this week's BRICS Summit. As Rousseff concluded (rather ominously), the five countries "are among the largest in the world and cannot content themselves in the middle of the 21st century with any kind of dependency."

When we broke the story of China's "secret" money laundering into US real estate scheme, we said "So what happens next? Assuming there is the anticipated resulting backlash and crackdown on Chinese banks, which will finally enforce the $50K/year outflow limitation, this could well be the worst possible news not only for Chinese inflation, which suddenly - no longer having a convenient outlet for the unprecedented liquidity formed in the country every month - is set to soar, but also for the ultra-luxury housing in the US. Because without the Chinese bid in a market in which the Chinese are the biggest marginal buyer scooping up real estate across the land, sight unseen, and paid for in laundered cash (which the NAR blissfully does not need to know about due to its AML exemptions), watch as suddenly the 4th dead cat bounce in US housing since the Lehman failure rediscovers just how painful gravity really is." What we forgot to add is that virtually every other financial mainstream outlet would promptly pick up on the story even as the original source back in China took its secrets to the grace. Metaphorically speaking, we hope...

The UBS trading floor in Stamford, CT was dubbed (by Guinness World Records) the largest in the world. But now... as the WSJ reports, there are virtually no traders shouting into their phones or staring at terminals. UBS's cavernous floor is taken up mostly by back-office, legal and technology staffers, according to people familiar with the bank. Simply put, a deep slump in trading activity in everything from stocks and bonds to currencies is changing the face of Wall Street. Today's markets are "boring," rants a senior credit trader; "It's been absolutely dead," warns another adding, "When you go a day or two and don't have a trade on the tape, it's frustrating," as stock trading in the second quarter fell 43.6% from second-quarter 2009 levels to their lowest level since 2007.

Japan’s GDP may have declined in April and May, implying an overall collapse for Q2 not seen since 2009. Bloomberg's Nowcast estimate suggests that the hope-strewn pre-tax-hike pile up of a +6.7% annualized GDP growth in Q1 will come crashing back to earth as consensus GDP for Q2 is -4.85% and even bigger based on Bloomberg's models. As Bloomberg's Tom Orlik warns, this could take markets by surprise. The good news is that Abe's 3rd arrow has yet to reach escape velocity (any day now); below we highlight the entire package and how it will save the world...

It started as a discussion about the reality of inflation versus propagandized "noise" and devolved into what is possibly Rick Santelli's most epic rant.

"Choose your parents wisely..."

"Excess credit creation is at the heart of much of China’s GDP growth, and why this means that China must choose between a sharp slowdown in GDP growth as credit is constrained, or a continued unsustainable increase in debt.   The key point is that we cannot simply put the bad debt behind us once the economy is “reformed” and project growth as if nothing happened. Earlier losses are still unrecognized and hidden in the country’s various balance sheets."

In real terms, the price of crude oil has not been more expensive since the Pennsylvania Boom over 150 years ago...

To much trumpeting the IMF have kindly agreed to help out desperate and war torn Ukraine. How wonderful they are we are all meant to think, but the truth couldn’t be more opposite. but in reality the IMF has a very different purpose from that which is stated. If you look at the history of the IMF’s intervention in countries around the world you will see a trail of disaster and looting that repeats time and time again wherever they go.

When we first brought the transformation of the American economy into a part-time worker society in 2010, many scoffed and suggested that when the 'recovery' really gets going the temp jobs will all be morphed into high-paying full-time jobs. That hasn't happened, and in fact, as we noted most recently, it's got worse. As Mort Zuckerman blasts in his rampagingly honest WSJ Op-Ed, "Most people will have the impression that the 288,000 jobs created last month were full-time. Not so." And more directly, "most Americans wouldn't call this an economic recovery." The lack of breadwinners working full time is a burgeoning disaster that we have covered extensively. There are 48 million people in the U.S. in low-wage jobs, resulting, as Zuckerman concludes, "Faith in the American dream is eroding fast."

Paul Krugman is at it again – distorting or misinterpreting work by other economists to attack critics of today’s central bank driven low interest rate environment and to defend policy status quo or to push for even more stimulus.

Today saw the mainstream media congratulate themselves over the demise of the anti-status-quo indicator - gold. The precious metal dropped over 2% on the day amid major volumes in futures - its biggest drop in 2014. However, it seems the GLD ETF decided today's dump was the right opportunity to load up on the "put against the idiocy of the political cycle," which saw its largest inflow since August 2011. The ongoing oscillation between the paper and physical markets (amid the chaos that China's Qingdao ponzi has created) appears to have shifted trend as the last 2 months has seen the biggest net inflows in 2 years (since pre-German gold repatriation).

The central banks of the world are massively and insouciantly pursuing financial instability. That’s the inherent result of the 68 straight months of zero money market rates that have been forced into the global financial system by the Fed and its confederates at the BOJ, ECB and BOE. ZIRP fuels endless carry trades and the harvesting of every manner of profit spread between negligible “funding” costs and positive yields and returns on a wide spectrum of risk assets. Stated differently, ZIRP systematically dismantles the market’s natural stability mechanisms.

The Phoenix housing market has a special place in the heart of housing bubble watchers: together with Las Vegas and various California MSAs, this is the place where the last housing bubble was born and subsequently died a gruesome death which nearly brought down the entire financial system. Which is why the monthly WP Carey report on the Greater Phoenix Housing Market is of peculiar interest for those who want to catch a leading glimpse into the overall state of the bubble US housing market. As hoped, this month's letter does not disappoint. What we find is that while equilibrium prices have been largely flat month over month, and are up 6% on an average square foot basis from a year ago, something very bad is happening with a key component of the pricing calculation: demand has fallen off a cliff.

Barclays almost succeeded in its quest of becoming the top US dark pool at any cost, even criminal: in the week ending June 16 Barclays was second only to Credit Suisse' Crossfinder ATS with 312.1 million total shares traded on some 1.6 million in total trades. Unfortunately for Barclays it should put its ambitions on permanent halt, because as was revealed today by FINRA's new "ATS Transparency" database, Barclays total dark pool volume has plunged by a whopping 37% to under 200 million shares.