Archive - Dec 14, 2015 - Story

The real "data" that The Fed is "dependent" on...

Official Washington is awash with tough talk about Russia and the need to punish President Putin for his role in Ukraine and Syria. But this bravado ignores Russia’s genuine national interests, its “red lines,” and the risk that “tough-guy-ism” can lead to nuclear war. In short, Russia is being offered only the binary choice: to acquiesce to the “benevolent” hegemon, or to prepare for war.

Because when your year-end bonus depends on you not seeing it coming, you don't.

"Yeah but it's junk credit... who cares! I am invested in solid megacaps and even solider FANGs - what can go wrong?" Well, this...

Having earlier taken credit for the 'success' achieved recently against ISIS, one comedic trader had a suggestion for how President Obama could really "depress, deflate, defeat, and destroy" the terrorists: "We are going to break ISIS financially by requiring them to enroll in the Affordable Care Act by 2017" - POTUS

Those in power never understand markets. They are very myopic in their view of the world. The assumption that lowering interest rates will “stimulate” the economy has NEVER worked, not even once. Nevertheless, they assume they can manipulate society in the Marxist-Keynesian ideal world, but what if they are wrong?

The Yuan fix has now weakened for 7 consecutive days. Aside from the August devaluation, this is the biggest devaluation in the Yuan since records began in 2004. At the current level of 6.4559 per dollar, the Yuan has retraced to the level it was at when QE ended in July 2011. Chinese stocks are fading a smidge after yesterday's afternoon session "rescue" ramp.

Alleged bitcoin founder Craig "Coldfish" Wright once tried to trade nearly $85 million of virtual currency for gold, according to transcipts from ATO meetings and an account penned by The Australian. The transaction, purportedly conducted with controversial businessman Mark Ferrier, suggests that the man some say is the fabled Satoshi Nakamoto may have believed that his creation was nothing more than "funny money" after all. 

Chesapeake has hired restructuring advisor Evercore "to shore up its balance sheet as commodity prices extend their decline." This means that Evercore will seek to further slash its debt, almost certainly be equitizing a substantial portion of it, and handing it over as equity in the new company to CHK's bondholders. As a result the company's 2023 bonds, which were trading at par as recently as late May, just rumbled to a record low 27 cents on the dollar.

Judging by his prime-time speech last week, the final year of Barack Obama’s presidency will be marked by increased militarism abroad and authoritarianism at home. The centerpiece of the president’s speech was his demand for a new law forbidding anyone on the federal government’s terrorist watch list from purchasing a firearm. There has never been a mass shooter who was on the terrorist watch list, so this proposal will not increase security. However, it will decrease liberty.

Several local officials in China's Northeast region sought to explain dramatic economic drops in their areas by admitting they had faked economic data in the past few years to show high growth when the real numbers were much lower, Xinhua News Agency reported on Friday. The report cited several officials in the region who acknowledged they had "significantly overstated data ranging from fiscal revenue and household income to GDP."

Peak globalization? Burmese men, women and children are being sold to factories in Thailand - "no names are used, just numbers" - and forced to peel shrimp that ends up in global supply chains. As a recent AP investigation uncovered, U.S. customs records show the shrimp made its way into the supply chains of major U.S. food stores and retailers such as Wal-Mart, Kroger, Whole Foods, Dollar General and Petco, along with restaurants such as Red Lobster and Olive Garden.

"either the Fed achieves its goals quickly to a very low terminal Funds rate. Buy bonds. Or they need to be even more aggressive. Buy even longer duration bonds. The choice is more about where to put the long leg of the curve flattener not about whether to steepen or flatten the curve."

We are living in a time that can only be considered monetary chaos. The media and the policy pundits may focus on the day-to-day zigs and zags of central bank monetary and interest rate policy, but what really needs to be asked is whether or not we should continue to leave monetary and banking policy in the discretionary hands of central banks and the monetary central planners who manage them.