Archive - Dec 2015 - Story

It was just a few weeks ago that the International Monetary Fund predicted that Saudi Arabia would likely be bankrupt within the next five years. Saudi Arabia’s financial position is deteriorating rapidly, and the government is burning through cash like a coked-up rock star.  The Saudis followed this up with plans now to build the world’s tallest skyscraper, which would stand a full kilometer in height. Seriously, what are these people thinking? What kind of idiot goes out of his way to blow through cash when he’s rapidly going broke? Why, the United States of America of course.

Having ramped its way up to the cliff's edge of China devaluation and Black Monday's free-fall, Germany's DAX has come unbuttoned rapidly with a 480-plus point droip today. Down over 5.5% in the last 3 days, crushed back under 11,000 today with a 3.75% crash - the most since August 24th - all thanks to Draghi over-selling his "whatever-it-takes"-ness... after the Paris Terror attacks.

The entire Treasury curve is getting battered with 30Y +13bps, back above 3.00%. The belly is the most dramatic with 7Y yields up over 11bps - the biggest single-day surge in 7 months. 5Y yields are up over 9bps pushing back to the "wall" of resistance...

The gap between real house prices and real earnings is even wider than it was in Housing Bubble 1. History (and common sense) suggest that housing prices will once again fall sharply until the black line of house prices is well below the red line of real earnings. To expect anything different is unrealistic and highly dangerous to one's financial well-being.

Having stated unequivocally last week that "we can't let this become the new normal.. enough is enough," following the Planned Parenthood shooting, President Obama - having seen a record amount of background checks for gun purchases over the Black Friday weekend - is set to make a statement (alongside his National Security Team) with regard the mass shooting in San Bernardino yesterday...

Here is a chart which will make the US manufacturing recession visible even to the most tenured central planner and economist.

US Services PMI rose from 54.8 in October to 56.1 in November - the highest since May 2015 (but this is a drop from the flash print of 56.5 and 2nd biggest miss against expectations of the year). ISM Services crashed from 59.1 to 55.9 (drastically missing expectations) hovering near its lowest since April 2014. Weakness is across the board with Business Activity, New Orders, Employment, Backlog, Exports and Imports all down. Why is the service economy slipping? Simple, the "Affordable Care Act impacting our business, reducing revenue while increasing cost of care."

Low gas prices? High stock prices? Fed confidence in the economy? Fuhgetaboutit... Bloomberg's Consumer Comfort Index just crashed to its lowest since November 16th. It seems the confidence in the fact that The Fed ended QE3 was entirely misplaced after all...

Having yesterday explained how The Fed is "devoted" to Americans' interests and how "excited" she is to raise rates, Janet Yellen is set to face the Joint Economic Committee of Congress today... to explain to them how - in her mind - everything is awesome enough to hike rates, despite Chinese stocks crashing again, carnage in commodities, a revenues recession, plunging EBITDA, a collapse in US manufacturing, housing rolling over, and auto sales fading (light vehicle incentives up 14% YoY). Following the renewed volatility in markets, thanks to Draghi, the question is will Yellen be a little more hawkish given the room the ECB has given her?

One recurring word prevails in every single Wall Street reaction to Mario Draghi's announcement today: "disappointment"... the same disappointment we warned about yesterday, and which we said could push the EURUSD to 1.09 today, just as happened an hour earlier.

"How does all this play out? Timing is the key because as gamblers know there isn’t an endless stream of Martingale chips – even for central bankers acting in unison. One day the negative feedback loop on the real economy will halt the ascent of stock and bond prices and investors will look around like Wile E. Coyote wondering how far is down. But when? When does Martingale meet its inevitable fate? I really don’t know; I’m just certain it will."

How do you stop a market from falling? Simple!!

A sudden miraculous bid for USDs over JPY has managed to rescue stocks from the precipice of year-to-date redness for now... but bonds (dragged by Bund's collapse) ain't buying the bounce...

Update: PSPP extended to March 2017 "or beyond", regional debt added to QE-eligible asset pool

Having just let everyone down with a less-than-spectacular 10 bps depo rate cut, Mario Draghi will now try to appease a spoiled market by announcing an expansion and/or an extension of PSPP.