Archive - Aug 11, 2015 - Story

"...they're in a kind of silly loop where they did QE expecting a reaction... didn't get it.. and then they did QE again because it didn't live up to their expectations... but I think they have no other options, if things get negative on the economy, QE is all they can do."

Despite claiming yesterday's devaluation was a "one-off", The PBOC has devalued the Yuan Fix dramatically for the 2nd day in a row - now 22 handles weaker than Monday's Fix. Offshore Yuan is trading at 4 year lows against the USD. The carnage from this dramatic shift is just beginning as global equity markets (US futures to China cash) are tumbling, US Treasury bond yields are crashing, gold is up, China credit risk is at 2 year highs, and China implied vol has exploded to 4 year highs. Ironically, China's government mouthpeiece Xinhua explains "China is not waging a currency war; merely fixing a discrepancy."

Eventually it was bound to happen. The ever increasing ambiguous laws that allow the government to prosecute, or worse, simply negate all Constitutional protections of its citizens would come back to hang them.

"I’ve had enough Kardashians. I can’t take any more Kardashian stories on this show." A message many may start to heed...

One year ago, an 18-year old black man was fatally shot in Ferguson, Missouri by a police officer. Michael Brown’s death ignited a country-wide debate about the excessive amount of violence that occurs at the hand of police – particularly to African-Americans. Since then, at least 1,083 people have been killed by police in America...

Scaremongery... or maybe the whole point, as Obama's former chief economist noted, is to lose reserve status. Take That China!!

Printing-press money is fertile ground for expanding world crisis. Crisis is excellent cover for national and international chicanery. How can anyone who is paying attention not recognize these tremors for what they are?

If these sorts of negative consequences arise from a voluntary equal pay scheme, we don’t think we could expect anything better from an involuntary one on a national level.

Carry traders just got their fingers burnt by central bankers, again. Just 7 months after The SNB crushed Swiss Franc free-riders, as Bloomberg reports, The PBOC 'surprised' an armada of easy-money-addicts drawn to the Yuan by its stability, potentially wiping out their highly leveraged returns or leading to forced lqiuidations. Twice in 8 months is enough to shake anyone's faith in central bank omnipotence, but as Ben Hunt noted, potentially more crucial to the 'faith-based' investing of today, the Common Knowledge about Chinese growth – what everyone thinks that everyone thinks about Chinese growth – is dramatically changed for the worse today, and it’s a change that will accelerate unless the Narrative shifts.

Recent price volatility in the media sector got us wondering: is “Cord cutting” the home cable box in favor of online entertainment really hitting critical mass?

The violence in Turkey has escalated meaningfully over the past 48 hours as the country's crackdown on "terrorists" gathers steam and as Washington and Ankara ready a "comprehensive" plan to take the fight to ISIS in Syria. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister met with his Russian counterpart in Moscow where the two argued about the fate of Bashar al-Assad, while al-Qaeda refused to back the US and Turkey's "ISIS-free zone" because they believe it serves only to advance Ankara's narrow political interests. In short: "It's a friggin' mess."

For many years, rumors have circulated regarding the U.S. government’s involvement in an active cover-up of a sinister connection between Saudi Arabia and the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Now, thanks to a federal lawsuit in a Manhattan court, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel.

"There are some people out there who naively say that these wages can simply be passed along in terms of price increases. I don't think that the average franchisee believes that, and there will have to be other consequences, which is why we have pointed out that unfortunately we believe the some of these increases will clearly end up hurting the people that they are intended to help."

The economy operates within a finite world, so at some point, a problem of diminishing returns develops. In other words, it takes more and more effort (human labor and use of resources) to produce a given quantity of oil or food, or fresh water, or other desirable products. The problem of slowing economic growth is very closely related to the question: How can the limits we are reaching be expected to play out in a finite world? Many people imagine that we will “run out” of some necessary resource, such as oil, but we see the situation differently. Here are a few issues that may not be obvious.

The WSJ reported that none other than the operator of the biggest dark pool in the US by volume, Credit Suisse and its massive Crossfinder dark pool, "is in talks with regulators to settle allegations of wrongdoing at its “dark pool” with a record fine in the high tens of millions of dollars, according to people familiar with the matter." What is grotesque about this story, is that back in December 2012, it was none other than Credit Suisse which conveniently explained and laid out all those forms of HFT manipulation which we accused virtually every HFT firm of employing since 2009... and which Credit Suisse itself is now accused of engaging in!