Archive - Mar 2015 - Story

This was not supposed to happen... Once again it appears that front-running the central banks hints and selling the actions is the new normal as (just as occurred in the period around the Q€ announcement), despite pushging higher last week, inflation expectations have tumbled lower since Draghi unleashed the trillion-euro bazooka...

Just as in the case of oil currently, the problem with gold (and countless other commodities) trading where it does, is that as we have shown repeatedly on previous occasions, it is at or below the marginal production cost of various gold producers.  And with miners losing money on every incremental ounce (or barrell) they pull out of the ground, there is only so much capital they can burn before they have not choice but to file for bankruptcy. Which is precisely what happened to Allied Nevada Gold, the operator of the gaming state’s Hycroft mine, which earlier today filed for bankruptcy in Delaware. The company blamed its deteriorating financial condition on the drop in gold and silver prices in recent years, an overleveraged capital structure, delays in a key expansion project, and currency swap exposure.

Oil storage capacity in the US is now at 60% and is set to be completely exhausted in just three months. With storage at a premium, the contango breakeven trade will become increasingly more unprofitable and come June, each incremental barrel will have to be dumped on the market forcing prices lower.

In summary: a very strong auction, one in which foreign central banks dominated, and certainly another confirmation that nobody is concerned about a surge in short-term rates any time soon.

The US economic recovery continues as the number of homeless in New York's shelters rises 50% in three years. De Blasio says New York needs to take "immediate and bold steps" to combat the worsening problem. 

From the meltup to Nasdaq 5,000 day to today... The Dow is down 600 points from its highs...

When does the Euro become the Ruble?

The almost-$2 surge in WTI crude prices on Friday - proving recovery is here and stability is back - is gone... long gone. Following comments from Chevron of major cost cutting, slashing capex (down 13% YoY), but ramping production of shale and tight assets, WTI crude has tumbled back to a $48 handle.

The entire formerly rich world is addicted to debt, and it is not capable of shaking that addiction. Not until the whole facade that was built to hide this addiction must and will come crashing down along with the corpus itself. Central banks are a huge part of keeping the disease going, instead of helping the patient quit and regain health, which arguably should be their function. In other words, central banks are not doctors, they’re crack dealers and faith healers. Why anyone would ever agree to that role for some of the world’s economically most powerful entities is a question that surely deserves and demands an answer.

LEW SAYS GOVERNMENT TRYING TO UNDERSTAND HIGH-FREQUENCY TRADING

"The chart below illustrates our daily Adjusted Net Trading Income from January 1, 2009 through December 31, 2014. The overall breadth and diversity of our market making activities, together with our real-time risk management strategy and technology, have enabled us to have only one overall losing trading day during the period depicted, a total of 1,485 trading days..." - Virtu S-1

As Citi predicted last week, all German bunds look set to converge on -0.20% as the structure of ECB QE flattens the yield curve. 

Per capita energy consumption remains at recession levels. There are other factors at work here, of course, but if we combine these data series, we get a picture not of robust growth akin to previous post-recession periods, but a "recovery" that by previous standards remains recession-bound.

For all the talk of a recovery, the recession may have quietly arrived as confirmed first by factory orders and now wholesale trade sales...

Well that escalated quickly...

Stick a fork in the now proven wrong theory that plunging gas prices would boost consumer spending. Why? Because 4 months after the full impact of tumbling gas price was said to become apparent, consumer spending is not only not picking up, it is in fact slowing down more, especially in those places where there was snow in the winter, and gasp, where oil price actually fell the most!