New Normal

 "The US Mint has just announced that they are temporarily sold out of American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins.  They are in the process of producing more and will advise when additional inventory is available." To paraphrase: the US mint just sold out of all silver American Eagle silver bullion coins, following "tremendous" demand in the past several weeks, according to Reuters reports.

Because when you have no POMO, and no QE on the horizon, you can always break a stock exchange and send the entire market... higher!?

If "work set you free" in the Nazi concentration camps of WWII, then it appears in this consequence-less society in which we live, stealing is the new normal. As CBS reports, 5 years after a Swedish neo-Nazi was found gulity of stealing the symbolic concentration camp sign from Auschwitz; a wrought-iron gate bearing the Nazis' cynical slogan "Arbeit macht frei," or "Work sets you free," has been stolen from the former Dachau concentration camp, police said Sunday. "The theft of such a symbolic object is an offensive attack on the memory of the Holocaust," said Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

"Crash" is the new normal in FX markets it would appear. As the following charts show, first we had AUD turbulence, then EUR crashed, and now JPY is continuing its cataclysmic carry-trade-driven push for hyperinflation as it pushes to 114 - a stunning 6 handles collapse since the FOMC statement...

It never fails: any time there is a dump in precious metals through their paper representation (GLD, SLV, or futures) typically as a hedge to a rally in the dollar (because last week Japan materially increasing its fiat monetary base was also somehow negative for gold and silver) or to meet margin demands from cross-asset liquidation, demand for physical PMs soars confirming yet again that any connection between paper prices and physical demand no longer exists. As reported on Friday, sales of American Eagle silver coins by the U.S. Mint jumped 40 percent in October to the highest in 21 months, defying a slump in New York futures to the lowest in more than four years.

Two days ago, when QE ended and knowing that the market is vastly overstimating the likelihood of a full-blown ECB public debt QE, we tweeted the following: "It's all up to the BOJ now." Little did we know how right we would be just 48 hours later. Because as previously reported, the reason why this morning futures are about to surpass record highs is because while the rest of the world was sleeping, the BOJ shocked the world with a decision to boost QE, announcing it would monetize JPY80 trillion in JGBs, up from the JPY60-70 trillion currently and expand the universe of eligible for monetization securities. A decision which will forever be known in FX folklore as the great Halloween Yen-long massacre.

There are three things that are certain: death, taxes and M&A "synergies." And while the recent debt and record stock price-funded M&A bubble has been a present from god, or rather the Fed, to the activist shareholders and owners of target stocks (and acquirors, because in the New Normal M&A announcements somehow boost the price of both), it has been a scourge for everyone else: namely the employees of companies that undergo M&A as the first and foremost place where EPS "synergies" are extracted is by eliminating duplicative headcount, read mass layoffs. This is precisely what workers at Canada's Tim Hortons are about to find out first hand, because as Financial Post reports, citing a study from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, "widespread layoffs and strict cost cutting measures could befall Tim Hortons if Burger King’s parent company takes over the chain." Small correction replace "could" with "definitely will" and the sentence will be spot on.

As was leaked on Friday, when the market surged on news that some 25 banks would fail the ECB's third stress test (because in the New Normal more bank failures means more bailouts, means the richer get richest, means more wealth inequality), so moments ago the ECB reported that, indeed, some 25 banks failed the European Central Bank's third attempt at collective confidence building and redrawing of a reality in which there is about €1 trillion in European NPLs, also known as the stress test.

Despite the constant confirmation that New York "is prepared, and has been prepared for months" for an Ebola outbreak (that is extremely difficult to catch apparently), it appears Governor Cuomo and NJ's Christie are more concerned than they are letting on. Having earlier admitted that the CDC's screening guidelines are "insufficient" for New York regions' population density, Reuters reports that Cuomo and Christie are considering "enhanced screening" where "all healthcare workers will be mandatorily quarantined." Cue "state of emergency" proclamation and civil liberties 'interrupted'...

Moments ago, CAT, which is a major DJIA component, just reported blowaway EPS of $1.72, far above the $1.35 expected. How did it achieve this stunning number which has pushed DJIA futures higher by almost half a percent?  Simple: first there was the usual exclusions, with "restructuring costs" adding back some $0.09 to the bottom line number. But the punchline was this: "In addition to the profit improvement, we have a strong balance sheet and through the first nine months of the year, we've had good cash flow.  So far this year, we've returned value to our stockholders by repurchasing $4.2 billion of Caterpillar stock and raising our quarterly dividend by 17 percent," Oberhelman said." And here is just how the surge in buyback activity looked in comparison to Q3 2013...

Six years after QE started, and just about the time when we for the first time said that the primary consequence of QE would be unprecedented wealth and class inequality (in addition to fiat collapse, even if that particular bridge has not yet been crossed), even the central banks themselves - the very institutions that unleashed QE - are now admitting that the record wealth disparity in the world - surpassing that of the Great Depression and even pre-French revolution France - is caused by "monetary policy", i.e., QE.

In what may be a resounding echo of March 2006, moments ago the New York Superintendent of Financial Services said that Ocwen had engaged in abuses that could potentially harm hundreds of thousands of borrowers. As AP reports, the state regulator issued a letter Tuesday to Ocwen Financial Corp., documenting the same kinds of suspicious actions that worsened the housing crisis and the Great Recession.

"For over a year now, central banks have quietly being reducing their support. As Figure 7 shows, much of this is down to the Fed, but the contraction in the ECB’s balance sheet has also been significant. Seen from this perspective, a negative reaction in markets was long overdue: very roughly, the charts suggest that zero stimulus would be consistent with 50bp widening in investment grade, or a little over a ten percent quarterly drop in equities. Put differently, it takes around $200bn per quarter just to keep markets from selling off."

Fast forward to last night, when instead of the much hoped for Chinese GDP drop - because it would certainly unleash the greatly delayed Chinese liquidity firehose so hoped for by all the BTFDers who need at least once central bailout per day to keep up the charade - China reported GDP which beat expectations, leading to many sad faces on Wall Street, and forcing Reuters to leak the infamous ECB buying corporate bonds article, since refuted, which served as the overnight ramping catalyst. So what is the "explanation" for this unpleasant, for once, economic beat? Why, the weather of course!

As commented previously, the reason for today's 30 point rip in emini futures from the lows hit just 4 hours ago, was a test of the ECB emergency BTFD service, today provided courtesy of Reuters which, just after the European close, gave what is ever more incorrectly called the "market" its dose of upward momentum ignition, when it reported that, in addition to the previously announced "private QE" which includes ABS and covered bond purchases, that Goldman's head of the European central bank would also go ahead and monetize corporate bonds, taking a step even further than the Fed, which at least is confined to public securities, and directly influencing private asset prices.