Archive - Nov 10, 2015 - Story

Believers in "technology always creates more jobs than it destroys" never address the knotty issues of taxpayer subsidies, secular trends of higher labor costs, the eradication of low-skill jobs that pay enough to live on without taxpayer subsidies, or the structural surplus of conventional labor and capital--the scarcity value of both are dropping to zero. While many hope that every low-skill person can become a high-skilled worker, training people doesn't create jobs for them.

Following yesterday's abysmal 3 Year auction, many rates investors were on edge ahead of today's 10 Year auction in the aftermath of the weakness across the curve seen since the "stellar" jobs report which had dragged yields higher across the curve. It turned out fears were premature, and moments ago the $24 billion reopening of 10 Years priced at a yield of 2.304%, which while highest since June, priced 0.8bps through the When Issued showing surprising demand for paper.

Get ready Angela Merkel, because you're about to face another anti-austerity push, only this time, the country "matters"...

First it was Dropbox. Than it was Jack Dorsey's "other" company, Square. Today, it's the turn of Snapchat, the fourth most highly valued private tech start up: "Fidelity, the only fund manager to have invested in the four-year-old company best known for disappearing photos, wrote down the value of its stake by 25 per cent in the third quarter."

"Adults over 30 are less happy than any of their predecessors," concludes a study published last week which examined happiness data from more than 50,000 adults, gleaned from the General Social Survey which has collected information about American adults since 1972. Perhaps most notable is that, for the first time ever, adults ages 18 to 29 were happier than adults over 30.

"It’s going to take years. Air power is extremely important. It can do a lot but it can't do everything. Ultimately it cannot occupy territory and very importantly it cannot govern territory." 

While the market may still rally to new highs, the late August free fall in stock prices and spike in volatility served as a wake-up call for investors. In the past ten weeks, major equity indices have recovered virtually all those losses, giving investors an unusual second opportunity to position their portfolio for an important inflection point in monetary policy as the Fed likely starts raising interest rates. Simply put, investors who were not properly positioned and frustrated by their performance in the late August swoon are being given a do-over.

Goldman Sachs -> Treasury -> PIMCO -> The Fed

As Strategas notes "any way we look at it, market breadth remains narrow," but, as Dana Lyon's details, everyone's favorite high-beta squeeze index - Nasdaq - is perhaps the most troubling. Since the initial spike off the September lows, rally participation among all stocks has been lackluster; the Nasdaq provides us with more evidence of this... In fact, over the past month, the cumulative number of daily advancing stocks minus declining stocks on the Nasdaq is actually negative.

Having risen to its highest level since the middle of the last two recessions, wholesale inventories-to-sales ratio remains at cycle highs at 1.31x. With wholesale sales and inventories both rising 0.5% (both more than expected), however, the absolute difference between sales and inventories has never been higher, leaving either major inventory liquidation ahead (or a miracle in sales). Wholesale inventories have now risen 4.7% YoY, as Sales have fallen 3.9% YoY. Finally, Auto inventories-to-sales ratio dropped very modestly (thanks to the surge in sales), but remains deep in 2008/9 crisis territory.

Behold! More shark jumping as BofA, Citi blame warm weather for weak October retail sales: "We believe abnormal weather patterns may have biased retail ex-auto sales lower in October."

While some have called The Trans-Pacific Partnership, "the most brazen corporate power grab in American history," President Obama tells Americans - in an Op-Ed released today - that "it’s the right thing to do for our economy, for working Americans and for our middle class" Despite indepedent analysis that appears to confirm  the creeping corporate coup d’état along with the final evisceration of national sovereignty, President Obama explains - in simple words - ObamaTrade is "a trade deal that helps working families get ahead," due, inhis opinion,  to the "toughest global labor laws" which will allow American workers to compete on a so-called "level playing field."