Archive - Jul 10, 2015 - Story

A week ago we warned of the odd build up in inventories in GM's parking lots in China. It appears those warning were spot on as WSJ reports, China’s new car sales recorded the first year-over-year decline in more than two years in June, as slowing economic growth and falling stock markets hit the world’s largest auto market. “2015 will be an off-year for the Chinese car market,” said Dong Yang, a vice president for the auto manufacturers’ association, and we note auto dealers are seeing orders cancelled at a frenetic pace as it appears stock margin calls are draining the liquidity car-buyers once had.

Dear SEC, SIFMA, FINRA, CFTC, and anyone else who refuses to pay attention to the man behind the curtain. Following the initial dump in Treasuries after Greek proposal news overnight, bonds started to rally back... it appears that was unacceptable as 'massive' spoofing was then put in place to signal the price of Treasuries lower (yields higher)...

Greece has already collapsed, and the only real question is whether the ECB will give Greek depositors time to withdraw some of the €120 billion in deposits it holds hostage with the frozen ELA, or if the ECB will admit the truth about the Greek insolvent banking system risking Eurozone contagion. A better question is just what is the purpose of the IMF whose intervention in Greece can be described in one word: disaster. It can also be described in eleven, as the creator of the Taylor Rule, John Taylor, has done in a blog post which can be summarized as follows: IMF Loans To Greece Bailed Out Banks And Worsened The Situation.

“The energy sector of the high-yield market continues to be a silo of misery... If we stay near these levels, marginal high-cost producers won’t be able to survive.”

Recession watchers stay tuned... Wholesale Sales rose a mere 0.3% MoM (missing expectations of a 0.9% rise) but sales tumbled 3.4% YoY - the most since the financial crisis. Hopers will look at the rise in inventories (+0.8% MoM vs +0.3% exp.) as GDP positive but at some point the hope for a sales pick up fades and inventory stuffing stops (Sales -3.4% YoY, Inventories +5.0% YoY). But what should be worrying everyone right now is the inventory-to-sales ratio holding at recession levels.

We already know that markets and exchanges only break on downdays. So does that mean that on days in which algos are indescriminatly buying ES as follow through from China's stock market manipulation and Greece's "hopes" for can kicking, investors are safe? Nope, as one of the most popular online discount brokers found out moments ago:

• TD AMERITRADE EXPERIENCING "WIDESPREAD" ORDER-ROUTING PROBLEMS - OFFICE OF PRESIDENT: RTRS
• TD AMERITRADE SAYS EVEN ORDERS THAT WERE ACCEPTED ARE STALLED

Were some TDA traders maliciously selling China stocks overnight one wonders, or did Ameritrade also decide to do a "software update" in the middle of the trading day?

"With the drastic fall in share prices recently, social stability is clearly at stake," Credit Suisse says. With the bubble now finished it is only a matter of time before all the 'nouveau riche' farmers and grandparents see all their paper profits wiped out and hopefully go silently into that good night without starting mass riots or a revolution.

Following Varoufakis' resignation as Greek finmin on Monday, the first official casualty of the Greferendum which in retrospect was completely irrelevant, he has been put in a tough position of still having to be physically present in parliament of which he remains a member. But not today: moments ago Yanis tweeted that he will not be present to cast the critical vote supporting Syriza's backtracked proposal, as he will be detained for "family reasons."

The global and European economies are increasingly dominated by bureaucrats taking arbitrary decisions on capital allocation, with little regard for rules or process. The decisions of the ECB to reject the applications of the Bank of Greece for additional funding under ELA could have only been politically motivated, and therefore in clear violation of the ECB’s independence as enshrined in Article 123 TFEU. It is time for EU bureaucrats to stop acting as autocrats.

This much-needed re-set to an economy that serves the many rather than the few is what the Powers That Be are so fearful of. On the surface, everything still looks remarkably stable in the core industrial economies.  But surface stability is all the status quo can manage at this point, because the machine is shaking itself to pieces just maintaining the brittle illusion of prosperity and order. In effect, the status quo has greatly increased the system's vulnerability, fragility and brittleness--the necessary conditions for catastrophic collapse--all in the name of maintaining a completely bogus facade of stability for a few more years.

After staging another dramatic slump early in the year, which was once again blamed on snow to offset what was supposed to have been an "unambiguously good" for US spending gas price slump, retail sales finally picked up in May, laying out hope that the June print and onward, would be "good enough" to suggest that the US economy is recovering, some 6 years after the "recession ended" mind you, and is on track for a Fed rate hike.

Follows the full text of a letter Greek PM Tsipras send to the Troika: Commission President Juncker, ECB's Draghi, and the IMF's Lagarde regarding the latest Greek deal proposal. What is left unsaid: any debt haircut requests (recall just on Sunday night Tsipras requested a 30% debt haircut in line with the IMF's debt sustainability proposal), and any mention of the Greek referendum which Tsipras personally called two weeks ago to the day to reject precisely the proposal he is now presenting.

Markets are beginning to signal that policy makers are losing control.  Many second-order-effects of the unprecedented and experimental global actions taken since the 2008 crisis are beginning to manifest.  There are always causes and effects that develop; but they do so at different speeds. Many actions in recent years have prioritized 'benefits today' over 'consequences tomorrow'.  'Tomorrow' is approaching ever more quickly. There is no 'free lunch'.

The Dow has whipsawed over 2200 points this week... behold the price stability...