Archive - Jan 2016 - Story

More people in the United States than ever are breaking away from the political duopoly by refusing to self-identify as either Democrat or Republican - and they now effectively comprise the true silent majority: Independents.

"Do you see what she's done to Germany? They have a problem. She went off the reservation. I don't know what happened to her. She was doing well."

We show the sources of return for AMZN stock, split between sales growth and multiple expansion. As the chart asks (and answers) the question longs should be asking themselves is whether it is "different this time?"

Baumgartner'd...

Well that escalated quickly...

The Islamic State's play for Libyan oil could lead the warring governments to speed up a power-sharing agreement to end the civil war and unite them in the face of an even greater threat. Or, they could lose all to ISIS, which would allow the terrorist group to seize control of an OPEC country.

One of our favorite hypocritical CEOs spoke this morning to try and explain why his rail freight transportation company's stock is plunging. 11 months ago Michael Ward was adamant on CNBC that he has "not seen any changes," suggesting everything's fine down to $30-35 oil and "expected no impact on crude shipments." Today, he exclaims, the volume drop can be seen as "freight recession," warning that "there is pressure on markets not seen outside of a recession." He is right, of course, as we noted previously, the weakness in rails is entirely recessionary and is no longer limited to industrials or coal.

China is untenable in its current financial position. That is the primary problem, and so long as it remains so whatever the PBOC does will have but a fleeting impact. In more immediate terms, that is being recognized by the “dollar” run which continues to savage not just China but South America (more than just Brazil), Africa, Asia (more than China) and you might even argue Canada and Mexico. From that, we see that it isn’t China that is the problem with the “dollar”, it is the whole damn system.

The first week of July 2013 was the last time the Russell 2000 traded at these levels. That is 30 months of buy-and-hold for no return. Despite the constant clammer from "Small Cap fund managers" that they are the plaxce to be for protection against a soaring USD (since they are dominantly domestically focused), it seems the fact that small caps are much more sensitive to credit market conditions is the real reason and that market is carnaging.

The man who killed 10 German tourists on Tuesday in a brazen suicide attack in Istanbul has been identified as one Nabil Fadli, a ISIS-linked , Saudi-born operative who entered Turkey just last week as a Syrian refugee.

If anyone had expected that today's record AB InBev deal would lead to a tail in the just concluded $21 billion 10-Year (technically 9 Year-10 month CUSIP M56 reopening) auction, they would be very disappointed, when moments ago the US Treasury announced a high yield of 2.09%, stopping a whopping 1.5 bps through the When Issued 2.105%, and the lowest yield since October's 2.07%. But the real stunner was the internals, where the Directs took down at modest 11.3%, but it was the foreign central bankers, aka the Indirects, who took down a whopping 71%, the second highest on record, and just 0.3% shy of the record high hit in February 2011.

“We are seeking to understand the risk that corrupt foreign officials, or transnational criminals, may be using premium U.S. real estate to secretly invest millions in dirty money,” said FinCEN Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery. “Cash purchases present a more complex gap that we seek to address. These GTOs will produce valuable data that will assist law enforcement and inform our broader efforts to combat money laundering in the real estate sector.”

The beaten-down Russell 2000 Small-Cap Index has reached a confluence of significant potential near-term support levels. Should this level fail to provide as much as a speed bump and the Russell 2000 slices right through it, then perhaps a more devastating market decline is already at hand.

While the market for corporate bond issuance has been relatively quiet among the recent broader market turbulence, in a few hours a historic new bond is about to price and be sold to investors. Earlier today, Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, the acquiror in the second largest M&A deal of 2015 valued at $117 billion and just shy of Pfizer's massive $160 billion merger with Allergan, started offering bonds that will back its takeover of SABMiller Plc in a sale that according to Bloomberg will stretch into Europe and is set to become the biggest corporate-debt offering on record.

Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the warm waters of the FANTAsy stocks, they slap you in the face with their triple-digit valuations...