European Central Bank

After a disappointingly un-uber-dovish speech this morning by Draghi,it appears The ECB needed to full ease-tard to make sure 'markets' believe. EURUSD tumbld 50 pips - to the lows of the day - after Reuters reports that, in what is becoming increasingly clear desperation, The ECB is mulling buying the debt of cities and regions.

Once again we feel the close tug of systemic illiquidity as it transcends the usual noise about assurances to ignore or trivialize all this growing uncertainty. Even though stocks and other assets have been trading in their own world mostly free from all this more hidden esoterica, the full weight of this analysis suggests that can’t be more than a temporary deviation. Since it is the angle of economy that is ultimately driving all of this, everything depends upon a global economy that has already been beaten down far past anticipation.

Commodity pices are crumbling this morning as more jawboning of a "big cut" from The ECB has sparked further EUR weakness and thus USD strength (EURUSD 1.0740).  WTI's morning bounce (after flash-crashing at the Asia open) has been erased and new lows are looming. Silver is back at a $14 handle and Gold is holding below $1100.

Compare and contrast:

- In the US, after 7 years of ZIRP and QE, the expected December rate hike is supposed to push up inflation and confirm the economy is improving; it is naturally bullish for stocks.
- In Europe, a year and a half of NIRP and a year of QE, a December rate cut further into negative territory is supposed to push up inflation and confirm the economy is improving; it is naturally bullish for stocks.

The cries for going totally crazy are growing louder... the lunatics are running the asylum. One shouldn’t underestimate what they are capable of. The only consolation is that the day will come when the monetary cranks will be discredited again (for the umpteenth time). Thereafter it will presumably take a few decades before these ideas will rear their head again (like an especially sturdy weed, the idea that inflationism can promote prosperity seems nigh ineradicable in the long term – it always rises from the ashes again). The bad news is that many of us will probably still be around when the bill for these idiocies will be presented.

"After many years of ultra-accommodative polices, it is clear that ongoing interventions have failed to boost actual economic growth and only exacerbated the destruction of the middle class. It is clear that employment growth has only been a function of population growth, as witnessed by the ongoing decline in the labor-force participation rates and the surging levels of individuals that have fallen out of the work-force. While we will continue to operate to foster maximum employment and price stability, the reality is that the economy overall remains far to weak to sustain higher interest rates or any tightening of monetary policy."  

Until recently, the consensus assumed a strengthening of the global economy in 2016. It won’t happen. If the global economic growth manages to reach 3.1% next year, as forecast by the IMF, it will be a miracle. We are close to the end of the current economic cycle. The outbreak of a new global crisis in the coming years is inevitable.  The Fed and other central banks are in a dead-end having fallen in the same trap as the Bank of Japan. If they increase rates too much, they will precipitate another financial crisis. It is impossible to stop the accommodative monetary policy.

While there are certainly reasons to be "hopeful" that stocks will continue to rise into the future, "hope" has rarely been a fruitful investment strategy longer term. Therefore, let's analyze each of the optimist's arguments from both perspectives to eliminate "confirmation bias." 

Dennis Gartman, author of the institutionally well followed ‘The Gartman Letter,’ has asked questions about gold’s peculiar price action last week and raised the question as to whether there was official central bank manipulation of gold prices.

These banks, 6 years after the global financial crisis, are still facing shortcomings on their balance sheets... How scary is that?!

Today we got yet another tortured admission of just how ugly Greek balance sheets are, the ECB has admitted what we knew months ago, namely that more than  half of all Greek loans are now nonperforming, and that as much as 57% of the loans made by Piraeus Bank the bank which fared worst, are at risk with the other Greek banks not much better off.

Americans are increasingly likely to respond positively to a placebo in a drug trial – more so than other nationalities. That’s the upshot of a recently published academic paper that looked at 84 clinical trials for pain medication done between 1990 and 2013. These findings, while bad for drug researchers, does shed some light on our favorite topic: behavioral finance. Trust and confidence makes placebos work, and those attributes also play a role in the societal effectiveness of central banks. That’s what makes the Fed’s eventual move to higher rates so difficult; even if zero interest rates are more placebo than actual medicine, markets believe they work to support asset prices.

Investors are aware that the market is manipulated... and it doesn’t seem to worry them. They don’t fight the Fed; they sit down at the table with it. They play the game. And so far, they have done well. But now... She will signal that, soon, the central bank will begin the long return to “normalcy.” Don’t believe it. The entire system depends on abnormality.

Europe has unleashed yet another monetary panic, and nowhere is it more visible than in what happened today across the short end of Europe's government curve.  As the table below shows, more than half of European sovereign issuers just saw the yield on their 2 Year Notes trade not only below zero, but hit never before seen negative yields!

With EURUSD having crashed to a 1.09 handle, some would say Draghi's work is done (in terms of crushing US corporate revenues) but there is a bigger problem for the ECB head. The market has already entirely priced-in a cut in the ECB Deposit Rate (in fact is already pricing in even more - at -35bps, from -20bps) which may be an issue as two ECB governors have come out today, jawboning investors not to expect more easing soon. This has sparked a reversal in EURUSD and risk assets are rolling over...