Fail

For the last two weeks here in the UK, TV stations have been running a documentary series called “Bank of Dave“, in which down-to-earth businessman Dave Fishwick attempts to establish his own bank. The premise sounds plausible: offer depositors 5% interest (as opposed to zero), and lend to credible small businesses that are otherwise ignored by the majors. But as the irrepressible Dave soon discovers, getting a new banking licence in the UK isn’t easy. ‘Bank of Dave’ has obviously been, albeit inadvertently, deliciously well-timed, arriving on television and computer screens accompanied by increasingly shrill coverage of interest rate rigging in the LIBOR manipulation scandal. Granted, the news of the world’s biggest banks colluding to manipulate interest rates to their own benefit has spark a major debate about banking. But what’s frustrating about the banking debate is how narrowly focused most contributors are.

The three "de's:" deregulation, desupervision, and de facto decriminalization.

UPS, traditionally considered one of the legacy bellwether, came out with earnings. And they were ugly. The company missed both the top and bottom line, with the revenue coming at $13.35 billion, below expectations of $13.7 billion, and EPS at $1.15 on expectations of $1.17. This merely confirms what those who did not have their head in the sand in Q2 knew all along: without Europe, global trade stalls every time. But it was the outlook cut that was the cherry on top: "The company’s performance was mixed during the second quarter,” said Kurt Kuehn, UPS’s chief financial officer. "The results in the U.S. Domestic and Supply Chain and Freight segments were partially offset by the weakness in International. “As we look toward the second half of the year, customers are more concerned as greater uncertainty exists. Additionally, economic growth expectations have come down,” Kuehn continued." China bull take note: "Revenue was $3 billion as the segment remains under pressure due to weaker global economies and reductions in exports from Asia." Going back to Kuehn: "Consequently, we are reducing our guidance for 2012 diluted earnings per share to a range of $4.50 to $4.70, an increase of 3%-to-8% over 2011 adjusted results.”  The firm's previous guidance was $4.75-$5.00, with sellside consensus of $4.82. Somehow we fail to see how the Q3 and Q4 renaissance, which is so critical to meet the S&P target of over 100 in earnings, will happen. Actually scratch that: it won't. Expect reality to slam stocks head on some time in Q3 as the realization that the air out of the US corporate juggernaut has come out, courtesy of a sliding EUR and surging USD. Or at least until the Chairman has something to say about it.

In a first for Moody's, the rating agency, traditionally about a month after Egan Jones (whose rationale and burdensharing text was virtually copied by Moody's: here and here), has decided to cut Europe's untouchable core, while still at Aaa, to Outlook negative, in the process implicitly downgrading Germany, Netherlands and Luxembourg, and putting them in line with Austria and France which have been on a negative outlook since February 13, 2012.The only good news goes to Finland, whose outlook is kept at stable for one simple reason: the country's attempts to collateralize its European bailout exposure, a move which will now be copied by all the suddenly more precarious core European countries.

There is one personality trait that no gold and silver investor should ever be without.

There was a time when we mocked all those who said the US economy can sustain some sort of organic, Fed-free recovery on its own, and perhaps, just perhaps, regain the virtuous cycle. We now just feel sad for them. The latest confirmation why those perpetual optimists will likely never again get it correct in their lifetimes, except for the 1-2 month (and increasingly shorter) period just after a new LSAP program is introduced by the Fed, is the June US economic report card. Courtesy of Bank of America we see that 22 of the 30 most important economic indicators in June missed expectations. And since this includes the seasonally adjusted July 7 claims beat, which was discovered to have been merely a seasonal auto-channel stuffing gimmick, the real number of misses is 23 out of 30, or a whopping 76% fail rate.

The last time a sovereign bond issue was imploding at this rate without the ECB's intervention, Silvio Berlusconi was about to be forcibly retired. This time, however, we fail to see what the assorted globalist elements will benefit by having Rajoy displaced: after all he has been a studious and versatile pawn of the status quo, who squawks repeatedly and whenever needed that Spain is solvent and that its banks are not in need of a bailout. That said, stick a fork in Spain, and all those newsletter writers who were saying to buy its bonds, or equities: at last check the IBEX was down nearly 5%, after falling by the same amount on Friday. This is the equivalent of the Dow Jones tumbling by just about 600 points. The catalyst - the 10 Year which touched on 7.565% minutes earlier, as virtually all hope is now lost - it is now every country and region for himself, and he who panics first, panics best.

Too Big Leads To Destruction of the Rule of Law

With just a few days left until the pre-opening soccer games begin in the UK, we continue our five part series (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) on the intersection between markets and the Olympics by considering whether an integrated Europe would have performed relatively better - i.e. would 2+2>4 - and what are the factors. Goldman's analysis of the pros and cons of 'integrating' their Olympic teams is extremely apropos the current deteriorating (yet desperately dreaming of improving) coordination of these 17 disparate nations. The answer, of course, is that there are some benefits from this medal 'integration' in specific cases but since German reunification, their medal performance has deteriorated - even in the team events where aggregating talent pools should have its greatest gains. In a 'zero-sum' context such as competing for Olympic medals, Germany's gains must come at the expense of other countries - and rather notably there are few French medal winners before or after an 'integration. Sounds familiar?

The most corrupt moron of a Treasury Secretary the country has ever known...

What's Ben gonna do?

Two years ago, in January 2010, Zero Hedge wrote "This Is The Government: Your Legal Right To Redeem Your Money Market Account Has Been Denied" which became one of our most read stories of the year. The reason? Perhaps something to do with an implicit attempt at capital controls by the government on one of the primary forms of cash aggregation available: $2.7 trillion in US money market funds. The proximal catalyst back then were new proposed regulations seeking to pull one of these three core pillars (these being no volatility, instantaneous liquidity, and redeemability) from the foundation of the entire money market industry, by changing the primary assumptions of the key Money Market Rule 2a-7. A key proposal would give money market fund managers the option to "suspend redemptions to allow for the orderly liquidation of fund assets." In other words: an attempt to prevent money market runs (the same thing that crushed Lehman when the Reserve Fund broke the buck). This idea, which previously had been implicitly backed by the all important Group of 30 which is basically the shadow central planners of the world (don't believe us? check out the roster of current members), did not get too far, and was quickly forgotten. Until today, when the New York Fed decided to bring it back from the dead by publishing "The Minimum Balance At Risk: A Proposal to Mitigate the Systemic Risks Posed by Money Market FUnds". Now it is well known that any attempt to prevent a bank runs achieves nothing but merely accelerating just that (as Europe recently learned). But this coming from central planners - who never can accurately predict a rational response - is not surprising. What is surprising is that this proposal is reincarnated now. The question becomes: why now? What does the Fed know about market liquidity conditions that it does not want to share, and more importantly, is the Fed seeing a rapid deterioration in liquidity conditions in the future, that may and/or will prompt retail investors to pull their money in another Lehman-like bank run repeat?

For investors, the continued increases in profitability, at the expense of wages, is very finite.  It is revenue that matters in the long term - without subsequent increases at the top line; bottom line profitability is severely at risk.  The stock market is not cheap, especially in an environment where interest rates are artificially suppressed and earnings are inflated due to "accounting magic."  This increases the risk of a significant market correction particularly with a market driven by "hopes" of further central bank interventions.  This reeks of a risky environment, which can remain irrational longer than expected, that will eventually revert when expectations and reality collide.

Ultimately, we should not be doing business with businesses that are repeat offenders; it's kind of like Stockholm syndrome. We keep on allowing ourselves to be abused and even protect our abuser. Unless and until the business changes their ways and assists in the prosecution of White collar criminals, we're going to keep on having problems in how our society functions. Why our local governments continue to do business with the big Wall Street banks is beyond me. In many cases, it appears that the management decided to incorporate fraud into their business models. No reasonable person would knowingly do business with the Mob, but we continue to do business with these banks which have been run just like organized crime. We can either live by the rule of law or the law of the jungle. I prefer the former.

Wealth has become stateless, and as a consequence it is becoming increasingly less accountable to any state’s laws or tax codes. Over the last quarter century it has become increasing easier to transfer large sums of money, what is more, large financial institutions find it far easier today to relocate to a different legal and tax jurisdiction than at any previous time, because it is easier to re-establish the necessary business infrastructure, the cost of relocation has lessened. Recognising this trend over the last quarter century, and being desirous of any slice of revenue they can get their hands on, governments around the world have competed with each other, to provide the ‘best business environment’ for those financial institutions. Let’s not delude ourselves about this, the ‘best business environment’ is the least regulation and the most advantageous tax breaks. And by competing with each other in this way, governments around the world created the regulatory environment which was, in part, responsible for the current financial crisis. And then there are the ‘Tax Havens’