Netherlands

Another fairly uninspiring day.

In absence of hard data, subject to rumours and sentiment, as well as sudden “squeezes” or “sell-offs”, albeit in very tight ranges.

Mood maybe less rainy then yesterday, but, call me a bear, it doesn’t feel very convincing out there.

Uninspiring day. Light ROff, but nothing major.

In absence of hard data, subject to rumours and sentiment. 

Rainy.

So after 2 hell of positive weeks with fairy dust sprinkled by the CBU (Central Banks United), things seem a little out of breath here.

Post-Central Bank intervention depression, so to speak, as the question on everyone’s mind is “What’s next?

Add to that soured geopolitics that stirred spirits in Asia, MENA and to some extend in regional Spain.

According to data released by ACEA (European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association) new passenger car registrations fell 8.9% in August after a decline of 7.8% in July. In 2011, Germany produced 5.8 million passenger cars, of which 77% (4.5m) were exported, making cars and parts the most valuable export good (EUR 185bn). A heavily export-dependent German automotive industry looks vulnerable to setbacks in important markets.

It’s not like anvils are flying low, nor shoes dropping.

No major news, but jittery here.

No fun.

Hmmm, if that is all what JPY 10trn can buy…

Where’s the thrill?

Lot of noon / afternoon official chatter on the wires, but eventually nothing highly conclusive.

And oops… I still have the Blues.

Having had the last 2 weeks propped up by Ben and Jerry, oops, Mario, who delivered the f(l)avours that had been expected throughout the summer, markets will be in need for some concrete impulses to push further.

Spanish bond auction on Thu rather on the mighty side.

Mostly bored today, though...

News may come, and news may go, but the fiscal policy implementation vehicle known as the market, and now controlled by the Political Reserve don't care. For those who do, here is what has happened in the past few hours and what is on deck for the remainder of the week.

Given how many unconventional means have been deployed over the last weeks, I wouldn’t exclude some form of stimulus postpartum depression… With nothing in immediate sight, it’d better hold. Why does my heart feel so bad?

After almost forty years on Wall Street we understand both the joke and the punchline and you cannot pay off old debt with vastly greater amounts of new debt without consequences and, we assure you, there will be consequences. This paradigm does not work for a corporation or a sovereign nation and the borrower is eventually brought to his knees by the sheer weight of the debt that he has laden upon his back. The interest rate paid is only part of the equation with the rest being the absolute size of what is undertaken. The Euro and the equity markets rally upon misperception. It is not “unlimited” or “no cap” that are really the operative words for the scheme but the “condition” of use that is the most important part of the recent “Save the World” speech of Mario Draghi. Spain is an admitted user of “dynamic provisioning” which is a long and academic argument for shifting reserves but in the end it means but one thing and one thing only and that is they are admittedly fiddling with their books. Spain is scared to death of the “Obermeisters of the Troika,” the refrains of the three brothers Reich, that will show up in Madrid and demand explanation and sacrifice.

While this and that may have happened overnight, the only thing that matters today is what the FOMC presents to a market which has now priced in well over 100% of a new easing round. Except little movement until Bernanke speaks, and with that removes any doubt that i) the Fed, like the ECB, are both political creations comprised of unelected academics, and ii) the entire modern capitalist world is nothing but a Pavlovian creation that responds only to promises of liquidity injections. Luckily, if nothing else, this will once and for all shut up anyone who claims that the market reflects the economy, it doesn't; that a "virtuous economic cycle" is possible under the new centrally planned normal, it isn't, and that the US economy is recovering 4 years after Lehman collapsed. It never did, and without $14 trillion in central bank liquidity injections over the same period, the world, as represented by the S&P, would be in a mindblowing depression, which it will still get back to once the surge in hard asset inflation offsets any incremental liquidity provided by the central planning academics as Citi warned yesterday.

Whatever... Final sign off by Germany and an ESM start-up session for 08 Oct.

Yes, Sir, I Can Boogie.

Spanish aid “not urgent, given actual market levels”…

No Boogie?

Looks like a loop bad US news, good EUR; good EUR must be good news.

Love boat, everywhere. Final Risk On, or so. And up 1%