Archive - Aug 2015 - Story

"I haven't got a computer, but I was told about Facebook and Twitter and am trying to make friends in the real world applying the same principles..."

Japan's all important real wages, even those including bonuses and special payments, once again failed to keep up with inflation, and in June crashed by a whopping 2.9% reflecting a 0.5% yoy increase in the CPI excluding imputed rent. As the chart below shows, there has now been 24 consecutive months without a single Y/Y monthly increase in real wages. What's worse is that when one adjusts the inflationary surge from the consumption tax hike last April, which has now been fully anniversaried and is no longer part of the base effect, this was the largest decline in Japan's real wages since December 2009, or the biggest monthly plunge in 6 years!

Just days after China bans Citadel (and its high frequency trading) from trading Chinese markets, US Treasury and Federal Reserve officials have been forced to admit they "need to consider whether the race for speed, at this already advanced stage, helps or hurts market functioning." As WSJ reports, Fed governor Jerome Powell and Antonio Weiss, a senior counselor to U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, said Monday that the government should re-evaluate the structure of U.S. markets in light of recent events. They are growing more concerned about signs that financial markets have grown more volatile with the growth of fast trading. As Weiss concludes, "the constant pursuit to save one more millisecond not only consumes resources potentially better invested elsewhere, but increases the pressure on the plumbing of the system to handle ever-increasing speeds and messaging traffic." The pre-emptive blame-mongery is beginning...

Overly myopic investors/creditors will continue to be confident in various drillers, based on the numbers of initial production (IP) data extrapolations and balance sheets, but will in the near future spend sleepless nights wondering why such good IPs and strong balance sheets produces poor or no profits and/or why they do not fully receive the money lent. Their worries will gradually morph from being focused on return on investment to return of investment. The mysteries created by Nature’s lack of cooperation with the balance sheets will surpass any other existential questions.

"Priced in?" Atlanta Fed's Lockhart is the un-Bullard as he proclaims that September would be "appropriate time" for rate hikes to begin... Stocks have roundtripped from initial excitement to lows of the day, short-end bonds are ugly as the curve flattens dramatically and the USD index is surging...

The American system of government is nothing like what we are told in school and via the oligarch-owned mainstream media. The country has become so captured and corrupted by sociopathic oligarchs, that a neo-feudal modern serfdom is emerging where the opportunities to enjoy rising standards of living for the vast majority of people was rapidly becoming a pipe dream. The Dark Ages almost look democratic by comparison.

How many times have we been told "excluding oil-related firms" everything is awesome? Well, we have one question, why did Factory orders ex-transportation just plunge a depression-like 7.5% YoY - the worst since the great recession in 2009...?

Now it is time for Merkel to face the unpleasant truth. Her aiming for a pain-free solution has failed. Now, she sits in the lower left box with unlimited costs for Germany, a tarnished reputation in Europe and a soon-to-come domestic backlash.

"It's all noise," squeaks Laszlo Birinyi, deflecting concerns about revenues, earnings, Europe, China, commodities, and rates as he unleashes his latest extrapolation. "If we continue to grow at 11bps per day, the S&P will be at 3,200 within 2 years," he warbles as he hopes his ruler - which missed its 2013 projection by 1100 points - is forecasting better this time.

Forget the broke window fallacy, meet the broken Brooklyn utopia. We are sure Mayor De Blasio will be cock-a-hoop this morning that a giant sinkhole has appeared in one of his boroughs - swallowing an entire intersection - as what is better for the economy than filling in holes created by a total lack of infrastructure spend with other people's money...

"Increasingly concerned about the markets, I’ve taken more aggressive action than in 2007, the last time I soured on the equity markets. Let me explain why and what I’m doing to try to profit from what may lie ahead."

Apple is now down 15% from record highs as "no brainer" investors begin to question their faith in its China prospects. This is the biggest drop since January 2013 and overall AAPL is now almost unchanged on the year...AAPL has lost $27bn market cap today.. a TWTR or a LNKD

A few quick observations: the top 10 highest valued companies have a combined private valuation of $156 billion, on just about $4 billion in revenues and employ a whopping 19.5 thousand people. In other words, the universe's combined historical Price/Sales ratio is 39x and each employee is worth about $8,000,000.

"I am speechless. Not since yesterday or last week. I have been speechless since July 13th when the Greek left-wing coalition government agreed to burden the country and the people with a new loan, the third bailout for Greece since 2010 together with the strictest austerity program ever.  I really don’t care if Varoufakis wears tasteless shirts and why he wanted to ‘hack’ taxpayers’ numbers while sitting with his team of skilled hackers and childhood friends... I just don’t care. It doesn’t affect my life, not even a tiny little bit. I give neither a a whole dam nor half of it for this so-called Greek political agenda after July 13th. What do I care about is watching  my country and the people falling into pieces."

For the 8th month in a row, US factory orders fell YoY. Down 6.2% in June, this is the longest streak of declining factory orders outside of a recession in history. MoM, factory orders rose 1.8% - as expected - the most since May 2014 but historical orders and shipments were revised lower. Inventories contonue to rise leaving inventories-to-shipments ratios at cycle highs.