Archive - Nov 9, 2015 - Story

Moments ago in what we initially thought was a joke, abc9 reported that close to two dozen train cars derailed after a crash Monday morning. Lt. Brett Grimshaw of the Des Moines County Sheriff’s Office said the crash happened a little after 8 a.m. when a coal train hit a road grader that had been backed up onto the tracks. And before you ask, yes, this train, too, belongs to BNSF, which in turn belongs to Warren Buffett,

Having noted the plunge in consumer spending expectations to record lows last month, The Fed faces an even bigger problem this month. Despite the apparent wage growth in Friday's magical BLS data, The New York Fed admits "public expectations of future income took a big hit," as the index suffered its biggest one-month decline on record. But the news gets even worse, as 3-year-ahead inflation expectations plunged to record lows (confirming the record low inflation expectations from UMich's) and entirely discounting Stan Fischer's inflation excuses last week. Fianlly, as stocks have stagnated this year as wealth creator for The Fed, consumer expectations of housing price gains have tumbled to series lows. It appears a desperate-to-hike-rates fed is cornered by, as UMIch previously noted, "a disinflationary mindset is taking hold."

In short: end demand far weaker, saved by Primary Dealers, as suddenly foreign central banks are far less interested in US paper just at a time when yields are rising and purchases of said paper that much more attractive.

Repeated dosages of quantitative easing to kick-start economic recovery have proved totally ineffective everywhere. Yet central bankers are talking about doing it again – in larger amounts. The obsession with spending rather than saving has led governments everywhere to suppress interest rates to near zero. Under this destructive economic model governments are the worst offenders. In their craze to spend cheap money they allocate resources blindly into projects of dubious viability, for which there was no public demand in the first place. Result: huge taxpayer-borne losses.

An "independent" commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency has found that Russia engaged in state-sponsored doping and more importantly, recommended that Russia’s track and field athletes be suspended from Olympic competition in 2016.  The "Independent" commission was led by  Canadian Dick Pound. Joining him on the commission was Richard McLaren, another Canadian lawyer and a long-standing member of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, as well as Günter Younger, head of department of cybercrime with Bavarian Landeskriminalamt. So two Canadians and a German made up an "independent" commission that now wants to bar Russia from the marquee event of the upcoming olympics.

It appears that hawkishness and rate-hikes are once again not-so-bullish for stocks... either that or the algos read the details of the jobs report and realized just how ugly it all is under the surface...

Automation is upending the global order by eliminating human labor on an unprecedented scale - and the status quo has no reality-based solution to this wholesale loss of jobs. The idea that taxing the owners of robots and software will fund guaranteed incomes for all is not anchored in reality.

Rajoy's warning: “Catalonia isn’t separating from anywhere."

If the US economy were actually in economic recovery, would half of the 25-year-old population be living with parents? The real job situation is so poor that young people are unable to form households.

Oil was already weak this morning but the release of Genscape estimates of yet another siazable inventory build (1.8 million barrels) appears to have kicked the down-leg a notch lower. The overnight flash-crash lows are now in sight at WTI Crude trades with a $43 handle once again (and Dow Transports converge lower).

But rate-hikes are bullish, right?

We're gonna need a bigger buyback... As if "old tech" IBM was not in enough trouble, the worrying admission from Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway's earnings of around $2 billion (though careful to note he is not about to sell) has seemingly prompted further weakness. IBM is down almost 2% to fresh May 2010 lows...

The carnage in Treasuries continues as this morning's chatter from 'sources' about moar NIRP in Europe has seemingly sparked a sudden exodus from US bonds (even with stocks lower). Across the curve yields are up 4-5bps very suddenly - all testing (if not already broken) 2015 highs. Perhaps most critically for now is the 5Y yield which is surging towards 1.80% - a crucial level of resistance over the past few years.

Based on last week’s developments, which included the launch of an investigation into the world’s largest oil company and the rejection of the most politicized energy project to date, the “above ground” problems for the energy industry are growing much worse. That could complicate the future fortunes of oil and gas companies.

• Fed speakers are likely to take focus in the US this week as market participants attempt to forecast the likelihood of a December FOMC rate lift off
• Eurozone GDP release is the most notable Eurozone data of the week, with a possible downbeat reading increasing the possibility of further easing by the ECB