Archive - Jul 7, 2015 - Story

Chinese investor psychology has shifted. Period. The more the government intervenes to lift stock prices explicitly, the more local and professsional leveraged investors will use any strength to unwind their positions (profitably or unprofitably). The question is - when does this carnage stop?

"Greek banks closed for a week, cash withdrawals from ATM’s restricted to a limited amount per person per day is all too familiar to Zimbabweans. We know exactly how this feels: the fear, anger, despair and disbelief that goes with watching your life savings evaporating and knowing there’s nothing you can do to save it."

There is an argument to be made that this could indeed be a "new market" given the continued interventions by global Central Banks in a direct effort to support asset prices. However, despite the coordinated efforts of Central Banks globally to keep asset prices inflated to support consumer confidence, there is plenty of historic evidence that suggest such attempts to manipulate markets are only temporary in nature.

The President and German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke by phone this morning about Greece. The leaders agreed it is in everyone's interest to reach a durable agreement that will allow Greece to resume reforms, return to growth, and achieve debt sustainability within the Eurozone. The leaders noted that their economic teams are monitoring the situation in Greece and remain in close contact.

HSBC just can't seem to help itself. As The Sun reports, as part of a "team-building" exercise, six bankers filmed the fake ISIS-style beheading of an Asian colleague - while yelling 'Allahu Akbar'. However, given that these were not C-level executives, there has been some consequences - the six bankers have been fired with HSBC noting "this is an abhorrent video and HSBC would like to apologize for any offense."

It seems China better hurry up and a) enable HFT on Shanghai and Shenzhen bourses, and b) enable options trading directly...

Despite endless assurances that the Greek debt crisis is contained, the reality is that the ragin' contagion of debt crises will spread not just to other deeply indebted nations but to the mercantilist economies that depend on selling goods to borrowers. Strip out the borrowing, and you strip out most of the customers for German, Dutch and Chinese goods.

The US mint running out of physical silver, confirming surging demand, on the same day the price of spot silver plummets, implying dropping demand. just does not quite compute...

Because when banning selling doesn’t work, the logical next step is to ban talking about selling...

In Spain, only Vladmir Putin is more disapproved of than Angela Merkel. Such is the level of polarization that Germany's chancellor has created in Europe that, as WSJ reports, even domestically she is being deriled for saddling Greeks with "soup kicthens upon soup kitchens." As Marcel Fratzscher, head of the German Institute for Economic Research, a leading Berlin think tank notes, "Germany has, at the end of the day, helped determine most of the European decisions of the last five years," and therefore, "what is happening now is a defeat for Germany, especially, far more than for any other country."

"We Greeks have voted 'No' to slavery -- but 'Yes' to our chains... What's simply whack-o is that, while voting "No" to austerity, many Greeks wish to remain shackled to the euro, the very cause of our miseries."

Everyone was expeting today's "hope" headlines, and as usual, they were not disappointed.

With all the equity excitement from China to Europe to the US, it was easy to forget that the US has some $24 billion in budget deficit and debt rollovers to find in the form of 3 Year paper. And moments ago the US Treasury priced the first of the week bond issue when it sold 3 Year notes at a 0.932% yield, the lowest since April, and stopping through the When Issued 0.936%. While the Bid to Cover came in at a lowish 3.156, the weakest since last August, the internals made up for it, as the Direct take down jumped from 9.7% to 13.9%, and Indirects ended up with 47.7% of the issue leaving 38.4%, or 3% below the TTM average of 41.3%.

Despite the ups and down of the last few weeks, 'relative' stability in US equities has confirmed talking heads' bias that 'Greece is contained'. However, Bloomberg's Smart Money flow indicator suggests that the big money (that trades at the open and close) is anything but believing and has in fact been selling since Greferedum...