Archive - Feb 2015 - Story

This won't end well...

UPDATE: JOC.com now hearing conflicting reports on deal

Following threats from the US labor secretary "that they have until Friday to reach a contract or they’ll have to negotiate in Washington D.C.," Dockworkers and their bosses, according to JOC.com, have reached an agreement (despite Reuters reports that no deal was reached last night).

With OPEX out of the way, the indices are free to trade on anxiety and reality... and have now given up all the post-"Greek Talks Fail" gains... WTI Crude and Treasury yields are plunging.

Having hovered at its lowest level in 12 months in January, February's Markit US Manufacturing PMI printed 54.3 (modestly above expectations of 53.6). Under the covers it is a very different story with New orders dropping to their lowest level since Jan 2014 and employment falling. While the headline will likely steal the day (though initial equity reactions are negative), as Markit concludes, "the rate of economic growth remains well down on last year."

Remember: any time Goldman tells you to do something, do what it does, not what it tells you (thank you Tom Stolper for teaching us that lesson) and as the case may be, Goldman's prop, pardon, flow (because those are illegal under Volcker wink wink) traders have some AAPL shares to sell to you, to wit: "We increase our 12-month target price to $145 from $130 previously which is based on a 16X (up from 15X reflecting our increased confidence in Apple’s outlook) multiple applied to our CY2015 EPS estimate of $9.03 ($8.64 previously)."

Following numerous rate cuts and backdoor QE (halting government bond issuance), Denmark's Krone is collapsing this morning following the head of Denmark's Economic Council, Hans Jorgen Whitta-Jacobsen said:

DENMARK'S CENTRAL BANK WILLING TO USE CAPITAL CONTROLS IF NECESSARY TO DEFEND DKK PEG

This has sparked the biggest drop in DKK against EUR since 2001 and as SEB chief strategist Carl Hammer exclaimed, "currency markets are extremely nervous."

"I accepted this position, as I said at the time, to work side-by-side with Bill Gross, as economic counselor, doing the three things that I love: think, write and speak macro. My mission here is complete. I will continue doing the things I love in other spaces, possibly in the academic arena. PIMCO will always be Camelot in my heart."

While markets remain in "well it is Europe and it's OPEX so BTFD" mode, entirely ignorant of what Goldman describes as the risk of a systemic shock, the EU-Greece negotiations continue... to go badly. As Bloomberg reports:

*EU OFFICIAL SAYS GREECE DEAL FRIDAY NIGHT LOOKING UNLIKELY

In fact, the official dropped his expectations so low as to say "it is possible that they could agree on progress." Which at least is one better than the no-progress meeting last week.

"It is a fluid situation"

• Greece Should Not Give In to Germany’s Bullying (FP)
• Greece Can Pay Its Debts in Full, but It Won’t (WSJ)
• Early Friday humor: Euro Region Economy Strengthens Amid Wrangling on Greece  (BBG)
• Euro zone may need extra summit to clinch Greek deal (Reuters)
• Oil-Drop Pain Spreads to Saudi Arabia’s Energy Behemoth (WSJ)
• Yellen Confronts Economists’ Ignorance (BBG) - where does one even start with this one
• ECB Plans to Push Greek Banks to Shed State Debt If Talks Fail (BBG)

This is what peak bluffing looks like.  Moments after there was much hope for a deal, suddenly ze Germans yanked the carpet from under any potential leverage Greece may have though it had when the Maltese foreign minister said:

• GERMAN-LED BLOC WILLING TO LET GREECE LEAVE EURO, SCICLUNA SAYS
• "I think they’ve now reached a point where they will tell Greece if you really want to leave, leave"

This in turns follows minutes after a Spigel article said that the ECB prepares for Greek euro exit.

Start #Eurogroup rescheduled to 16.30. Very brief statement president Dijsselbloem somewhere around 15.00 at VIP entrance.

— Jeroen Dijsselbloem (@J_Dijsselbloem) February 20, 2015

With the new and revised (until it is re-revised again to some future date), Greek D-Day set for today's third in the past 2 weeks Eurogroup meeting, every favorable headline serves as a springboard for ES-buying algos, while every negative headline is promptly ignored. And since this is Europe's style trial ballooning, there have been many of both with just these two hitting in the last hour:

• GREECE, EURO ZONE NEAR DEAL ON PACKAGE, REUTERS CITES UNIDENTIFIED GREEK OFFICIAL
• GREECE DID NOT GO FAR ENOUGH IN THEIR LATEST PROPOSAL: GREEK GVOERNMENT SPOKESMAN

Guess which one pushed ES into the green?

It may be hard to believe, but either one of the two status quo choices for U.S. President currently being force-fed down the American public’s throat will be almost unquestionably more imperial and warlike than Barack Obama. The reason is simple. Any society that apathetically stands by as one President after the other tramples on the Constitution will be subject to a litany of increasingly tyrannical, and even insane, leaders. If you still had any doubt, today we learn that Jeb Bush is actively surrounding himself with the exact same people who under the George W. Bush administration, masterminded the terrible tragedy known as the Iraq war.