Bank of Japan

For the US, it’s now shooting fish in a barrel – but just for now. The three-pronged plan the Fed has started to execute is plain for everyone to see... And it will have the rest of the world begging for mercy.

While the 0.001% of the world dine together and plan their next moves, here are the main events in the week ahead.  

• How you know it is all a lie: Pelosi Presses Obama to Talk Up Stronger U.S. Economy (BBG)
• Secret Goldman Sachs Tapes Put Pressure on New York Fed (NYT), Uh, no they don't
• Clashes Break Out at Hong Kong Protest Site (WSJ)
• N.Y. Fed Lawyer Says AIG Got Billions Without Paperwork (BBG)
• Ebola’s Disease Detectives Race to Track Others Exposed (BBG)
• UPS, FedEx Want Retailers to Get Real on Holiday Shipping (WSJ)
• No more mailman at the door under U.S. Postal Service plan (Reuters)

Define irony. Literally hours after financial entertainment outlet CNBC wrote an article in which it said that "As fourth quarter kicks off, there's one market in Asia that has investors excited: Japan" the Nikkei crashed.

To claim that this is the market at work makes no sense anymore. Today central banks, for all intents and purposes, are the market. Our overall impression is that the Fed has given up on the US economy, in the sense that it realizes – and mind you, this may go back quite a while - that without constant and ongoing life-support, the economy is down for the count. And eternal life-support is not an option, even Keynesian economists understand that. Add to this that the "real" economy was never a Fed priority in the first place, but a side-issue, and it becomes easier to understand why Yellen et al choose to do what they do, and when. When the full taper is finalized next month, and without rate rises and a higher dollar, the real US economy would start shining through, and what’s more important - for the Fed, Washington and Wall Street - the big banks would start 'suffering' again.

Having totally killed the Japanese government bond market, Shinzo Abe has - unlike the much less transparent Federal Reserve, who allegedly use their proxy Citadel - gone full tilt into buying Japanese stocks (via ETFs). In May, we noted the BoJ's aggressive buying as the Nikkei dropped, and in June we pointed out the BoJ's plan tobuy Nikkei-400 ETFs and so, as Nikkei news reports, it is hardly surprising that the Bank of Japan bought a record JPY 123.6 billion worth of ETFs in August. The market 'knows' that the BoJ tends to buy JPY10-20 billion ETFs when stock prices fall in the morning. The BoJ now holds 1.5% of the entire Japanese equity market cap (or roughly JPY 480 trillion worth) and is set to surpass Nippon Life as the largest individual holder of Japanese stocks. And, since even record BoJ buying was not enough to do the job, Abe has now placed GPIF reform (i.e. legislating that Japan's pension fund buys stocks in much greater size) as a primary goal for his administration. The farce is almost complete as the Japanese ponzi teeters on the brink.

As I was shorting S&P Futures late Thursday night it once again hit home how close financial markets are to some major shocks all due to ridiculous amounts of liquidity by Central Banks all over the world. 

Generally since 1999, and especially since 2008, the financial world has been dominated by Keynesian lunacy. Collectively, Central Banks have cut interest rates over 500 times and printed more than $12 trillion combating a brief 9-12 month period of deflation.

Even the most avid Bulls should grasp that market corrections of 10% to 20% are statistical features of all markets. Cranking markets full of financial cocaine so they never correct simply sets up the crash-and-burn destruction of the addict.

The US economy is dead. The Fed has known this for a long time, but pumped it up to where it is now to draw in all the greater fools, the so-called big investors who have made money like honey from QE and ZIRP. They are the greater fools. The American real economy ceased being a consideration long ago. We’re in for big surprises, and they won’t be pretty, they’ll be pretty nasty. There are far too many people who think of themselves as smart who don’t see the difference between a theater play and a reality show. The Fed will raise rates because that will make the biggest banks the most money. There’s nothing else that matters. The Fed can’t revive the US economy, that’s just a foolish notion. But it can suck a lot of wealth out of it.

File this under Devil's Advocate: what if the easy money in the stock market is no longer the "guaranteed" Bull melt-up but the Bearish bet on a sudden air pocket? Just as a thought experiment, put yourself in the shoes of the money managers who have the leverage to move the markets.

A paradigm shift for the Eurozone...

Overnight the most notable move has been the ongoing weakness in rates, with USTs reversing earlier Tokyo gains after BoJ Deputy Governor Iwata, in addition to commenting on a lot of things that didn't make much sense,  said he didn’t see any difficulties in money market operations even if BoJ bought bought government debt with negative yields, as InTouch Capital Markets notes. As a reminder, yesterday we noted that in a historic first the "Bank Of Japan Monetizes Debt At Negative Rates." As Bloomberg notes, this may be interpreted that BoJ may target negative yields to penalize savers, which "all boosts the appeal of yen-funded carry trades." In other words, first Europe goes NIRP, now it's Japan's turn! So while this certainly lit the fire under the USDJPY some more, which overnight broke about 106.50 and hit as high as 106.75 on Iwata's comments, it does not explain why the 10Y is currently trading 2.52% - after all the fungible BOJ money will eventually make its way into US bonds and merely add to what JPM has calculated is a total $5 trillion in excess liquidity sloshing in the global market.

First, Europe infamously shifted to a NIRP and now Japan has begun NIRP monetization. As WSJ reports, Tuesday marked another milestone in the topsy-turvy world of monetary easing in Japan: The Bank of Japan bought short-term Japanese government debt at a negative yield for the first time. In the understatement of the decade, one Japanese bank strategist noted, "The BOJ probably didn't expect this would happen, and T-bill rates staying negative should be a cause of concern for them." The BoJ's decision to scoop up these negative-yielding bills appears to confirm they will meet the QQE-buying demands no matter what the cost (to the Japanese people). The bottom line, the Bank of Japan is now implicitly issuing debt to the Japanese Treasury.

Straight-forward discussion about the investment climate and the week ahead.  Light on hyperbole, heavy on analysis.