Central Banks

This. Will. Not. End. Well. As WSJ reports, "retailers such as Kmart and Office Depot this week are starting to roll out cards that give the recipients small amounts of stock in some of the country’s best-known companies." "I have always wanted to get into the stock market business, but I honestly don’t have the time to explore what’s going on in the market trends of the day"...

This has infuriated the Fed and is forcing it to take more and more aggressive measures to trash cash.

So what's left in the toolbag of central banks and states to stimulate recessionary economies if QE has been discredited? The answer: Helicopter Money.

With JNJ about to announce - what are almost certain to be very bad - earnings in just over an hour, the company decided it was prudent to set the mood by preannouncing, less than an hour before earnings, good days are back again and that the company will do all in its power to not only increase the buyback pardon equity-linked compensation of CEO Alex Gorsky, but to reward shareholders for sticking with a company that hasn't announced a major buyback plan in recent months.

Marc Faber is an eloquent advocate of owning physical gold which he describes as being a way to become “your own central bank.”  He believes an allocation to physical gold will serve as vital financial insurance and that Singapore is the safest place to own gold in the world today.

For the past two weeks, the thinking probably went that if only the biggest short squeeze in history and the most "whiplashy" move since 2009 sends stocks high enough, the global economy will forget it is grinding toward recession with each passing day (and that the Fed are just looking for a 2-handle on the S&P and a 1-handle on the VIX before resuming with the rate hike rhetoric). Unfortunately, that's not how it worked out, and overnight we got abysmal economic data first from China, whose imports imploded, then the UK, which posted its first deflation CPI print since April, and finally from Germany, where the ZEW expectation surve tumbled from 12.1 to barely positive, printing at just 1.9 far below the 6.5 expected.

"I heard time and again this week from governors of emerging-market central banks that it’s not the hike itself that worries them. It’s how much and when it occurs." "Delaying an increase in rates only increases volatility and uncertainty in emerging markets."

Fed chief Janet Yellen’s hesitations and the market turmoil since August seem to validate that it is impossible to stop the accommodative monetary policy, unless you accept that doing so would trigger a new global crisis. The Fed is aware that raising interest rates too fast and too high could have the same effect as pressing the nuclear button. The whole system could collapse and it cannot be taken for granted that the central banks would be able to extinguish the fire this time. Their strike force has weakened because their balance sheets are exposed to market fluctuations and their credibility was seriously damaged because the measure they have taken have failed to strengthen the economy.

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Between a convoluted, self-referential reaction function and a cacophony of Fed speakers, the market simply can no longer process the FOMC's message and with that in mind, we bring you RBS’ Alberto Gallo who asks if perhaps we have reached “peak Fedspeak”.

The cyclical fallout from the Great Financial Crisis and the secular deflationary “D’s” of excess Debt, tech Disruption, aging Demographics have been the major catalysts for deflation.

We would argue the main reason for Blackrock’s attempt to persuade the exchanges to adopt its recommendations on trading halts is that Blackrock itself is inconvenienced by downside volatility. Presumably the company is no stranger to leverage (how else can it squeeze out large returns with a portfolio this large in a ZIRP world?) and is therefore forced to exercise stop loss orders itself when the market declines fast. Such attempts to “regulate” everything, even the price swings markets are allowed to make, are attempts to stem oneself against nature.

"The secular reality of deflation & inequality is intensified by recession & rising unemployment, investors should expect a massive policy shift in 2016. Seven years after the west went “all-in” on QE & ZIRP, the US/Japan/Europe would shift toward fiscal stimulus via government spending on infrastructure or more aggressive income redistribution.  …buy TIPs, gold, commodities, Main Street not Wall Street."

With the "adult supervision" of US markets gone today as bond markets are closed for Columbus day, and the USDJPY tractor beam also missing with Japan also offline for Health and Sports day, stocks took their cues from China where speculation was rife that in lieu of cutting RRR, the PBOC has unleashed even more incremental QE by expanding its Collateral Asset Refinancing Program (CAR). Specifically, the central bank said this weekend it will expand a program allowing lenders to use loan assets as collateral for borrowing from the central bank, opening it up to nine more cities from the program's test in Shandong province and Guangdong. The new areas for the program include Beijing and Shanghai. According to some estimates released several trillions in liquidity into the market, and not only sent government bond futures to new highs, but pushed the Shanghai Composite up over 3% overnight.

Oil price collapse: Have the central bankers painted themselves into a corner?