Archive - Jul 2015 - Story

For several weeks the Schmitt family had a million-dollar secret on their hands. Last month, it recovered $1 million worth of sunken Spanish coins and jewels off the Florida coast. The Schmitts are subcontractors to 1715 Fleet-Queens Jewels LLC which since 2010 has the salvaging rights to a fleet of Spanish ships, aka the "1715 Fleet", that wrecked off the Florida coast some 300 years ago. While $50 million has been pulled in from the fleet’s resting place so far, this is so far the biggest single haul. The moment of euphoric discovery has been caught on tape, and yes, the diver sounds just a little more excited than were he to discover pet rock.

When people are hungry and unhappy, the state cannot survive if the people know others are better off. The state uses propaganda, misinformation, and censorship to make an already captive citizenry even more confused and submissive.

"The rise of China’s currency on global markets is arguably the most significant development in currency trading since the introduction of the euro in 1999."

According to Nielsen data, almost three times as many Americans watched "Celebrity Family Feud" on ABC that night. The audience for "I am Cait" also suffered a marked drop from the almost 8 million people who watched the ESPY awards show on television two weeks ago on which Jenner, 65, was presented the Arthur Ashe courage award."

Update: *TWTR'S NOTO: THIS IS BOTH A PRODUCT ISSUE AND A MARKETING ISSUE, DOESNT SEE SUSTAINED GROWTH IN MAUS UNTIL REACH MASS MKT

Just like on previous quarters, TWTR decided to use a gimmick when counting users, to wit: "Average Monthly Active Users (MAUs) were 316 million for the second quarter, up 15% year-over-year, and compared to 308 million in the previous quarter. The vast majority of MAUs added in the quarter on a sequential basis came from SMS Fast Followers. Excluding SMS Fast Followers, MAUs were 304 million for the second quarter, up 12% year-over-year, and compared to 302 million in the previous quarter." It took algos a few minutes to digest this fact, and as a result what was initially a solid 10% spike after hours, fizzled almost entirely, and as of this moment the stock had cut its after hours gains notably.

The average S&P 500 stock is no longer keeping pace with the market's moves... as breadth becomes focused on a shrinking pool of FOMO stocks.

The FOMC are to hold their July policy meeting on Wednesday at 1900BST/1300CDT with the overwhelming consensus being that the Fed will once again keep rates at their record low with attention more so on subtle tweaks to the statement given the broader consensus of a September move and given that this month there will be no projections or press conference.

Seriously...

"I have lost everything. I don't know what to do... I trusted the government too much... I won't touch stocks again, I have ruined everyone in my family." "I will sell all my shares tomorrow if there is a chance." ... "I am pretty sure that if the government does not come to rescue us, the situation will get much worse," ...  "I managed to sell them all at a loss today, and so I lost 320,000 yuan in two days. I don't have confidence on the market any more. I don't want to get into the market again."

When do we get to exercise democracy and fire every factotum, apparatchik, toady and lackey in the state who has abused his/her authority?

In a key ruling that may have implications far beyond Austria's borders, the country's constitutional court has struck down a bail-in that would have imposed losses totaling some €800 million on junior Heta bondholders.

Why the big slowdown? Why is the world falling apart? Because you can’t fake an economic recovery... Instead of “stimulating” a recovery, the feds have “simulated” one.

A former BOE employee and Mervyn King speechwriter who went on to a lucrative private sector career as a bond strategist at Deutsche Bank, and then as a hedge fund economist, is now going back to the BOE as a voting member. And that's not all. This revolving door story has a punchline...

Historically, the occasions of large numbers of New Highs AND New Lows at the same time did not bode well for the stock market. As we noted previously, “there are a number of stocks below the surface that are breaking down – yet enough that are still performing well to mask that weakness and prevent market participants from getting too bearish.” That dynamic that keeps participants from worrying too much about the deteriorating internals – and keeps them in the market – is just the thing that can set them up for significant losses. This is another example of the growing emergence of data points that echo the previous 2 cyclical tops.