Archive - 2015 - Story

"...Unfortunately, we don’t see conditions improving and only becoming more acute as liquidity continues to deteriorate, asset valuations become increasingly stretched, and the Fed navigates the unwind of the greatest policy experiment in history."

“I worry greatly that the rhetoric coming from the Republicans, particularly Donald Trump, is sending a message to Muslims here ... and ... around the world, that there is a ‘clash of civilizations.'” So said Hillary Clinton in Saturday night’s New Hampshire debate. Yet, that phrase was not popularized by Donald Trump, but by Harvard’s famed Samuel Huntington. That Clinton is unaware of the thesis, or dismisses it, does not speak well of the depth of her understanding of our world.

Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini - who once implored eurocrats to just be "honest" and admit that the Greek bailout "isn't going to work" - blames the euro for his country's economic woes and warns that if Brussels can't devise a viable strategy for controlling the influx of asylum seekers, "nation states will be forced to take matters into theur own hands."

Wishful thinking is not a solution. The world of work has changed, and the rate of change is increasing. Despite the hopes of those who want to turn back the clock to the golden era of high-paying, low-skilled manufacturing jobs and an abundance of secure service-sector white collar jobs, history doesn't have a reverse gear.

Just as we warned, since the US export ban 'lift' loomed, so WTI prices have shifted notably, having today converged to Brent's price for first time since January. It may have a lot further to fall as some analysts suggest the lifting of the export ban "is going to end up ultimately being bearish everything."

The only way to restore economic stability and avoid a major economic crisis is to end the Fed, or at least allow Americans to use alterative currencies. Some economists and policy makers claim that the way to stop the Federal Reserve from causing economic chaos is not to end the Fed but to force the Fed to adopt a “rules-based” monetary policy. Adopting rules-based monetary policy may seem like an improvement, but, because it still allows a secretive central bank to manipulate the money supply, it will still result in Fed-created booms and busts.

When the only healthy part of an already-impaired system turns negative, everyone will feel the resulting pain.

The main shortcoming of today’s militarized approach to fighting terrorism is simple - unless the expansion of dangerous ideologies like Wahhabism is stopped, the global war on terror, now almost a generation old, will never be won. No matter how many bombs the US and its allies drop, the Saudi-financed madrassas will continue to indoctrinate tomorrow’s jihadists.

The 10.5% crash in existing home sales is the worst November drop ever. Against expectations of a mere 0.2% drop, this is the largest miss in history asnd tumbles SAAR sales to the weakest since March 2014. The collapse in sales was across all regions, and ironically was accompanied by a rise in median home prices across all regions. Of course there was plenty of blame to go around, from inventory constraints to weather but most of all - paperwork - as new regulations - Know Before You Owe initiative, has meant longer closing times. In other words, wait til next month, it will all be great!?

Britain is set to deploy additional troops to the fight in Afghanistan after a suicide bomber on a motorbike killed six US troops near Bagram. The Taliban advance in Helmand underscores the country's worsening security situation and suggests that in relatively short order, Afghanistan will once again become a key battleground in what has become a multi-state regional proxy war.

It appears Swedish banks are falling over themselves to get rid of excess cash. We noted Swedish banks refusing to open bank accounts in September, and warned in October of a "giant wave of money" heading into Sweden thanks to the Riksbank-ECB policy divergence, and now, Swedish banks are paying each other to take cash off their balance sheets into year-end, as 1-week STIBOR crashes to -1.792%.

For weeks in a row, every new instance of an E.coli outbreak at Chipotle was taken by the BTFD crowd as an opportunity to, well, BTF-E.Coli, and as a result sharp intraday drops on recurring disease outbreak headlines led to prompt recoveries in CMG's price. However, this may no longer be the case: following yesterday's announcement of yet more cases emerging involving E.coli, one of CMG's biggest defenders, JPM analyst John Ivankoe has thrown in the towel, and first thing this morning downgraded the stock from Buy to Neutral, and lowered his target stock price from $630 to $555.

Despite every effort by The Fed to convince the world that everything is awesome, it's not. From China growth risks to concerns about tightening financial conditions, Goldman warns so-called 'grey swan' fears are rising with Brexit, Trumpe elected, widening terrorist threats, and increased protectionism the most impactful.

In today's anticlimatic economic print of the day, moments ago the BEA reported that Q3 GDP declined from 2.1% as per the first revision reported a month ago to 1.97%, fractionally higher than the 1.9% expected, as a result of a modest decline in Personal Consumption Expenditures as well as Private Inventories and Net Trade, offset by a fractional pick up in Fixed Investment, a category which will see far more downside in the quarters to come unless oil prices rebound, and the smallest possible increase in government spending.