Investment Grade

Some downward risk to the gold price remains due to the momentum of the recent severe correction in price. He points out that GoldCore had suggested on Bloomberg three years ago that a 50% correction in price was not unlikely at that time as is normal in long term bull markets.

Junk-rated Chicago is paying nearly 8% to issue debt these days and although the city's fiscal woes are set to persist, some asset managers are taking the plunge ahead of a key court ruling scheduled for Friday.

As the following chart shows, with $203 billion in investible dry powder which is probably the best way of calling AAPL's cash the Cupertino-based company is more than $30 billion larger than what is generally accepted to be the largest hedge fund in the world, Ray Dalio's Bridgewater, which however "only" managed some $171 billion as of May 2015.

After investing $410 million in March 2013, two billionaires are about to make a $500 million return an investment they have held just over two years, with the blessing of a whole lot of debt investors. And all they had to do was pick up the carcass of a company which did nothing more than crush its unions.

The reason IBM stock is currently sliding and dragging down the broader Dow Jones future with it is that with Q2 revenues of $20.8 billion, the company not only missed expectations, but was a plunge of 13.4% from a year ago: a drop that surpasses the biggest revenue drop recorded during the peak of the financial crisis! This is also 13 consecutive quarter of declining Y/Y revenues.

"Moody’s, which in 2013 began using a lower rate than governments do to calculate future liabilities, has estimated that the 25 largest U.S. public pensions alone have $2 trillion less than they need", Bloomberg reports.

Moody's and Fitch are taking a hard look at student loan-backed ABS and they don't necessarily like what they see. Fortunately, Citi has some pointers on how the ratings agencies might go about avoiding downgrades.

That an ETF can satisfy redemption with underlying bonds or shares, only raises the nightmare possibility of a disillusioned and uninformed public throwing in the towel once again after they receive thousands of individual odd lot pieces under such circumstances.

As we previously noted, liquidity is there when you don't need it, and it promptly disappears once it is in demand. Consider it "cocktease capitalism." If liquidity lasts longer than 4 hours, call the CFTC because you may be experiencing a spoof. Right now, the ultimate spoof is setting up as the credit default swap market collapses, and a global bond market margin call is just around the corner.

"The growing size of the asset management industry may have increased the risk of liquidity illusion: market liquidity seems to be ample in normal times, but vanishes quickly during market stress. This liquidity may be artificial and less robust in the event of market turbulence." So what's the solution? Unfortunately there isn't one. Instead, fund managers are simply resorting to emergency liquidity lines with banks which is just another manifestation of using cheap cash to delay the Schumpeterian endgame scenario which, if ever allowed to play out, will finally purge capital markets, reset the system, and free the world from the nefarious clutches of central bankers gone mad with delusions of Keynesian grandeur.

Stocks may be ignoring the 'dollar' and liquidity more broadly (at least as far as repurchases are concerned) but the continued stress in the eurodollar world has had an accumulating effect in some places. Primarily that has been shown in the once-thriving junk space, including more illiquid “products” like leveraged loans... By and large, there seems to be renewed concerns about liquidity, economy or both.

Is Deustche Bank the next Lehman is likely the wrong question to be asking. Is Lehman the template for European banking may be more to the point. Take it from the guy that called the Lehman debacle 5 months before the fact.

The Fed sees no risks of bubble trouble because they are looking at it all from the 2008 perspective. That is completely wrong-headed; if there is a “next one” it will have nothing to do with subprime mortgages, or even mortgages and real estate. Everyone seems to simply assume that the subprime problem ended in 2008, if only by crash. That is true but only of mortgages. Deleveraging is myth as debt has still expanded, and greatly, just not in the same exact places. There are certainly auto and student loans that have exploded exponentially, especially in subprime categories, but if there is another credit bubble now, the third, it is undoubtedly corporate debt.

U.S. companies announced $141 billion of new stock buyback programs last month and $243 billion of new M&A deals. Both figures are all-time records, and according to bubblevision are further evidence that CEOs are bullish on their companies and the economic outlook. You might say that. Then, again, it might put you in mind of swarming moths heading for a light bulb. The baleful truth is this. In its arrogant and misbegotten seizure of all financial power, the nation’s central bank has turned the C-suite of corporate America into a destructive agent of bubble finance. That’s ‘dumb money’ with a vengeance.

Last month, Chicago saw its debt cut to junk at Moody's, triggering billions in accelerated payment rights and jeopardizing efforts to improve the city's finances in the face of a budget gap that's set to triple over three years. Citi has more on the dreaded "downgrade feedback loop."