Archive - Jul 2015 - Story

Always a silver lining...

Speculative bubbles that burst are often followed by an echo bubble, as many participants continue to believe that the crash was only a temporary setback. But, echo bubbles aren't followed by a third bubble.

Earlier we asked in "one may wonder if NATO-member Turkey's land invasion of Syria, which many have said was long overdue following months of rhetoric and belligerent posturing, under the pretext of ISIS "liberation", has just begun." A following report from the WSJ largely answers our question: citing unnamed defense officials, WSJ reports that after months of negotiations, "Turkey has agreed to let the U.S. military carry out airstrikes against Islamic State fighters from a U.S. air base near the Syrian border."

Fast forward to this morning when in yet another Reuters piece, we "find" that the narrative has shifted once more and that now, "traders from Hong Kong to New York are pointing the finger at others for being behind the move while struggling to unmask the mystery sellers." In other words: the "hunt" for the great gold "bear raid leader" has begun.

Chinese Electricity Consumption year-to-date grew at 1.3% year-over-year in June. As China People's Daily reports, this is the slowest pace for mid-year in 30 years according to China Electricity Council.

Innovation in technology reduces the need for labor. More individuals are sitting outside the labor force increase the demand for available jobs. Increased competition for available jobs suppresses wage growth. It is a virtual spiral that continues to apply downward pressure on an economy based nearly 70% on consumption. Importantly, what small increases there have been in unit labor costs have primarily come at the expense of higher benefit and healthcare costs rather than an increase in wages. As discussed previoulsy, for roughly 80% of the working labor force, wages have declined over the last five years. Janet Yellen is right that wages will have a hard time increasing without a pick up in productivity. The issue is that innovation IS the problem, not the solution. That is unless we begin to include the productivity of robots.

In the middle of the biggest criminal scandal involving the Fed, but also an FT-owned expert network (an FT which until today was owned by Pearson), the expert network known as Medley Global Advisors just changed its owners, from the FT/Pearson to Japan's Nikkei, in a transaction advised by Rothschild for the buyer and Goldman, Evercore and JPM for the seller.

The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), once seen as a cornerstone of America’s energy security, is losing its shine in Washington.

Junk-rated Chicago is paying nearly 8% to issue debt these days and although the city's fiscal woes are set to persist, some asset managers are taking the plunge ahead of a key court ruling scheduled for Friday.

Schäuble seems to have foresaw the crisis back in 1994, distinguishing between core members and non-core members. Therefore, his thinking is quite different from that of France. Behind the curtain, the federalization of Europe is the ultimate goal, although politicians always denied that in front of the curtain. The curtain is starting to be drawn, but the equal federalization of Europe was never part of the German mindset.

"Public statements, media reports and market data reveal that Beijing unleashed 5 trillion yuan in funds - equivalent to nearly 10 percent of China's GDP in 2014 and greater than the 4 trillion yuan it committed in response to the global financial crisis - to calm a savage share sell-off. Beijing has thus produced the equivalent of around 1 index point gain for every $1 billion committed," Reuters reports.

It appears the "Greece is fixed" exuberant reach for risk is over. 30Y Treasury yields had soared 30bps in 3 days after a disastrous "Greek deal" was announced, has rallied all the way back and now trades back below the crucial 3.00% level... This is the best streak of gains for the long-bond in 4 months.

As the following clip from Turkey's DHA news agency shows, one may wonder if NATO-member Turkey's land invasion of Syria, which many have said was long overdue following months of rhetoric and belligerent posturing, under the pretext of ISIS "liberation", has just begun.

There has been a lot of chatter in recent days about the plunge in commodity prices - capped off by this week’s slide of the Bloomberg commodity index to levels not seen since 2002. That epochal development is captured in the chart below, but most of the media gumming about the rapidly accelerating “commodity crunch” misses the essential point. To wit, the central banks of the world have shot their wad.  The Bloomberg Commodity index is a slow motion screen shot depicting the massive intrusion of worldwide central bankers into the global economic and financial system. Their unprecedented spree of money printing took the aggregate global central bank balance sheet from $3 trillion to $22 trillion over the last 15 years. The consequence was a deep and systematic falsification of financial prices on a planet-wide scale.

"If in the short run, to paraphrase Benjamin Graham, equities are a voting machine, then it seems many of these votes are being coerced by interventionists.Central bankers the world over have become obsessed with asset prices, to the extent that the notion of central banks making outright purchases of equities is no longer confined to the lunatic fringe."