Archive - Nov 24, 2015 - Story

While yesterday's 2 Year auction was well stronger than expected, moments ago the Treasury sold $35 billion in 5 Years in an auction that came quite mixed: the High Yield printed at 1.67%, or the highest since June, it tailed 0.5 bps to the 1.665% When Issued. Perhaps showing the flattening of the curve on the short end, while yesterday's 2Y closed at the highest yield since May 2010, today's 5Y was only the highest since June, when a comparable auction yielded 1.71%.

Following the meeting of the North Atlantic Council requested by Turkey - to explain its actions - NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gave a statement to the press, urging, just as Obama and Hollande just did, no escalation between the two nations and backing Turkey's version of events - that Russia did indeed violate Turkish airspace.

It was 11 months ago when brazen thieves penetrated deep within the "safe" confines of Manhattan, and tried to rob a Chase Manhattan branch on 72nd and Columbus in the Upper West Side. It was unclear if the robbers were successful then, or if the bank even had any cash. Moments ago, another bunch of just as brazen robbers has attempted to rob another Chase branch, this time on 6th Avenue and 18th street. According to the NY Scanner, the NYPD just called in a Level 1 mobilization to 611 6th Avenue, where thieves have struck yet again.

Five months (nearly to the day) after a gunman stormed the popular resort of Port El Kantaoui, north of Sousse in Tunisia killing 38 people including 30 British citizens with a Kalashnikov, multiple sources are reporting that an explosion in the capital has hit a bus carrying presidential guards.

Despite Ackman's triple-down, Valeant has given up all the after-hours' gains and is rapidly losing last week's "buying spree" dead-cat-bounce rally as Pershing's newly synthetic position in the troubled stock moves deeper in the red...

It appears the "hostile act" in Turkey was not enough to keep the dip-buyers from bidding The Dow back into the green for the day. Nasdaq and the S&P are still lagging... as is the credit market.

With 11 days passed since the horrific actions in Paris, French President Francois Hollande arrived at the White House to discuss the conflict with President Barack Obama, likely asking for greater cooperation (with Russia - who Hollande will meet Thursday) in the battle against ISIS. Obama and Hollande made no statements as they began their meeting in the Oval Office but we can only imagine Turkey’s downing of a Russian fighter jet over its border with Syria produced fresh complications for the international campaign against Islamic State.

Some have suggested Vladmir Putin's first retaliation for the Turkish shooting down of a Russian fighter jet would be to cut off gas supplies (which represent 57% of Turkey's supply). With Russia Defense Minister stating that the "downing of the Russian warplane is a 'hostile act'," adding that the defense ministry is "devising a set of measures to respond to the incident," it seems taking the 'nuclear option' of cutting off 20% of Erdogan's entire energy supply would be a strong first non-lethal non-World-War-3-starting step.

The Pentagon's army colonel Steve Warren has made it clear how Washington feels about the unraveling situation in Syria. In not so many words, Warren explained 'not our problem', pointing out the Russian jet shootdown is "a Russia-Turkey issue," and that US was not ionvolved. He then quickly moved on to the propaganda section of the briefing, explaining how "sloppy, uncaring" Russia was "exaggerating" its achievements in Syria.

A collapse in new orders and the order backlog combined with a plunge in wages, average workweek, and number of employees has left the Richmond Fed contracting for the 3rd month in a row. The last three times this happened, The US was either in recession or The Fed unleashed QE3.

The lowest income Americans appear to have officially given up on the "hope"...

Just three months ago Consumer Confidence was peaking at 8 year highs and everything was awesome. Now, with the biggest miss since March 2009, Consumer Confidence crashed to 90.4 from 99.1. This is the lowest since Septmeber 2014 as the "decline was mainly due to a less favorable view of the job market." Almost every cohort - across age, income, race saw a collapse in confidence though we note low income and under-35s saw the biggest declines as Income Growth expectations plunge to the lowest in 14 months.

On Friday Nov. 20th we sold a half unit each of nearby January WTI trading at or near to $41.85 and nearby Brent trading at or very near to $44.23, giving us an average of $43.04. Our stated risk, was 2% on the position, so the stops were set at $42.10 and $45.11 respectively, and we used our “hour or so” methodology; that is, we’d want to see crude trade through those levels “for an hour or so” before activating the stops in question. Those stops have been activated. The Saudis caught us off. We are gone… now!

CFTC meets this morning to propose a registration standard applying to as many as 100 firms that have changed markets by trading their own money using complex algorithms and advanced technology. As Bloomberg notes, this proposal follows more than 5 yrs of debate about market disruptions, such as the May 2010 flash crash. Crucially, as is well known now, high-speed, automated trading in recent years has surged to account for almost three-quarters of certain derivatives markets which means any regulatory crackdowns will no doubt have impacts on markets; as former CFTC chief Chilton noted “Clearly some of the rules are antiquated.”

After 3 straight months of home price declines, August and now September have seen the usual seasonal pattern unfolding as Case-Shiller reports 0.61% rise in September (double the +0.3% expectations). Of course this runs in the face of NAR's 4 month decline in median home prices, but who's quibbling. Notably, 2015 is playing out almost exactly the same as 2014... winter is coming.