Archive - 2014 - Story

• Charter, Comcast in renewed talks on Time Warner Cable bid (Reuters)
• Bankers' Stock Awards Jet Higher (WSJ)
• Yahoo CEO Mayer Dismisses Operating Chief De Castro (BBG)
• Amazon Employees Vote to Reject Union (Reuters)
• Luxury in China loses luster as wealthy flee (Reuters)
• UnitedHealth Profit Up on Stronger Enrollments (WSJ)
• U.S. government failed to secure Obamacare site: experts (Reuters)
• Spain Sells Bonds at Record-Low Yield as Rajoy Touts Rebound (BBG)
• Newport Beach’s $100,000 Lifeguards Feel Pension Squeeze (BBG)
• Bailed-Out Euro Nations Expect Painful Challenges to Remain (BBG)

The positive momentum in equities slowed in Asian trading with losses seen on the Nikkei (-0.4%), and HSCEI , the SCHOMP unchanged and EM indices such as the Nifty (-
0.1%). In Australia, a disappointing December employment report saw a 23k fall in jobs for the month against consensus expectations of rise of 10k. The 10yr Australian government bond has rallied 5bp and the front end is outperforming as a number of investors expect the RBA to continue its easing bias over 2014. AUDUSD has sold off -1.1% to a three year low of 0.881. The ASX200 closed up 1.2% however, boosted by mining-giant Rio Tinto (+2%) who reported better than anticipated Q4 production. Amid recent fears of a Chinese growth deceleration, Rio Tinto reported record levels of production of iron-ore, coal and bauxite. In FX, USDJPY is finding further support in Asia, adding 0.1% to yesterday’s 0.38% gain to trade not too far from the 105 level. Which is also why the S&P futures are trading modestly lower: without a major breakout in the Yen carry, there can't be a sustained ramp in the US stock market which is driven entirely by the value of the Yen, which in turn is a reflection of the expectations of future BOJ easing.

With Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras settling into his role as EU President, UKIP's Nigel Farage stunned the "Goldman Sachs puppet" with a 150-second tirade of truthiness he has likely never experienced. Farage sarcastically remarks how Greeks "will be dancing in the streets" at Samaras' 'successful' negotiation on MiFiD reminding him that "60% of youth are unemployed and the neo-nazi party are on the march." Europe is now run by "big business, big banks, and big bureaucrats," Farage goes on, suggesting the smarmy-looking Samaras should "rename his party from New Democracy to No Democracy." People do not want a United State of Europe, the outspoken UKIP leader explains, they want a "Europe of sovereign states," and concludes ominously, "the European elections will be a watershed."

For the past 12 hours, the so-called PM2.5 level (or China's new pollution threshold) has been above the "serious" level. Bear in mind this is the newly adjusted-upwards threshold that already far exceeds the WHO's health-threatening levels.

BEIJING WARNS RESIDENTS TO AVOID OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES ON SMOG
BEIJING MONITORING CENTER REPORTS `SERIOUS' AIR POLLUTION TODAY

Levels are officially "beyond index" today (with a peak at 613 so far compred to 500 "hazardous") and the streets are empty!

There is a certain level of dishonesty in the common study of history. We look back at the tyrannies of the past, the monstrous governments, the devastating wars and the unimaginable crimes, and we wonder how it could have been possible. How could the people of that particular generation let such atrocities come to pass? Why didn’t they do something? Why didn’t they protest? Why didn’t they fight back? Perhaps many societies fail to prepare or act in the face of tyranny because they had forgotten their own histories, making the demise of their culture appear so schizophrenic they would not believe what their eyes were telling them. When we examine recent U.S. legislation, the exposure of classified documents, and the openly admitted criminality of political leadership, we are consistently reminded of Franz Kafka’s The Trial.

While some will not be surprised, Al Arabiya reports that Iran's FARS News Agency claimed in a recent report that:

"The United States' domestic and international policy has been driven by an 'alien/extraterrestrial intelligence agenda' since 1945."

The "incontrovertible proof" supporting the revelations was (apparently) found in a Federal Security Service (FSB) report, carried out by American computer specialist Edward Snowden - and is confirmed (somewhat amazingly) by former Canadian Defense Minister Paul Hellyer in the following interview.

The Libor manipulation scandal has, as WSJ reports, ensnared at least 17 financial institutions and 22 individuals in a wide-ranging investigation spanning 11 countries and four continents. So far, it has netted at least $5 billion in penalties, with more on the way. The Wall Street Journal has taken the most complete list of allegedly involved parties and mapped an extensive web of 298 reported connections that reveals the depth of the alleged conspiracy from the 'alleged' ringleader Tom Hayes and involving practically ever major bank in the world.

It hasn't been a good year for discount retailers which rely on the broke US consumer to grow, such as Walmart, Target and Costco, the latter of which in the past has seemingly tried everything it could in the commodity business, even going as far as selling bundled provisions for the apocalypse. Alas, so far it has been unable to boost its margins, and since it is not Amazon where failure is rewarded, or else Jeff Bezos just hypnotizes everyone with his latest money-losing contraption (but, but it has such a great growth rate), it is time Costco tried something different to boost margins. Something really different. Such as selling a Superbowl lower level package for two for the low, low price of $15,999.99.

The last two days' stock market rally rebound was blamed (assigned for headline purposes) among other things on the better-than-expected retail sales data yesterday morning. Ignoring the fact that it was 92% correlated with USDJPY, the facts are, as Bloomberg's Joseph Brusuelas notes, that the data showed discretionary spending growth continuing its almost-three-year slide.

Earlier today we showed that even the big banks are officially throwing in the towel on the "artificial market" when Deutsche's Jim Reid summarized the complete insanity of Bernanke's (because it still is his) centrally-planned new normal as follows. "So far this year markets have gone down on good data, gone up on good data, gone down on concerns over weaker data and also gone up on weaker data." Now we can add yet another item to the list of explanations that will send futures higher: a plunge in Australian job numbers. Moments ago, Australia reported that in December employment fell by a jarring 22,600 jobs on expectations of a 10,000 gain, driven by a 31,600 plunge in full-time jobs offset by an increase in 9,000 part-time jobs (do they have Obamacare in Australia too?).

While Greek (and Cypriot) leaders exclaim the recovery in their economies (factual data aside), the reality is that they remain low-man-on-the-totem-pole among the European Union (despite holding the Presidency). Nowhere is this better illustrated than the world's decision to sink two ships carrying Syria's chemical weapons in the waters near Greece and Cyprus. As KeepTalkingGreece notes, the first stage of destroying Syria’s chemical weapons has reportedly already begun with the aid of Norway, Denmark, Russia, China, Finland, UK and USA, among others. The chosen dumping ground for more than 800 tonnes of chemical weapons... Crete.

The Status Quo system is failing. Its collapse will be messy. Starting to call things what they really are is a necessary first step to working with this reality.

Earlier today, following significant delays, the Senate released its bipartisan report on the deadly Benghazi US embassy attack from September 11, 2012, which faulted both the State Department and the intelligence community for not preventing attacks on two outposts in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including a U.S. ambassador. For those who are short on time and would rather get the cliff notes on the 85 page report (link here), the following summary from AP should suffice.

While the market seems to have rapidly given up worrying about the piss-poor jobs data from last week, the fact of the matter is the longer-term trend of 'employment' in America is anything but questionable. As we pointed out, and was so broadly understood, the number of people in the labor force in American is fading fast. In fact, as the chart below shows, the last 2 times the civilian labor force fell on an annual basis like this, the US economy was already in recession...

The rest of the world may be stuck importing Japan's deflation (and Europe may be even contemplating launching a Fed type QE as BNP suggested first some time ago), but one country is doing all in its power, and more, to slow down hot money and the resulting inflation - Brazil. Moments ago the Central Bank of Brazil raised the Benchmark Selic interest rate by 50 bps points more than the 25 bps expected, to 10.50%.