Archive - Feb 2015 - Story

On the heels of worse than expected Manufacturing PMIs (both indicating economic contraction) and the "taking away" of Minsheng Bank's CEO in a clear signal that the corruption probe is refocusing on the banking industry, Chinese stocks and currency are tumbling. Retail investors dreams are going up in smoke as the Shanghai Composite suffers its biggest 3-week loss in over a year and tumbles to a 3.8% loss year-to-date - not what the gambling 'investors' were expecting. But perhaps more worryingly for Chinese officials is the continued selling pressure on the Yuan - now at a record 1.94% discount to PBOC's fixing - very close to forcing intervention of decision time on a wider peg-band or even more free-floating currency.

The United States government and the American people cannot contend with reality, because they do not know what the reality is. In America’s make-believe world, neoconservative toadies such as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, set the Group-Think tone, while knowledgeable experts are tuned out. In effect, America is both blind and deaf. It lives in delusions. Consequently, it will destroy itself and perhaps the world.

"Michael Hasenstab is all about the big trade," is the 'masters-of-the-universe'-esque introduction by Bloomberg for Franklin Templeton's "famous" bond fund manager. “His success speaks for itself, but he does take bets,” notes one financial planner but it appears Hasenstab has BTFD one time too many - after loading up on more than $7 billion of Ukraine's bonds (equal to almost half of all Ukraine’s foreign bonds) he has seen them almost cut in half to around $4 billion. And it appears clients are seeing the bond guru's BTFD-iness for what it is - extreme risk with OPM - as investors last year pulled a record $14 billion from the U.S. and European versions of the Templeton Global Bond Fund.

Hillary Clinton isn’t a lock for the 2016 Elections: Google searches for US Senator Elizabeth Warren surpassed the former US Secretary of State just last month with a ratio of 6 to 5. Interest in bowling (+85% since October) is growing faster than Facebook (-4%) and Youtube (-2%), and there is a lot more interest in smoking marijuana than tobacco (58 vs. 19 on average). Those are just three of the surprising findings from ConvergEx's latest survey of social engagement using Google Trends.

How low can US Shale go?

Next year should be a lot easier...

On September 30, the estimated earnings growth rate for Q1 2015 was 9.9%. By December 31, the estimated growth rate had declined to 4.2%. Today, it stands at  -1.6%.  Most of the expected decline in the estimated earnings growth rate for the S&P 500 for Q1 2015 is due to reductions in earnings estimates for companies in the Energy sector. 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%.

The historical relationship between the United States and Russia can hardly be described as rosey. The two countries are inextricably linked due to the Cold War era, with the world’s two modern superpowers having enjoyed an extremely suspicious relationship with one another for decades during the 20th century. Which of the two superpowers has the greater military provisions?

Over the past few weeks one could not escape the headline of the latest proposal to give away two years of community college. Everywhere it was debated by pundits whether it was a “good thing,” or a “bad idea”. One of the details that was missed early on that finally made its way into the discourse was that “free” actually meant it was going to be paid for via the rescinding of the 529-Plan - a plan used primarily by the middle class as a way to help pay the onerous ever rising costs of college. Of course once this detail became apparent there was an outpouring of outrage. So much so that the idea was pulled and shelved nearly as fast as it came on the scene. There just has to be something here more than what typically meets the eye. Then it hit me: Replace 529 with 401K – and change college to retirement...

With Ukraine, Germany, and France all expressing their concern this morning about "conflict escalation" between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukraine military, the so-called "truce" appears to be hanging by a thread of semanticism (despite OSCE's please for respect of the cease-fire and the demarcation line). Today's triple whammy of 'escalation' appears more focused on the non-Russian side as first, France begins sending tanks into Poland; second, Ukraine shifts its tanks to the front-line; and third - and potentially most inflammatory for Putin - NATO has confirmed plans to create permanent command centers in Eastern Europe. Putin has not responded yet but reports of 'nuclear bombers' flying above the English Channel "with transponders turned off," suggests the sabre rattling continues.

Despite Angela Merkel's insistence on numerous occasions this past week that there will be "no debt renegotiations," it appears a schism at the core of Europe is opening. As France24 reports, following a meeting between France's finance minister Michel Sapin and Greece's finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, the press conference had a considerably more amicable tone that Friday's Dijsselbloem dissing. "France is more than prepared to support Greece," Sapin said adding that Greece’s efforts to renegotiate were "legitimate." Sapin urged a "new contract between Greece and its partners."

Until now, central banks have restricted monetary policy to domestic economic management; this is now evolving into the more dangerous stage of internationalisation through competitive devaluations. The gold price is an early warning of future monetary and currency troubles, and it is now becoming apparent how they may transpire. The ECB move to give easy money to profligate Eurozone politicians is likely to have important ramifications well beyond Europe, and together with parallel actions by the Bank of Japan, can now be expected to increase demand for physical gold in the advanced economies once more.

Moments ago, in the illiquid Sunday night pre-market, BofA's "Stolper" was just stolpered stopped out as the USDJPY just tumbled well below 117 on concerns about Greece and the biggest Chinese economic slowdown in 2 years, dropping to the lowest level since the SNB announcement in just 3 trading days after Curry's initial recommendation, which incidentally is a record short period of time for a "Stolpering", even the original Tom Stolper. So here's to you, MacNeil Curry: keep those "recos" coming because in the absence of illegal chatrooms and muppet slayers it was getting a little difficut to make riskless profits day in and out.

What Denmark has just done is "back-door QE", because as some forget, there are two ways to push the price of an asset higher (thus pushing its yield lower in the case of a bond): increase demand, which is what conventional QE does when central banks buy bonds, or reduce supply. Which is what Denmark just did by completely cutting off all Treasury issuance "until further notice". As a result, paradoxically, increasingly more speculators are betting that the "Trade of 2015" could be doing precisely the opposite of what the Danish central bank is hoping will happen: i.e., shorting the EURDKK (or going long the DKKEUR) in hopes that when the Danish peg finally does break, it too will result in long Swiss France-type profits.