Market Conditions

The US dollar is sporting a softer profile today.  It had initially extended its gains after recovering in North America yesterday. In Japanese candlestick terms the euro and sterling had recorded "shooting stars", in essence opening on their highs and finishing on their lows.  Additional profit-taking was seen in Asia, earlier today.  The euro was pushed below its 20-day moving average for the first time since Dec 11.  Sterling fared better but still extended yesterday's losses.  However, in the European morning, both currencies have recovered to move back into yesterday's ranges.

The price action can be attributed to thinning market conditions and the recovery of the yen.  Indeed, "sell the rumor buy the fact" gains in the yen, may have pressured the other currencies as cross positions were also unwound.   The dollar has stabilized after slipping through the JPY84.20 area to trade below the previous day's low for the first time since Dec 10. 

A few days after divesting its stake in the firm that started it all, AIG, and at a profit at that (ignoring that the risk has merely been onboarded by the Fed whose DV01 is now $2+ billion as a result), the US Treasury continues to divest of all its bailout stake, this time proceeding to GM, where the channel stuffing firm just announced it would buyback 200MM shares from the US government at a price of $27.50. More importantly, the "Treasury said it intends to sell its other remaining 300.1 million shares through various means in an orderly fashion within the next 12-15 months, subject to market conditions. Treasury intends to begin its disposition of those 300.1 million common shares as soon as January 2013 pursuant to a pre-arranged written trading plan. The manner, amount, and timing of the sales under the plan are dependent upon a number of factors." Assuming a price in the $27.50 range, this implies a nearly 50% loss on the government's breakeven price of $54. So much for the "profit" spin. One hopes all those Union votes were well worth the now booked $40+ billion cost to all taxpayers.

Whereas last month's negative print in the Empire Fed index (which beat expectations), was attributed to Sandy, it will be difficult to see what attribute can be blamed for this month's major miss, in which the NY Fed just disclosed a -8.1 General Business Conditions update, down from -5.22, and below expectations of -1. This was the fifth consecutive month in which the index has printed negative, and the 6th miss of the past 9 reports. The new orders index dropped to -3.7 from +3.08, while the shipments index declined six points to 8.8. At 16.1, the prices paid index indicated that input prices continued to rise at a moderate pace, while the prices received index fell five points to 1.1, suggesting that selling prices were flat. Bad news for anyone that needs positive margins (i.e. everyone). But that's ok, because the Hopium index, i.e., the Six Month Ahead index, which is the only thing those who fail to see what Bernanke's just announced $1 trillion injection means for the economy have to fall back on, rose from 12.88 to 18.66. So it is all about the future, forget the present, but whatever you do, don't look at the forward Prices Paid indicator which soared to 52, the highest since May: surely NY corporations are optimistic due to the fact that they can now kiss margins goodbye for at least half a year.

The Richmond Fed's Jeffrey Lacker, a 2012 voting member of the FOMC, who has so far been the sole objector to the Fed's policy of exiting a hole by continuing to dig deeper, has released his traditional "good cop" response to Bernanke's QE4EVA plan. The highlights: "I disagreed with the Committee’s decision to continue purchasing additional assets to stimulate the economy. With economic activity growing at a modest pace and inflation fluctuating close to 2 percent — the Committee’s inflation goal — further monetary stimulus runs the risk of raising inflation and destabilizing inflation expectations....Deliberately tilting the flow of credit to one particular economic sector is an inappropriate role for the Federal Reserve....I have dissented previously against the use of date-based forward guidance, and I supported the decision to drop such language at the December meeting....monetary policy has only a limited ability to reduce unemployment, and such effects are transitory and generally short-lived. Moreover, a single indicator cannot provide a complete picture of labor market conditions. Therefore, I do not believe that tying the federal funds rate to a specific numerical threshold for unemployment is an appropriate and balanced approach to the FOMC’s price stability and maximum employment mandates." Of course, his objection is duly noted, and summarily rejected and forgotten.

Global Central Banks agree to another year of access to FRBNY FX Swap Lines

At the top of the agenda for today’s FOMC meeting is deciding what to do about the Maturity Extension Program (MEP). SocGen agrees with consensus (as we noted the day QE3 was announced means a ~$4tn Fed balance sheet is on its way) that the MEP (Twist) will be converted into outright QE. The size is more uncertain, but we see several reasons why the current pace of $45bn/month should be maintained (which combining with the $40bn MBS means the Fed’s balance sheet is expected to increase by $85bn/month from January onwards). There has been no “significant” improvement in the outlook for employment (recent data is likely to be played down by Bernanke). Scaling back monetary accommodation also seems at odds with the looming fiscal contraction which could dampen growth in early 2013, which SocGen suggests will lead to the FOMC’s economic forecasts being updated (and downgraded we suspect) as the 2013 GDP forecast of 2.5%-3.0% looks too high in the context of contractionary fiscal policy and is at risk of being revised down. As for the “Evans Rule,” we believe that it will be adopted eventually, but don’t expect an announcement for now.

No politics, no "death crosses" - just simple fundamentals.

There is only one problem with the home builders - expectations are way too high. The builders are not only priced for perfection (as we noted here) by the market, the builders themselves have business strategies that are modeled for perfection. We believe the bar is set at an unattainable level. In summary, the building model is flawed. Here is why.

Remember Michael Feroli? The JPM economist who "predicted" US Q4 GDP would be boosted by 0.5% due to iPhone sales (don't laugh: yes, US GDP, not that of China where the iPhone is actually produced, but the US where the consumer merely incurs more record student loans to be able to afford it)? Well, the same JPMorganite has now cut his Q4 GDP expectation to 1.5% for all the same reasons why we penned the second Q3 GDP revision: namely ugly internals, a surge in hollow government and inventory contributions to "growth", and a collapse in the purchasing power of the US consumer (who somehow is still expected to boost Q4 GDP with iPhone sales). And while there is no mention of the iPhone in his just released downward revision, he still believes the cell phone will provide a boost to Q4 GDP. In other words, of the 1.5% in GDP growth in Q4, the iPhone will account for 33% of this! One really can not make this up.

After this year's presidential campaign, private equity and certainly Bain Capital, will likely be the last entity that those pandering to populist agendas will go to advice over the future of the business cycle in broad terms, and the future of US labor, most certainly including outsourcing, in narrow terms. And Goldman - that staunch defender of the superiority of capital over labor - will hardly be confused as ever taking the role of workers in any discussion. Which is why we read the following interview by Goldman's Hugo Scott-Gall with Bain Capital partners Michael Garstka and Alan Bird on such topics as corporate restructurings and the future of outsourcing with great interest, as it is very much unlikely that any of the conventional media sources would carry it. And while one may have ideological biases in whatever direction, the truth as presented previously, is that US private equity is a massive "behind the scenes" juggernaut, whose portfolio holding companies account for a whopping 8% of US GDP, and is directly and indirectly responsible for tens of millions of currently employed US workers! At the end of the day, it may well be that what private equity firms such as Bain think about the future of US labor prospects is the most important thing that matters for the future of the so very critical US unemployment rate. Which is why we present, for your reading pleasure, the somewhat unorthodox interview below...

This EU juggler simply has too many balls in the air...

In what is the first formal speech of Simon "Harry" Potter since taking over the magic ALL-LIFTvander wand from one Brian Sack, and who is best known for launching the Levitatus spell just when the market is about to plunge and end the insolvent S&P500-supported status quo as we know it, as well as hiring such sturdy understudies as Kevin Henry, the former UCLA economist in charge of the S&P discuss the "role of central bank interactions with financial markets." He describes the fed "Desk" of which he is in charge of as follows: "The Markets Group interacts with financial markets in several important capacities... As most of you probably know, in an OMO the central bank purchases or sells securities in the market in order to influence the level of central bank reserves available to the banking system... The Markets Group also provides important payment, custody and investment services for the dollar holdings of foreign central banks and international institutions." In other words: if the SPX plunging, send trade ticket to Citadel to buy tons of SPOOSs, levered ETFs and ES outright. That the Fed manipulates all markets: equities most certainly included, is well-known, and largely priced in by most, especially by the shorts, who have been all but annihilated by the Fed. But where it gets hilarious, is the section titled "Lessons Learned on Market Interactions through Prism of an Economist" and in which he explains why the Efficient Market Hypothesis is applicable to the market. If anyone wanted to know why the US equity, and overall capital markets, are doomed, now that they have a central planning economist in charge of trading, read only that and weep...

In “The Biggest Myth About the Fed,” David Beckworth, an assistant professor of economics at Western Kentucky University, suggests that the pessimists are wrong to be concerned about what Mr. Bernanke and Co. are up to. The notion that current benign market conditions are a reason for optimism sums up just how out of touch with reality most academic economists (and other alleged experts, including journalists-cum-forecasters who parrot this nonsense) are.

By this sort of logic:

• Mid-2005 was the right time to be optimistic on housing
• January-2007 was the right time to be optimistic on the banking sector
• The spring of 2007 was the right time to be optimistic on credit markets
• The fall of 2007 was the right time to be optimistic on global equity markets
• Mid-2008 was the right time to be optimistic on commodities
• This past September was the right time to be optimistic on technology stocks

Of course, we know how those all worked out (hint: not well).

Let's see if Bush Sandy can be blamed for not only the Empire Fed, whose employment and expectations components plunged, for the Initial Claims, which soared and missed expectations by the second most in the past 13 years, but also for the Philly Fed, which just plunged from 5.7 to -10.7, far below consensus of 2.0, the 6th miss of the last 8 (except for last month of course), and returning to solidly negative territory after last month's "miraculous" pre-election surge. And while virtually all subcomponents plunged, the one that stood out to the upside was Prices Paid, as the margin collapse is set to ravage all companies not only in the greater Philadelphia region but everywhere else soon as reality, deferred for the duration of the Obama reelection campaign, slams everyone in the stomach.