Archive - Oct 2015 - Story

With the US on its heels in the Mid-East in the face of an aggressive Russian air campaign and a resurgent Iran, regional governments are beginning to reassess their loyalties. First it was Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi proclaiming that his country would welcome Russian airstrikes against ISIS, then it was Jordan agreeing to coordinate militarily with Moscow, and now, in the latest embarrassement for the Pentagon, Afghanistan has reached out to Vladimir Putin for artillery, small arms and Mi-35 helicopter gunships. 

In an op-ed released today in the USA Today, the US Treasury Secretary takes his appeal to raise the U.S. debt target once again, this time to the $19.6 trillion number disclosed here previously, by pointing fingers at "some in Congress" who "are endangering this progress by once again manufacturing a crisis for our country. By waiting to the last minute to act on the debt limit, Congress could cause a terrible accident. This is not an abstraction; failure to raise the debt limit would mean devastating impacts for taxpayers, consumers and businesses." Only this is not really true...

OPEC altered the course of the oil markets last year when it decided to cast aside its traditional role of maintaining balance through production cuts. Instead it pursued a strategy of fighting for market share, contributing to an immediate rout in oil prices. WTI and Brent then went on to dive below $50 in the weeks following OPEC’s decision. OPEC is widely expected to continue its current strategy at its next meeting, and as such, no rebound in oil prices is expected, at least not because of the results of the group’s meeting in Vienna. But that raises a question about what the world of oil expects from OPEC: Why is it that the responsibility for balancing the market falls on OPEC? Why should OPEC be the one to fix the imbalances in the global crude oil trade?

If the Valeant fiasco evaporates and the company is found to have done nothing wrong, this chart will be promptly forgotten. If, however, the government decides to crackdown on Valeant, and ends up wiping out the company, the above chart will be known as nothing less than the first draft of Valeant's "Enron" orgchart.

For the 10th month in a row, Dallas Fed's Manufacturing Outlook printed a deteriorating negative signal. At -12.7 (against expectations of a modest rise from September's -9.5 to -6.5) it appears ex-Dallas Fed head Fisher was dead wrong as recession warnings loom large. Below the already ugly headline, the components were a disaster. While production and employment rose (somehow), New orders plunged, Prices Received continued to fall, and Average employee workweek fell for the 9thg time in the last 10 months. Perhaps worst was the drop in hope amid falling workweek and wage growth expectations.

Over the next six months, Barcelona’s left-wing city council plans to roll out a cash-less local currency that has the potential to become the largest of its kind in the world. While the socialist mayor's official reasoning is 'to boost economic opportunities for local businesses', perhaps there are somewhat less altruistic motives behind the move, such as encouraging people to embrace cashless currencies. It appears the war on cash has moved from one of words to actions (as it is likely no coincidence that most of the local community currencies that have been launched so far are in purely digital format, as would Barcelona’s.)

Homebuilders were exuberant, The Fed was confident, and stock markets have recovered... so why did New Home Sales collapse 11.5% in September (missing a 0.6% drop expectation by a proverbial mile)? This is the largest MoM drop since July 2013. Worst still, the excitement of July and August data has been notably revised lower to press the current New Home Sales SAAR to 468k - its lowest since November 2014. At the same time, median home prices surged to $296,900 - the highest in 2015. Time to hike rates?

Last week it was all about central banks, when both the ECB and the PBOC unleashed a massive market rally. This week it will be about even more central banks, this time the Fed, which won't hike, and the BOJ, which may but most likely won't as the Fed and the ECB already did its work for it, sending the Yen tumbling with their actions and/or jawboning.

It's crunch time for Wal-Mart as the iconic retail behemoth struggles to cope with the fallout from a move to spend billions on wage hikes for its meagerly compensated hourly employees. In order to avoid passing on rising labor costs to customers, the company has set its sights on the supply chain where some smaller vendors now say they're being driven out of business entirely.

At $43.96 (for the Dec contract), WTI is trading at its lowest level since August 28th (in the middle of the month-end massacre). The WTI-Brent  spread is at its widest in over 2 weeks "stressing the need for U.S. output to drop to get rid of the oversupply," warns Commerzbank commodity strategist Carsten Fritsch. Even more worrisome (for future hope), is the plunge in prompt contango (1st month - 2nd month) which has collapsed to 5-month lows.

Having soared 175 pips in two days, on the back of ECB and PBOC actions, USDJPY is rolling over this morning as a senior adviser to Japanese PM Shinzo Abe tells Reuters that The Bank of Japan "can wait a while" before easing more. This follows another adviser's comments on Friday that "further easing wasn't necessary." With a trail of broken markets (bonds first and now stocks), and broken promises (only 25% of Japanese now believe Abenomics will boost the economy), Abe faces an uphill battle in winning the fight against the "deflationary mindset" that officials have been so adamant they have already won.

Can the stock market completely ignore these five key changes and keep powering higher on the fumes of Mario Draghi's promises?

• European shares slip as easing expectations fade (Reuters)
• Valeant and Pharmacy More Intertwined Than Thought (WSJ)
• The Pawn Isolated: Valeant, Philidor and the Annals of Fraud (WSJ)
• Strongest Afghan Quake Since 1949 Triggers Search for Survivors (BBG)
• EU Agrees To Tighten Border Controls And Slow Migrant Arrival (AP)
• Volkswagen Suspends More Employees (WSJ)
• Volkswagen Loses Global Sales Lead to Toyota Amid Diesel Scandal (BBG)

If Valeant had hoped today's previously announced 8:00 am conference call, which is supposed to explain its relationship with Philidor and its network of pharmacies in general or, as the company put it, "to lay out the facts including allegations made against our company regarding our relationship with Philidor and R&O, our accounting practices, and channel stuffing that contain numerous errors, unsupported speculation and incorrect interpretations of facts and circumstances", would come and go and the price of VRX stock would promptly surge right back to $200, it was due for a very rude awakening when not one but two pieces came out once again slamming the company's business practices, and leading to even more questions about potential fraud at the increasingly more Tyco-esque roll-up.

In our Chinese stock market wrap following Friday's unexpected rate cut, which saw the Shanghai Composite storm out of the gate, we said that "we would not be surprised to see China's stocks sliding back into the red very shortly as "sell the news" concerns return, and as the increasingly more addicted "markets" demand even more liquidity from central banks just to stay unchanged, let alone rise to new all time highs." Sure enough, with just minutes to go before the close, the SHCOMP wiped out all its daily gains and was set for a red close had it not been for the "national team" miraculous last minute intervention which was inevitable after Friday's PBOC rate cut, and which lifted the composite 0.5% into the green as the euphoria was rapidly evaporating.