Archive - Jun 2015 - Story

We have argued that as economic ties between China and Russia deepen Beijing could increasingly look to Moscow to meet China’s energy needs. This would of course only serve to further de-dollarize the global energy trade, dealing yet another blow to the petrodollar system. Sure enough, Russia has, for the first time in history, overtaken Saudi Arabia as China’s top oil supplier.

Look, it’s unfortunate to have to live in a world where there’s crazy people who want to do bad things. But it would be even more unfortunate to live in a world where we are regulated against being able to defend ourselves against those people... and the institution with the monopoly over ‘protecting’ us has a long-term track record of violence, intimidation, and abuse.

As they say on stage, "break a leg" John...

COSTELLO: So there are two ways to bring unemployment down, and the easier of the two is to have people stop looking for work. ABBOTT: Now you’re thinking like an Economist.

COSTELLO:  I don’t even know what the hell I just said!  ABBOTT: Now you’re thinking like a Politician.

Given that the Greek delegation already left, this is hardly a surprise but...

That's it for tonight. #Eurogroup will continue tomorrow at 13.00.

— Alexander Stubb (@alexstubb) June 24, 2015

The federal personnel chief said Tuesday that she does not believe “anyone is personally responsible” for the massive hack of federal employee data and security clearance files.

Translation - no one is accountable, it was a glitch.

With a DoJ probe having predictably gone nowhere, a group of pensioners and retirement funds are suing Wall Street and Markit for colluding to monopolize the CDS market. Amusingly, Citadel has been subpoenaed to discuss how it was shut out of creating a CDS trading platform by the "oligopolistic" activities of TBTF banks, even as the firm looks set to dominate the market for IR swaps.

Echoing the era of McCarthyism, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) files obtained by Judicial Watch reveal that the dad, maternal grandpa and father-in-law of President Obama’s trusted senior advisor, Valerie Jarrett, were hardcore Communists under investigation by the U.S. government.

With real incomes collapsing, approval ratings at record lows, and PMIs back in contraction; is it any surprise that the last thing standing for Shinzo Abe to "show" the world his 'progress' is the stock market... the all-knowing arbiter of monetary and fiscal policy-maker success (and completely divergent indicator of real economic health). To wit, overnight saw Japan's Nikkei 225 surged to its highest since Nov 1996 (up almost 150% since Abenomics devaluation was unleashed). The last time we saw such a surge brings a chill air to the conversation as Japanese stocks pass the halfway-back mark to 1989's epic bubble peak, it is begining to look a lot like peaking once again.

So much for a Greek deal getting "done" today, as the market had priced in for the nth countless time on Monday. Here is what happened moments ago according to Bloomberg and Reuters:

• GREEK DELEGATION LEAVES EU COMMISSION
• SCHAEUBLE SEES INSUFFICIENT PROGRESS FOR GREECE DEAL TODAY
  
• SCHAEUBLE SAYS HE DOESN'T HAVE MUCH NEW TO SAY ON GREECE

And so on, until the next round of buying ahead of the next rumor, until the next denial launches stocks even higher, ahead of more hopes of an imminent deal launches even more buying program, until the next round of rumors leds to new all time highs and so on, and so on...

But "Greece was Rescued"...

We suspect this will be the last time billionaire investor Carl Icahn is invited on CNBC. Having sold CNBC darling NFLX, he crushed the two main memes of CNBC's raison d'etre - buy stocks, because where else are you going to put your money - "what's better - making 2% or losing 30% as people did in 2008...right now it's an extremely dangerous time;" and the next leg of this bull market will come from an improving real economy - "the economy is not picking up, it is artificial due to low interest rates." The market has way over-estmated how long this will last, Icahn concludes, "keep your powder dry - why do have to own anything risky? It's just nonsensical."

One recurring pattern that we had noticed months ago, and which had a nearly 100% predictive hit record, was that on auction days when there is a major lack of collateral as evidenced by a negative repo rate, Tsy auctions were stellar. Today, was just such a day, with the 5 Year repo printing well special at -0.85% this morning as ICAP reported. All else equal this would have meant a big scramble to cover shorts into the auction and a high yield well tighter than the When Issued. Only not today. Because for all those who expected the yield to price through the when issued, the result was a surprising 1 basis point tail to the 1.700% W.I., with the auction of $35 billion in 5 Year bonds pricing at 1.710%.

The renewed optimism that's surrounded Greek debt negotiations since Monday evening evaporated like deposits on a hot summer day in Athens this morning as the IMF has indicated it will stick to its "red lines" on pension cuts and the VAT, meaning PM Alexis Tsipras will either surrender unconditionally or embrace an EMU exit.