Archive - Oct 12, 2015 - Story

"It's really beginning to 'feel' close. The first major event could happen anytime now." The coming storm promises to be the largest of our lifetime. We shall all be affected by it. A few will profit from it. Some will be mildly negatively impacted; most will be hit hard, due to being unprepared.

Presenting the Middle East's very own "dot plot"

Between a convoluted, self-referential reaction function and a cacophony of Fed speakers, the market simply can no longer process the FOMC's message and with that in mind, we bring you RBS’ Alberto Gallo who asks if perhaps we have reached “peak Fedspeak”.

"The killing and the mayhem will continue through the process of economic collapse that we have entered. And when we reach the destination of all that, probably something medieval or feudal in make-up, it will be possible once again for boys to develop into men instead of monsters."

The following table attempts to provide a simple composite measure of which commodities are most exposed to China demand, and which stand to lose (or gain) the most in case of a Chinese economic collapse (recovery).

Just before the first credit bubble burst, Fortress' Macro hedge fund, then known as Drawbridge as well as several other castle-related terms, peaked at just over $8 billion. Together with Phil Falcone's Harbinger, it was one of the most desired venue to work among the young hedge fund crowd. It has been downhill ever since, and unfortunately for the hedge fund run by Michael Novogratz, which reported $2.5 billion in AUM as of June 30, a number which plunged to just $1.6 billion two months later according to HSBC, as a result of a terrible year, down 13.4% YTD after losing 1.6% in 2014, and having suffered its biggest ever drawdown the macro hedge fund, which does not file an equity 13-F, is liquidating.

Don't look at their corporate bonds...

The US is in decline. The US government is overloaded with debt. The US financial system is losing is dominance. And even the banking institutions themselves are losing relevance. This isn’t bad news. It’s tremendously exciting.

Wwith oil volatility surging in recent months, oil producers needed to take advantage of a rally, technical or otherwise, and an oil vol lull to reestablish hedges, even if it meant at far lower prices than recent benchmarks.  This is precisely what happened in the past week following one of the most torrid surges in the price of oil seen in recent years.

Since the mid-July peak, when Jim Cramer warned the market's "last shred of hope was the freight index holding up," The Baltic Dry Index has been in free fall (at a time with very positive technicals). In fact, today's drop to 809 is the lowest in over 3 months and the lowest for this time of year since 1986!!

Perhaps we've been doing it wrong all these years. Capitalism isn't about making money. It's about who can blow through money the fastest. When it comes to increasing shareholder value, there is, quite simply, no better way to do it.

Neurosurgeon-turned-Presidential candidate Ben Carson has been under attack this week by the defenders of the Keynesian faith as he questioned fiat money and flirted with a new gold standard.

With the latest swarm of mass shootings still in the headlines, and of course the ubiquitous call for gun control/prohibition, the Supreme Court's decision this week on whether it will hear a challenge to a suburban Chicago law banning firearms commonly known as assault weapons seems more critical than ever. As NBC News notes, if the court agrees to hear the case, it would cast a shadow over similar bans in seven states; but declining to take it up would boost efforts to impose such bans elsewhere.

As RT and others report, "a major fire broke out in a deposit in the Chinese city of Tianjin. The fire was caused by a leak of alcohol"