New Normal

We have some great news for those Americans who are still in the labor force (so that excludes about 92 million working age US citizens) and still have a (full-time) job: you are now working longer than ever! In fact, as JPM's Michael Cembalest observes using Conference Board data, the average manufacturing workweek is now just shy of 42 hours - the longest in over 60 years. And there are those who say Americans are lazy...

Just because it wasn't enough of a vote of confidence in Jamie "Dear Congress: oath I vouch under oath that it was nothing but a tempest in a teapot" Dimon that his pay rose 74% to $20 million in 2013 despite JPM's Net Income crashing as the bank had to provision for tens of billions in legal expenses (conveniently excluded from Non-GAAP earnings) - but that's ok because the Fed's pumping of $1 trillion in fake buying power meant the stock soared - here comes folksy Crony Capitalist #1, aka cuddly Uncle Warren seemingly desperate for close encounters of the rectal kind with the JPM CEO, telling the world just how underappreciated poor, poor (we use the term loosely) Jamie is and said that if he owned J.P. Morgan, "he would keep Chief Executive James Dimon at the helm and would pay him even more than he’s making now."

Fudging Non-GAAP numbers is nothing new: everyone does it, even if it means that real, operating earnings for IBM (and most other companies) are substantially lower, and sure enough IBM's real EPS was $5.73. But this is just the tip, because one has to look deep into the income statement to find just how it is that IBM, whose pre-tax income actually declined by 11% could post a 14% increase in non-GAAP EPS. The answer: taxes. And just like Bank of America, IBM decided to crater its Q4 tax rate, which was 25.5% in Q4 2012 and in Q4 2013 dropped to... 11.2%. Seriously IBM? Incidentally, this epic accounting gimmick is also why one should look at IBM's revenues which were a debacle: not only did they miss expectations of a $28.3 billion in Q4, printing at $27.7 billion, but were down 5%. And while most revenue items were weak, the piece de resistance was Systems and Tech revenue, which cratered 25%!

Said Dr. El-Erian: “I have been extremely honored and fortunate to work alongside Bill Gross, who is one of the very best investors in the world. His talents are truly exceptional, as is his dedication. I have also been amazingly privileged to work with the most talented group of professionals in the investment management industry. Their commitment and tireless work on behalf of our clients have been a consistent inspiration for me since I first joined PIMCO back in 1999.  I wish them continued great success.”

"The latest review shows how the seeds of the current divergence were already sown in the early years of the euro, as unbalanced growth in some Member States, based on accumulating debt fuelled by low interest rates and strong capital inflows, was often associated with disappointing productivity developments and competitiveness issues. In the absence of the currency devaluation option, euro area countries attempting to regain cost competitiveness have to rely on internal devaluation (wage and price containment). This policy, however, has its limitations and downsides not least in terms of increased unemployment and social hardship, and its effectiveness depends on many factors such as the openness of the economy, the strength of external demand, and the presence of policies and investments enhancing non-cost competitiveness." - European Commission

Altogether, of the 1881 days starting on November 25, 2008 and continuing through January 19, 2014, the Fed has directly and unambiguously intervened in the markets for a total of 1592 days. It was not been directly involved in the market for a tiny 289 days. In sum: the New Normal is best characterized by a Federal Reserve which has been actively manipulating the equity "market" 85% of the time.

Why is hiring important? Because that is the actual process by which those without a job end up with a job. And as we just learned today after the latest JOLTS release, which showed that there were over 4 million job openings (4,001 to be precisely) for the first time since 2008, a far more important number is the update on Hires which at 4.5 million barely changed from last month, but more importantly, is barely a fraction of where it should be based on the number of job gains reported by the BLS monthly. The chart below confirms this stunning discrepancy: a surge in jobs with barely half the pre-recession hiring?

Remember when banks were exposed manipulating virtually everything except precious metals, because obviously nobody ever manipulates the price of gold and silver? After all, the biggest "conspiracy theory" of all is that crazy gold bugs blame every move against them on some vile manipulator. It may be time to shift yet another conspiracy "theory" into the "fact" bin, thanks to Elke Koenig, the president of Germany's top financial regulator, Bafin, which apparently is not as corrupt, complicit and clueless as its US equivalent, and who said that in addition to currency rates, manipulation of precious metals "is worse than the Libor-rigging scandal." Hear that Bart Chilton and friends from the CFTC?

It hasn't been a good year for discount retailers which rely on the broke US consumer to grow, such as Walmart, Target and Costco, the latter of which in the past has seemingly tried everything it could in the commodity business, even going as far as selling bundled provisions for the apocalypse. Alas, so far it has been unable to boost its margins, and since it is not Amazon where failure is rewarded, or else Jeff Bezos just hypnotizes everyone with his latest money-losing contraption (but, but it has such a great growth rate), it is time Costco tried something different to boost margins. Something really different. Such as selling a Superbowl lower level package for two for the low, low price of $15,999.99.

Earlier today we showed that even the big banks are officially throwing in the towel on the "artificial market" when Deutsche's Jim Reid summarized the complete insanity of Bernanke's (because it still is his) centrally-planned new normal as follows. "So far this year markets have gone down on good data, gone up on good data, gone down on concerns over weaker data and also gone up on weaker data." Now we can add yet another item to the list of explanations that will send futures higher: a plunge in Australian job numbers. Moments ago, Australia reported that in December employment fell by a jarring 22,600 jobs on expectations of a 10,000 gain, driven by a 31,600 plunge in full-time jobs offset by an increase in 9,000 part-time jobs (do they have Obamacare in Australia too?).

With around 110,000 workers globally, who Amazon claim are compensated above average for retail workers and have generous benefits, the news that 30 Amazon mechanics in Delaware are voting on unionization may strike fear into the heart of Jeff Bezos. With razor-thin margins,  the "cult stock" could hardly cope with any broad-based action to raise wages (though we are sure that would be a buying opportunity no matter what):

• AFL-CIO: WORKERS' LIVES 'NOT GETTING BETTER' DESPITE RECOVERY
• AFL-CIO: SEEKS TO UNIONIZE AMAZON AND OTHER LARGE COS.

While local union officials claim not to have targeted the workers, the 'small' vote will take place today but there are hundreds of other workers in the Delaware factory.

As equity markets revert to their new normal BTFATH, Japanese-Yen-pinned reality, we thought a gentle reminder of the longer-term state of the real (not financial) economy would prod more than a few into the realization of just how 'encouraged' they should be by the nominal high after nominal high that is gloated over day after day...

Following ongoing promises from the Fed that the Taper will continue at a pace of $10 billion per month come rain or shine, suddenly good news are critical for stocks, as the stock market is desperate for a strong economy to which Yellen can pass the baton. It did not get that with Friday's payrolls number so it was hoping for some good news in today's retail sales. And judging by the market response to the just released December retail sales, it got it, if only for now: headline December retail sales rose 0.2%, on expectation on a 0.1% increase even as auto sales tumbled -1.8%. Retail Sales ex autos rose 0.7% higher than the 0.4% expected, while ex autos and gas was up a more modest 0.6%, also better than the 0.3% expected.  How is it possible that December retail sales according to the US government were better than expected, when every retailer has posted abysmal results? Well it seems the Census Bureau merely engaged in some recalendarization, with November numbers all revised substantially lower: headline down from 0.7% to 0.4%, ex autos 0.4% to 0.1%, and ex autos and gas from 0.6% to 0.3%. In other words, a complete wash with today's "beat." So when netting away the calendar effect of an early start to the holiday season, perhaps the only value added data in the retail sales report was the data involving Electronics and Appliance Stores.They posted the biggest 2 month drop in 2 years!

As 11.3 million Americans spend more than half their income on rent, a record increase of 28% in four years, increasingly more are faced with the core "New normal recovery" choice: “We either eat, or we pay rent.”  Welcome to the Blackstone recovery...

Curious why despite the huge miss in payrolls the unemployment rate tumbled from 7.0% to 6.7%? The reason is because in December the civilian labor force did what it usually does in the New Normal: it dropped from 155.3 million to 154.9 million, which means the labor participation rate just dropped to a fresh 35 year low, hitting levels not seen since 1978, at 62.8% down from 63.0%. And the piece de resistance: Americans not in the labor force exploded higher by 535,000 to a new all time high 91.8 million.