Archive - Feb 2015 - Story

The new Greek PM has a thing against ties; The new Greek finmin, on the other hand, has a thing for boots and barbour jackets as seen in this series of photos of him arriving from Paris (where he secured French support for the Greek debt "renegotiation") for a meeting with UK chancellor George Osborne.

One word - Apple. Not only is Apple single-handedly moving S&P 500 earnings, it is now - thanks to the planned issuance of $5 billion of debt to fund moar buybacks - shifting the US Treasury market as rate-locks slam yields higher in an illiquid market...

It appears the new narrative for why oil prices surged Friday and this morning is that a record-breaking drop in the US Rig Count means production levels will drop (and thus Saudi Arabia wins). This was enough to spark a melt-up squeeze on Friday which extended this morning running stops above $50.50. However, since that stop-run was exhausted, prices have tumbled back lower - testing a $47 handle - as investors realize the link between production and rig count is spurious at best and anti-correlated at worst.

Simply atrocious income and spending numbers: if this data is even remotely correct, then the balance sheet of the US consumer is in horrible shape.

Moments ago, following our chart showing the devastation in Q1 earning forecasts, Exxon Mobil came out with its Q4 earnings, and - as tends to happen when analysts take a butcher knife to estimates - beat EPS handily, when it reported $1.56 in EPS, above the $1.34 expected, if still 18% below the $1.91 Q4 EPS print from a year earlier. A primary contributing factor to this beat was surely the $3 billion in Q4 stock buybacks, with another $2.9 billion distributed to shareholders mostly in the form of dividends.  However, while XOM did the best with margins and accounting gimmickry it could under the circumstances, there was little it could do to halt the collapse in revenues, which printed at $87.3 billion, well below the $92.7 billion expected, and down a whopping 21% from a year ago. And this is just in Q4 - the Q1 slaughter has yet to be unveiled!

In a few minutes, Exxon (first, then all other energy companies) will confirm if the earnings collapse so many had predicted to take place in Q1 as a result of plunging crude prices will materialize. Wait, did we say "so many", make that nobody. Here is what Factset has to say about forecast Q1 energy earnings: "On September 30, the estimated earnings growth rate for the Energy sector for Q1 2015 was 3.3%. By December 31, the estimated growth rate fell to -28.9%. Today, it stands at -53.8%." Just a little off.

It's not exactly the same as if Wall Street were to unionize and demand higher wages, but when US energy workers - supposedly the best paid profession away from those who BTFD or BTFATH for a living - go on strike, it is time to pay attention, which is precisely what happened yesterday afternoon, when US union leaders launched a large-scale strike at nine refineries after failing to agree on a new national contract with major oil companies. It marks the first nationwide walkout since 1980 and impacts plants that together account for more than 10% of US refining capacity. The United Steelworkers Union (USW) began the strike on Sunday, after their current contract expired and no deal was reached despite five proposals.

• Germany Sees No Need to Scrap Troika in Overseeing Greek Turnaround (WSJ)
• European markets subdued as Chinese data weighs (Reuters)
• U.S. Oil Workers Strike Enters Second Day as Crude Prices Slide (BBG)
• Oil prices rally above $55 as investors pile in (Reuters)
• Obama Wants a New Tax on U.S. Companies' Overseas Profits (BBG)
• If Trading Bonds Is Hard, Think About Pain When Rates Rise (BBG)
• Julius Baer Braces for Swiss Franc Impact (WSJ)
• Coke, Budweiser win as Super Bowl ad battle gets serious (Reuters)

The overnight session had been mostly quiet until minutes ago, when unexpectedly WTI, which had traded down as low as the mid $46 range following the weakest Chinese manufacturing data in two years, saw another bout of algo-driven buying momentum which pushed it sharply, if briefly, above $50, and was last trading about 2.6% higher on the day. In today's highly correlated market, this was likely catalyzed by a brief period of dollar weakness as well as the jump of EURCHF above 1.05, within the rumored corridor implemented by the Swiss National Bank, which apparently has not learned its lesson and is a glutton for a second punishment, after its hard Swissy cap was so dramatically breached, it hopes to repeat the experience with a softer one around 1.05. Expect to see even more FX brokers blowing up once the EURCHF 1.05 floor fails to hold next.

The newsflow over the past several days was progressing much as expected: any time Greece demanded a bailout renegotiation (or termination), and an end to the Troika, Germany just said "Nein." And then something unexpected happened: the socialists came to the rescue when they voiced their support to their ideological peers in Greece. First, it was France whose finance minister said that France is "more than prepared to support Greece." And now it is Obama's turn who as the WSJ reported, has "expressed sympathy for the new Greek government as it seeks to rollback its strict bailout regime, saying there are limits to how far its European creditors can press Athens to repay its debts while restructuring the economy."

Many will debate if it was worth making Super Bowl XLIX into Super Brawl I, but those who trade the market will be familiar with the kind of volatility that everyone just experienced in the final minutes of what otherwise may have been the most nail-biting super bowl in history.

I quit Wall Street and decided that it was time to talk more about what was going on inside it, as it had changed. It had become far more sinister and far more dangerous.

~ Nomi Prins

The morphing of “terrorism” and “domestic dissent” into an all encompassing and convenient category known as “domestic terrorists” or “domestic extremists” has been a long time coming. It has always been our contention, and continues to be, that the oligarchs who have funneled all of the wealth to themselves since the 2008 banker bailouts know exactly what they are doing. They also know that it will eventually result in severe domestic unrest during the next cyclical downturn. As such, the agenda has been to utilize the entirety of the intelligence-industrial-military complex created by the “war on terror” against the domestic population once it recognizes how badly it has been looted.

"This is going to hurt, no question," fears a landowner in Santa Barbara with a dozen oil wells. Layoffs are "kind of like a death in the family," exclaims a geophysicist in the Permian Basin. Houstonians were hoping for a hiccup, says one restauranteir, but now "they're getting more cautious." As WSJ reports, rumor is becoming reality across America as "unambiguously good" news of low oil prices turns from a trickle to a deluge of job losses and insecurity. Cutbacks aren’t yet reflected in broad data on employment, home sales or tax collections. But fallout is beginning to affect people, starting with the legions working as suppliers to the energy industry.