Archive - Aug 30, 2015 - Story

Following Monday’s historic stock market downturn, many politicians and so-called economic experts rushed to the microphones to explain why the market crashed and to propose "solutions” to our economic woes. Not surprisingly, most of those commenting not only failed to give the right answers, they failed to ask the right questions.

With 30% of Venzuelans eating two or fewer meals per day, social unrest is mounting rapidly in President Nicolas Maduro's socialist utopia. As WSJ reports, soldiers have now been deployed to stem rampant food smuggling and price speculation, which Maduro blames for triple-digit inflation and scarcity. "Due to the shortage of food... the desperation is enormous," local opposition politician Andres Camejo said, and nowhere is that more evident than the trampling death of an 80-year-old woman outside a state-subsidized supermarket.

Update: So much for the "no more intervention" - CHINA SAID TO ORDER BROKERAGES TO BOOST STOCK MARKET SUPPORT

A busy weekend in Asia was dominated by mayhem in Malaysia, and witch-huntery in China. Chinese authorities began a wide-scale crackdown on rumor-mongerers, arrested journalists, and even detained a regulator for insider trading, as they lifted loan caps on the banking system at the same as withdrawing (verbally) support for the stock market. China strengthen the Yuan fix by 0.15% to 6.3893 - this is the biggest 2-day strengthening of the Yuan fix since Nov 2014. Then just to rub some more salt in the wounds, Goldman cut China growth expectations to 6.4% and 6.1% respectively for the next 2 years. Chinese stocks are opening modestly lower (SHCOMP -3.3%).

While many were skeptical that the mystical Nazi treasure train had been finally discovered after many years of searching, an official update last Friday by the Polish government suggested that that may indeed be the case. As the Mail reported on Friday, a representative of the Polish culture ministry, Poland’s National Heritage and Conservation Officer Piotr Zuchowski, said that the man who helped hide the train had revealed its location shortly before he died, and that proof of the train has been observed on radar. Mr Zuchowski told reporters that the train was about 100 metres long but added: 'It is not possible to disclose the exact location of where the train can be found. 

The economic slowdown in China was set in motion a long time ago when the yearly rate of growth of the money supply fell from 39.3 percent in January 2010 to 1.8 percent by April 2012. The effect of this massive decline in the growth momentum of money puts severe pressure on bubble activities and in turn on various key economic activity data. Any tampering with the currency rate of exchange can only make things much worse as far as the allocation of scarce resources is concerned.

"You know what's funny? If we owed the state money, they'd come take it and they don't care whether we have a roof over our head. Our budget wouldn't be a factor. You can't say (to the state), 'Can you wait until I get my budget under control?'"

"Something happened  The August turbulence in global markets has produced significant shifts, including a 6.6% fall in equity prices. The currencies of emerging market countries have depreciated substantially against the G-4, while emerging market borrowing rates for sovereigns and corporates have moved higher. Global oil prices have been whipsawed as have G-4 bond yields. The speed and magnitude of these movements is reminiscent of past episodes in which financial crises emerged or the global economy slipped into recession. However, nothing appears to be breaking."

Chinese (Mis)Fortune Cookie...

In the latest example of Beijing attempting to deleverage and re-leverage all at once, China has lifted a cap on loan-to-deposit ratios for banks while simultaneously capping local government debt issuance for 2015. Meanwhile, bad loans are still on the rise at China's "big four" banks, underscoring the extent to which China's economy is rapidly deteriorating and drawing a line under the risk the PBoC is running by forcing banks to lend into an extraordinarily uncertain environment.

It appears a combination of Stan Fischer's 'September is still on the table' hawkishness (among others at Jackson Hole) and the "promise" once again that China will not intervene in the stock market anymore has taken all the exuberance out of last week's epic short squeeze in US stocks. Dow futures have given all of Friday's manipulation back and are trading back near Thursday's JPM panic lows - down 220 from Friday's close.

In markets distorted by permanent manipulation the most powerful incentive is to borrow as much money as you can and leverage it as much as you can to maximize your gains in risk-on asset bubbles. However, a core dynamic is laying waste to global financial markets: the greater the level of central bank/government manipulation, the greater the systemic fragility.

Curious why the S&P futures have opened down some 0.6%, wiping out the entire late-Friday ramp? The reason is that as SocGen summarizes it best, following the Jackson Hole weekend, we now know that despite Bill Dudley' platitudes "the door is still fully open to Fed liftoff in September."

"Sometimes the criticism directed at our policies implicitly attributes responsibility for the low interest-rate environment to central bank policies. But the truth is precisely the opposite: central banks are simply reacting to and trying to correct a situation that they did not create."

- ECB vice president Vittor Constancio

...one theory is that some within the Fed realized that QE wasn’t working, and never worked, thus another path was needed. But what alternative did they have, since rates were already ZERO? So maybe they changed course and took a strong dollar policy vs. a weak one to intentionally weaken the commodity sector and thus boost consumer spending. Throughout this down turn, that message has been repeated by Yellen herself many times, as a source of economic stimulus and for sure has been repeated over and over in the media and the talking heads of Wall Street.

Like a dog returns to its vomit, the Fed's speculative bubble policy enables the one percent to once again feast on the carcass of the real economy. 'And no one could have ever seen it coming.' Once is an accident. Twice is no coincidence. Remind yourself what has changed since then. Banks have gotten bigger. Schemes and fraud continue. What will the third time be like? And the fourth?