Archive - 2014 - Story

It’s unclear whether or not OPEC and Saudi Oil Minister Naimi are simply trying to put a scare into markets long enough to defend their market share – and if they can even keep up in this game of chicken – but the scare is there and the advantage is theirs.

The global wish-granter-in-chief...

As Politico's Michael Grunwald writes below (we believe non-satirically), the midterm election’s discontent was illegitimate. The point is that Americans should cheer up! And whose fault is all the collective doom? Well, Bill De Blasio already explained that, as Grunwald confirms, the press has a problem reporting good news. So sit back, grab a drink (though swallow it first) and enjoy reading why "everything is awesome" in America (apart from a record 101.5 million Americans not working, record numbers on foodstamps, record numbers on disability, a record wealth divide, a record - and deadly - racial divide, record poverty, and record child homelessness).

2014... same as 2013 - stocks up, economic growth down!

Why will Christmas 2014 be the last Christmas in America? It's simple: declining wages cannot support an ever-expanding mountain of debt. The Federal Reserve has played a game for six long years of lowering the cost of debt (i.e. the rate of interest borrowers must pay), which has enabled stagnating wages to support ever heavier debt loads. There is an endgame in sight to this financial trickery...

It appears that not only did Janet Yellen's soothing words from last week decouple the broad US equity market from any fears about oil prices, but energy stocks themselves now have absolutely no relationship with the underlying raw material that drives their business (and it's not like the Contango provides much support). Now where have we seen this before?

Halloween has a socialist tenor. Menacing figures arrive at your door uninvited, demand your property, and threaten to perform an unspecified "trick" if you don't fork over. That's the way the government works in a nutshell. Thanksgiving has been reinterpreted as the white man, after burning, raping, and pillaging the noble Indian, trying to make amends with a cheap turkey dinner. New Year's can be ruined as the beginning of a new tax year, and the knowledge that the next five or six months will be spent working for the government. That's why I love Christmas.

As a result of Deutsche Bank's gold-rigging problems, the German bank's practically brand spanking new Singapore gold vault, just over a year old, is about to go on sale. But while one can debate when the brand new storage facility will see a "for sale" sign attached to the main vault door, one thing is clear: Deutsche Bank's massive, and even newer, gold vault in London is already looking for offers. According to Reuters, Deutsche Bank is "open to offers for its London-based gold vault following the closure of its physical precious metals business."

Trading volumes today are running at the lowest pace since 2006, crude oil prices ae testing back towards fresh 5 year lows, and Treasury yields are all lower... so it should come as absolutely no surprise that the S&P 500, Dow Industrials, and Russell 2000 have all hit fresh intraday record highs today.

Less than three months ago, on September 30, 2014, "consensus" expected that EPS and revenue growth in 2015 would be 11.8% and 4.3%, respectively. As of December 19, those projected growth rates have plunged to 7.9% and 2.8%. In other words, both revenue and EPS growth has been slashed by one third in under one quarter (while revenue growth for Q1 and Q2 2015 has cratered from 4.5% and 3.6% to 1.4% and 1.0%, respectively). Why? Spotting the "odd one out" in the charts below should provide the answer,

According to KickassTorrents (KAT), which is now the world’s most popular website to download torrents, showed that the number of downloads for “The Interview” surpassed 1 million on early Friday. The tally includes copies which were later deleted due to copyright infringement claims but does not include downloads through other file-sharing services. The figure puts “The Interview” on track to become one of the most pirated movies of the year.

"I was told, and saw it for myself, that some of our scoundrel-officials have been telling entrepreneurs, businessmen and all sorts of thieves that they should wait until around (January) 9th or 15th, everything will be liberalized here, and they would be able to get what they have not until now. People are simply begging to be you know where. I want to say that the trend, as is fashionable to say nowadays, towards control over domestic prices will remain forever. Retailers, middlemen, money-grabbers and thieves working in this sector have become the richest people in our country."

- Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko