Central Banks

On Monday, Zimbabwe announced that this small, economically devastated country would officially make the Chinese Yuan its legal tender as it seeks to increase trade with Beijing. In exchange for becoming not only a military but also financial colony of China, $40 million of its debts to Beijing would be canceled.  China was delighted it cost it only a $40 million debt write off to acquire its first official African colony.

If the money creation/distribution system isn't transformed, "reform" is nothing more than ineffectual policy tweaks that offer do-gooders the illusion of progress. The only real solution in my view is to create and distribute money at the base of the pyramid rather than to those in the top of the pyramid.

There is just one very big problem with this "solution"...

After a furious three day "dash for trash", no volume, no breadth, commodity-driven rally, even Santa is now exhausted and overnight US equity index futures were little changed with European and Asian shares mixed. The dollar has declines as gold, silver gain, with WTI initially continuing its recent meteoric rise (up over 8% in the past three days, nearly hitting $38), only to reverse and give up all overnight gains moments ago. Copper falls after Chinese stocks see a second day of weakness, down 0.7% while an unexpected tumble in the USDJPY to 7 weeks lows has dragged the Nikkei (-0.5%) and its futures down.

The market is well aware the price of risk is not correct, but they can’t fight it, and everyone is forced to crowd into the same trade by central bank (CB) intervention. By manipulating markets they have also reduced investors’ inherent conviction by rendering fundamentals less relevant, creating a highly unstable (fragile) situation that breaks violently when a sufficient catalyst causes risk to rise – overly crowded positioning meets a market with little conviction. Catalysts From BofAML's global equity derivatives desk's vantage point, it becomes clear that the biggest visible risk to financial markets is a loss of confidence in this omnipotent CB put.

In an unexpected turn of events, the disappearance of not just synthetic but very physical dollars has hit one region much harder and much faster than we expected. Africa.

At the end of the day, the Fed led central bank money printing spree of the past two decades resulted in what is functionally a massive dollar short. Once the Fed stopped expanding its balance sheet when QE officially ended in October 2014, it was only a matter of time before all the “near-dollars” of the world would come under enormous downward pressure in the FX markets. Our Keynesian witch doctors believe that sinking currencies are a wonderful thing, of course. They claim making your country poorer is a good way to stimulate export growth and a virtuous cycle of spending and growth. But there is another thing. It is also a good way to generate capital flight and the ensuing chaos that creates.

2015 has witnessed several events that had, and will have, negative repercussions on individual freedom. Orwellian totalitarianism is increasingly creeping into our everyday lives. How much more intrusive will the violations of our liberties become and for how long will the establishment get away with this? With regards to the financial system, no real solution was found to issues such as those in the euro zone. Furthermore, the financial system as a whole once again got deeper into debt. For how much longer can central banks and governments continue kicking the can down the road without any real reform?

With the market now back to oversold conditions and redemptions complete, it is now or never for the traditional “Santa Rally.” Statistically speaking, the odds are high that the market will muster a rally over the next couple of weeks. While the short-term trends are indeed still bullishly-biased, the longer-term analysis (monthly) reveals a more dangerous picture emerging.

The first Fed rate hike in seven years was supposed to trigger a powerful equity rally as the bulls expected money to pour out of bonds into stocks; especially into the cyclicals. Unfortunately for the equity bulls,, as Mizuho's Steve Ricchiuto notes, this time things are different and instead of the Fed rate hike triggering the traditional Santa Claus rally; it looks like the FOMC is actually the Grinch. The key message delivered by the Fed though the SEP, the DOTS and the Chair’s post meeting press conference is that this is the best the economy is going to get.

Needless to say, these names are just the beginning: once the redemptions - and gating - genie is out of the bottle, there is no putting it back.

"...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."

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%.

The artificial lowering of interest rates sets a trap for businessmen by luring them into unsustainable business activities that are only exposed once the central bank tightens its interest rate stance.

In the last month, the ECB, US Fed and BoJ have all implemented new policies. ALL of their stock markets FELL afterwards.