Archive - May 2015 - Story

Elon Musk, Silicon Valley’s poster-boy genius replacement for the late Steve Jobs, rolled out his PowerWall battery last week with Star Wars style fanfare, doing his bit to promote and support the delusional thinking that grips a nation unable to escape the toils of techno-grandiosity. The main delusion: that we can “solve” the problems of techno-industrial society with more and better technology. The denizens of Silicon Valley are crazy about the Tesla. There is no greater status trinket in Northern California, where the fog of delusion cloaks the road to the future.

Hillary Clinton's family charities failed to live up to transparency promises made to the Obama administration during her tenure as Secretary of State, Reuters reports, noting that disclosures related to foreign donors are still not available on the Clinton Foundation's website. Meanwhile, New York Magazine tells the story of how the Foundation attempted to bully an influential charity monitor after winding up on its 'naughty' list.

From a high of $35.74, ETSY - the company that sells arts and crafts online - has collapsed almost 44% in the 3 weeks since its much-heralded IPO. Down another 9.5% today, and closing in on its IPO price of $16, it appears the 'public' stock markets are exposing the 'private' stock bubble a little too clearly recently...

CITIGROUP SAYS DOJ DECLINED TO PROSECUTE ON LIBOR RIGGING

Despite the exuberant goldilocks-esque meme from Friday's payrolls reports (and revision), The Fed's very own multi-factor Labor Market Conditions Index fell in April by the most since June 2012. Certainly not the Goldilocks data we have been propagandized...  The Labor market has only fallen more than this once since the great recession.

GBPUSD is now up 3 big figures since the first exit polls hit, testing 1.5550 this morning and back to unchanged for the year. While initial fears of Brexit stymied the response to the Tory victory, it appears trader are pressing for stops above 1.5550 seeing more room to run here before Brexit possibilities begin to weigh.

Stocks, Crude, and EURUSD all ramped to run stops in panic-algo-trading as US cash markerts provided their now-ubiquitously positive fundamental buying...

Yesterday we showed the absolutely ridiculous move that is taking place in corporate buyback announcements. And since the blackout period for buybacks is officially over, and announcements can now become executions courtesy of Wall Street's VWAP algos, here again, by popular demand, is the chart showing the record blow-off top in debt-funded stock buybacks which together with central bank buying (such as the SNB) should be enough to support the market even as outflows from equity funds have never been higher.

With a deal between Greece and its creditors seen as exceedingly unlikey at Monday's Eurogroup meeting, officials and analysts alike debate the logistics of default and a return to the drachma while Greeks may be called upon to choose between austerity or preparing for the possible introduction of a parallel currency and the economic malaise that will invariably follow. 

A 480-point drop in the S&P is currently deemed impossible; but then 480-point declines are always "impossible," yet they happen despite this presumed impossibility.

Last Thursday, when the market seemed on the verge of breaking lower, we asked if Gartman gave the all clear to go right back into stocks with his assessment that "1890 On The S&P Shall Be Our Target." As expected, stocks soared. It is now time to cancel the all clear: "As we have maintained since early last week, we’ve been neutral of stocks and we’ve now been wrong.  When we are wrong we admit it and we were wrong to move from merely “pleasantly” long to neutral. Our first step is then to become modestly long, and we shall."

Today’s Eurogroup meeting will be key in determining where Greece and its creditors negotiations currently stand. Over in the US today, it’s the usual post payrolls lull with just the labor market conditions data expected.

One week ago when news hit that Houthi rebels had launched a rocket attack on a Saudi border town we said that "a Saudi response now appears just a matter of time, and one which the oil-trading algos are eagerly expecting, pushing Brent to within two dollars of $68." By response, we of course meant a land invasion since Saudi Arabia has already been bombing Yemen for nearly a month.  That "time" may have arrived, because as Al Arabiya reports, Saudi Arabia has announced that a "strike force has arrived on the border with Yemen, as the operation to quell Houthi militias in the country continues."

As the SHCOMP soars, the sellside reacts to China's latest round of easing and the message is clear: more policy rate cuts are in the cards as real lending rates remain elevated and deflation risk remains high. Meanwhile, the PBoC's statement was making the rounds on WeChat hours before its official release suggesting Janet Yellen isn't the only central banker that enjoys leaking information.