Archive - Dec 10, 2015 - Story

This afternoon we got another completely amorphous claim from The Pentagon regarding the death of a “senior” ISIS commander when Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL (whatever that is) Brett McGurk took to Twiiter to announce the death of an Islamic State FinMin.

Flashing red headlines, business media anchors exuberant as gun-maker stocks weresold after CT Governor Malloy unveiled his executive order and following White House chatter that officials were finalizing proposal that would expand background checks on gun sales without congressional approval. We thought the following charts would provide a little context for this "selling"...

"2015 was like commuting by rollercoaster. There were heart-stopping drops, there were nearly vertical ascents, and when it was all over you got off just about where you started and it cost you money."

"This should be a wakeup call for all of us. This is a moment to seize here in America," Gov. Dannel Malloy plans to sign the first executive order in the nation to ban the sales of guns to people on government watch lists.

Janet, you have a problem...

The just concluded 30-Year bond reopening of Cusip RP5, in which the US Treasury sold another $13 billion in long-dated paper in this year's final auction of 30 Years, was almost a carbon copy of yesterday's 10 Year auction.

The U.S. establishment has been aggressively pushing against the American public’s right to private communications, i.e. encryption, ever since the terror attacks in Paris. This push continues unabated, with the latest shots fired earlier this week by FBI chief James Comey at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. “I don’t want to tell them how to do their business... but there are costs to being an American business."

"Clinton is also increasingly seen as the least honest in the field, with 46% of likely Democratic primary voters now saying she is least honest out of the three remaining candidates...That's up from 33% in September and 28% back in June." Yet, they will still nominate her.

The Supreme Court may shortly decide an obscure case entitled Federal Energy Regulatory Commission v. Electric Power Supply Association (FERC v EPSA). The issue before the court is whether FERC can compel regional power markets to pay consumers who reduce their electricity usage at critical peak periods. And if so, at what price?

At the moment, the strength of the USD correlates very strongly to equities. When King Dollar is torpedoed like it was yesterday, stocks plummet. So does this mean that a rate hike next week will be tremendously bullish for stocks?

In the latest example of the rising idicoy in today's colleges, Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania, students remarkably want to rename a building commemorating Dr. Clyde A. Lynch, the college’s 11th president who served during the Great Depression and WWII, because the word “lynch” has racist implications.

"The United States is prepared to assist the Iraqi Army with additional unique capabilities to help them finish the job, including attack helicopters and accompanying advisers."

"By the time we figure out how to stop that, ISIS will have the next thing. They use tricks. Always they are a step ahead of you, no matter how smart you are."

"What I find most hilarious is that some serious commentators have been pontificating at considerable length about what the market’s participants think. These days, some 70% of market orders are generated by computers, and many of the rest by indexers. And computers do not think... I cannot remember a time when less thinking has ever been done in the financial markets, which is why I find today’s financial markets infinitely boring."

- Charles Gave

And if American Entrepreneurism is in a death spiral, then so too is the U.S. economy and the state that lives off the surplus generated by American Entrepreneurism.

Without giving any reasons, South African President Jacob Zuma has fired his finance minister (after just 19 months in office). This has shocked investors, already anxious about the nation's surging debt and sluggish economy and South African bonds and FX have collapsed andhas given rating agencies “perfect justification” for further downgrades and the loss of investment grade status. 10Y yields spiked 140bps to 10.18% - the highest since July 2008 - and CDS have soared. The Rand has crashed to new record lows above 15 to the USD.