Archive - Nov 2, 2015 - Story

This weekend we saw an important action in the downgrade of Saudi Arabia, highlighting just how far the EM crisis has carried. As Ice Farm Capital's Michael Green notes, in response, Saudi CDS continues to climb, reaching its highest since 2009 (amid both default risk and devaluation concerns). The rising risks in Saudi Arabia are a reminder that growth weakness has its own feedback mechanism – if oil prices stay at these levels for an extended period of time, it appears unlikely that Saudi Arabia will remain the reliable source that the world is currently counting on.

"During the busy reporting weeks, upgrades rise relative to downgrades only for this to reverse during ‘quiet’ periods when companies revert to guiding numbers back down again. Why is this important? History shows that during the busiest reporting weeks the S&P 500 has risen 60% of the time versus less than 50% during the quietest weeks. The simple message is this: don’t be short during US reporting seasons."

As Nasdaq 100 surges above July 2015 cycle highs towards 2000 record highs and the S&P 500 breaks the key 2,100 level - erasing all the losses from August 11th's start of China's devaluation, global markets in turmoil collapse - on ever-decreasing volume, it appears the credit market 'changed its mind' after Europe closed. What happens next?

The Federal Reserve was supposed to serve the nation, however as even Bloomberg observes today, ended up "steamrolling" Main Street. One reason why: directors such as this one. Presenting former Morgan Stanley CEO, James Gorman, whose former employer got a $107 billion loan from the Federal Reserve to avoid implosion.

The entrance to The CME has been blocked for most of the morning by "Soros-paid Morons" according to one trader. Rick Santelli has a few opinions on the apparently ill-informed protesters' actions, and concluded, "It would be sad commentary - based on what the politicians have done with the budget - to chase more companies out of Illinois."

People are genetically biased against change, because change means potential danger. People are also genetically biased against acknowledging this bias, because they wish to see themselves as being able to cope with both change and danger. Put together, this means that when changes come, people are largely unprepared or underprepared. This little bit of psychology 101 may seem redundant, but it is indispensable if we wish it to recognize the implications of Europe -and the entire world with it, in its slipstream- having already entered a period of change so profound it is impossible to predict what the impact will be. This ignorance and denial threatens to lead to a needless increase in nationalism, fascism, violence, misery, death and warfare. If we were to acknowledge that the change is inevitable, and prepare ourselves accordingly, much of this could be avoided.

"There's no point in other countries getting together and deciding about a system of government and the head of that state. This is a dangerous innovation which no government in the world would accept being imposed on itself. The solution to Syria's problem is elections."

As FT reports, "some of the European Central Bank’s top decision-makers met banks and asset managers days before major policy decisions, and on one occasion just hours before, copies of their diaries reveal."

Update: CME DIRECT ISSUES NOW RESOLVED, EXCHANGE SAYS

CME Group's online trading platform CME Direct will be unavailable until further notice due to a technical issue, the exchange said in a member notice this morning sent at 0857ET. While volumes look largely unaffected, Reuters reports that the outage came on the first day that CME migrated many users of its EOS Trader platform over to CME Direct, and also coincided with an upgrade to CME Direct's technology, sources familiar with the matter said.

Bitcoin is up 123% from its January lows and over 50% higher than its early-September (post-Bitcoin XT anxiety) lows when we first warned about the virtual currency's relationship with possible China outflows. Despite promises of easing capital controls (and the chaos in the Yuan market over the last few days), it appears the Chinese are not waiting for the other shoe to drop and as offshore Yuan tumbled, so Bitcoin surged above $340 this morning (rallying all the way back to unchanged YoY).

Much of the national debate about widening inequality focuses on whether and how much to tax the rich and redistribute their income downward. But this debate ignores the upward redistributions going on every day, from the rest of us to the rich. These redistributions are hidden inside the market. The only way to stop them is to prevent big corporations and Wall Street banks from rigging the market.

"... we have more single short names than long positions in our book today. We have reduced our net exposure by nearly a third through sales and new shorts over the past few months."

Janus Capital shares have tumbled back from earlier gains after WSJ reports that a firm run by George Soros has pulled a $500M investment with Bill Gross. The firm reportedly invested the money a year ago after Gross started at Janus Capital.

"I have lost so much money on people like him and I'm done dealing with it. They take the food right out of my mouth," exclaims Uber-driver Edward Caban after being assaulted by a passenger, "I don't feel safe driving for Uber any more... The quality of the passengers has gone down over the last couple of weeks and I know a lot of drivers will agree with me."

Amid the ever-expanding easing program in Europe (longer? more-er? different-er?), one of the gravest concerns was (amid a growing scarcity of collateral), finding willing sellers (at any price) to meet the needs of central bank asset purchasers could be a problem. However, as The FT reports, it appears the Chinese stepped up to the plate to 'help' The ECB (rather The Bundesbank) out from its dilemma. Just as we saw with Chinese selling US Treasuries (whether to diversify away from the major reserve currencies, deal with outflows, or to manage a liquidity crisis at home), The PBoC's reserve management wing, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, has been selling some of its German government bonds since the ECB began buying them in March, say two sources close to central banks in China and Europe. This news has prompted further weakness in Bunds today, despite expectations of Draghi unleashing more buying in December.