Archive - Jun 16, 2015 - Story

In March/April 2013, Bitcoin prices started to soar as Dijsselbloem's "template" applied to Cyprus prompted many to rethink money entirely. As the reality of a possible Grexit looms and Capital Controls are denied (just as they were in Cyprus), so Bitcoin prices are once again surging (up 10% in the last few days) as non-fiat currency once again becomes bid.

With the US and Russia in a state of (renewed) cold war for over a year now, it was inevitable that that "other", far more important attribute of the first Cold War would soon return: the nuclear arms race. And indeed it did just around dinner time in Russia today when speaking at an arms race fair, president Putin said that Russia will put more than 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles into service in 2015 as part of a wide-reaching program to modernize the military.

With the S&P 500 2% off record highs, we are sure talking-heads will proclaim "any Greece actions are more than priced in," but as Bank Safra's chief economist Karsten Junius warns, forget happy endings, "Disorderly Default" is now the most likely outcome for Greece.

Buy it... Buy it all...

Will we never learn...

Spot the outlier in housing permits among the four US census regions. Hint: at an annual change of 165.8%, it has never been higher.

He's back... and, according to his accountant, he's worth $8.737 billion.

As Chinese stock market capitalization topped $10 trillion for the first time in history, so the spectre of total and utter speculative mania looms as the balance of margin loans tops $2.2 trillion and remains among the most obvious early warning systems for an increasingly fragile government-sponsored equity bubble. The problem, as Bloomberg reports, is that any pullback by margin traders would undercut one of the biggest drivers of the rally leaving the "regulator trying to slow down the growth without triggering panic," as Bocom's chief China strategist explains.

While the optimistic bias is shifting, if slowly, one place where the "fund managers" are at least admitting that things are changing for the worse in Europe is their latest, June, estimation of the biggest tail risks. Here, while "geopolitical crisis" and a behind-the-curve Fed still remain in the top two "tail risks", at 21% and 20% respectively, just as they were last month, what is concerning is the third most prevalent fear which, at 18%, is a Eurozone breakup. It is notable that one month ago this fear did not even register, suggesting just how fragile the Eurozone was and still remains.

Deja vu all over again... because a resoundingly defiant tone from Tsipras is just what the algos needed to jerk futures up to yesterday's highs and run the stops...

With his back against the wall, and with Syriza party hardliners apparently no closer to backing concessions, Alexis Tsipras looks set to once again play the ‘Russian pivot” card, as the Kremlin says a “working meeting” between the Greek PM and Russian President Vladimir Putin is now scheduled for Friday in St. Petersburg.

For all of the longer-term, ancillary red flags and concerns that have materialized in the latter portion of this cyclical bull market (many of which, we have laid out), bulls have had the same response: price is all that matters. It appears to us, however, that a great many bulls preaching “price patience” have failed to recognize one thing: there is already evidence of a breakdown in prices. The “stock market” consists of many segments, not just the S&P 500, So it depends where you are looking.

In a unicorn-esque moment, when asked "are you an African-American woman?" the former NAACP official Rachel Dolezal told The Today Show's Matt Lauer, "I identify as black." As NPR notes, the topic of Dolezal's race has prompted surprise, bewilderment and speculation since her parents said that contrary to their estranged daughter's claims of being of mixed race, Rachel Dolezal is white.