Archive - Jan 15, 2016 - Story

As so often happens, whenever there is a political spat in Europe, the rating agencies are quickly involved (thing S&P and Moody's downgrades and upgrades of Greece depending on how well the vassal nation is "behaving"), and moments ago S&P downgraded Poland from A- to BBB+ outlook negative, precisely due to Poland's new media law which has been the topic of so much consternation over the past week. In other words, S&P is now nothing more than a lackey for Brussels, threatening to send Polish yields higher if Poland does not fall in line.

When "whatever it takes" meets "get me out now!"...

For the first time in three years and before that the recession, the total volume of freight moved by road, rail, pipeline, inland waterways and air has fallen Y/Y. Meanwhile, on the high seas, the Baltic Dry has collapsed under 400. 

BofAML says that clients are no longer in "denial" about recession/bear market risks; but clients not yet willing to "accept" we are already well into a normal, cyclical recession/bear market.

How about now?

Behold: the effect of an across the board minimum wage hike...

There has been some confusion overnight whether Goldman, in a note released overnight, is calling for a new "bull market" in oil and commodities in general. Goldman did not call for a bull market. This is what it did say, and it is not good news for US banks.

Just as Wholesale inventories-to-sales ratios flash recessionary signals so Business inventrories-to-sales point to US heading towards an inventory-dump recession. At 1.38x, the ratio is the highest since the last crisis as both sales and inventories fell Mom but year-over-year, sales tumble (-1.4% YoY) and inventories rise (1.6% YoY).

Exchange says Nasdaq/Finra TRF -- a service dark pools and other off-exchange venues use to report stock trades -- is experiencing technical issue.

The great Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - the long-time dictator of crude oil prices for the world - is struggling on all fronts. The Saudis are in a state of panic all around - from its OPEC status and dwindling reserves to its proxy wars that absolutely cannot turn into full-fledged wars and its growing friendlessness. At the end of the day, Saudi Arabia has overextended itself, and overestimated its prowess and it does not have the clout that it once had to be able to do this effectively.

“Yeah well, considering you’ve got a book value of $20 billion and you haven’t reported an operating EBIT gain in the last two years, I think they’ve been lucky to get away with such a modest amount. I think they’ll be having the same discussions with their auditors in July."

Remember when the Fed's dots - less than a month ago - suggested there would be 4 rate hikes in 2016? Ah, the memories. Well, you can not only forget that (now that the market is estimating the next rate hike will come in October if ever), but it appears that the Fed will follow Kocherlakota's advice after all and not only cut rates (the possibility of a January rate cut now is 10%), but will pass go, and collect negative rates:

• DUDLEY: IF ECONOMY WEAKENED, WOULD CONSIDER NEGATIVE RATES

After today's atrocious, recessionary data, one can be certain that the Fed is furiously considering negative rates.

It has been a roller-coaster week for precious metals as the 50-day moving average remains key support for Gold and resistance for silver. This morning's chaos appears to have reignited the bid for safety once again...

There comes a time when you just have to admit you were wrong... You were wrong. Industrial Production plunged 1.8% year-over-year - the fastest pace of collapse since May 2008 and a level that has never not produced a recession.