Archive - Oct 30, 2015 - Story

It appears President Obama, not wanting to provide every alternative-media site with a perfect 'compare and contrast' from September 2014's "putting U.S. troops on the ground would be a profound mistake,"  has handed the responsibility for announcing American "boots on the ground" in Syria to his Press Secretary. "If you like your boots on the ground, well, you can keep them.. in Syria."

10-year Puerto Rico general obligation bond yields spiked to 12.3% - the highest on record - as the island’s Government Development Bank's $354 million of principal and interest due on December 1st looms. Puerto Rico is now 450bps 'riskier' than Greece, which means Treasury Secretary Jack Lew was wrong again in not taking the German FinMin's offer in July to swap Puerto Rico for Greece...

Buy high, sell low. The definition of stupid.

For America to come home and untangle itself from the Imperial Project, it will have to do more than not meddle in everyone else's affairs; it will have to learn to live within its means--what it earns from producing goods and services, not what it skims from global financialization.

Even though Chevron said in July that its cost-cutting initiatives would be "completed by mid-November of 2015" it decided to surprise everyone moments ago when on its earnings call it announced it would not only slash its capex by another 25%, but will shortly distribute another 7,000 pink slips. The reason: another terrible quarter in which the $2 billion in earnings were a 73% plunge from a year earlier.

"A disinflationary mindset is taking hold," warns UMich's Curtin explaining, "Consumers are demanding discounts to spend, and are disappointed... have lower aspirations to spend."

Looks right!!?

"No brainer"? Seems to us like there’s only one way for things to go right and lots of ways for things to go wrong.

“I hope Bill Ackman has done more research on Valeant than he did on Herbalife, Target, Borders and JC Penny,” said Alan Hoffman, executive vice president, global corporate affairs, Herbalife.

Despite all the promises, all the surveys, all the expectations that wage growth is coming (any minute now), September crushed the hopes (and changes) and dreams of Americans as, for the first time since July 2013, Compensation of Employees fell month-over-month. Recovery?

"If the United States continues with these kinds of dangerous, provocative acts, there could well be a seriously pressing situation between frontline forces from both sides on the sea and in the air, or even a minor incident that sparks war."

The mid-year bounce is over. Both Personal Income (+0.1% vs +0.2% exp) and Personal Spending (+0.1% vs +0.2% exp) missed expectations and slowed dramatically. This is the weakest spending growth since January and weakest income growth since March driving the savings rate to its highest since April.

Sun Edison's meltup yesterday on news that hedge fund manager David Tepper would be appearing on CNBC (and nothing else) has been entirely removed as Tepper exclaimed this morning, with regard rumors "there must be some really good ganja coming into the country." Well if that doesn't sum up the entire market, we don't know what does...

The bullish fund flows are back. This is how Bank of America summarizes the latest EPFR capital flow sentiment: "Loving Wall Street: $15bn equity inflows + $5bn HY/IG inflows + 6 straight weeks of commodity inflows = investors are "risk-on."