Obamacare

An example of Microsoft legislating profits that is so simple to understand even most Americans should be able to get it.

The hits just keep on coming for ObamaCare. It was less than two weeks ago that we highlighted the potential premium rate death spiral that Obamacare faces due to the fact that only old and sick people are signing up for the program. Now it seems there are further security related concerns plaguing the site, as cyber-security expert David Kennedy recently claimed that “gaining access to 70,000 personal records of Obamacare enrollees via HealthCare.gov took about 4 minutes.” Simply put, he added, "Healthcare.gov was '100 percent insecure'."

This is who we are pinning the hopes and dreams of Obamacare's success on?

President Obama has recently promoted inequality as a fundamental threat to our way of life, saying, “The combined trends of increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to the American Dream, our way of life, and what we stand for around the globe.”  You can read the rhetoric here.  Let’s look at the reality.

How does the Federal government explain this scramble to hand over the "sole-sourced" healthcare.gov IT contract (to a company made possible thanks to Enron) so late in the process? Simple: the usual mutually assured destruction tactic used so "effectively" in all other recent rushed decisions. As the Hill reports, unless Accenture finishes (and fixes) the back-end of the HealthCare.gov portal by mid-March, the healthcare law will be jeopardized, according to a procurement document posted on a federal website. The punchline: "It says insurers could be bankrupt and the entire healthcare industry threatened if the build out is not completed." In other words, a newly retained consulting company has less than three months to fix all the errors of coding by a different company, and make sure healthcare.gov is working properly... all 500 million lines of healthcare.gov's code?

In order to appeal to their target demographics, the smart people in the marketing department at Obamacare central have provided us with such wonders as kegstanding "bros" and easy-women. However, the following clip - which almost defies description - shows just how desparate (or clueless) the administration has become, as a #GetCovered promo turns dirty-dancing-meets-twerking as Richard Simmons and an unknown male assailant begin to...well just watch...

Weak results from Intel, American Express and Capital One, not to mention Goldman and Citi? No problem: there's is overnight USDJPY levitation for that, which has pushed S&P futures firmly into the green after early overnight weakness: because while the components of the market may have such trivial indicators as multiples and earnings, the USDJPY to which the Emini is tethered has unlimited upside. And now that the market is back into "good news is good, bad news is better" mode, today's avalanche of macro data which includes December housing starts and building permits, industrial production, UofMichigan consumer confidence and JOLTs job openings, not to mention the up to $3 billion POMO, should make sure the week closes off in style: after all can't have the tapped out consumer enter the weekend looking at a red number on their E-trade account: they might just not spend as much (money they don't have).

While economists are raising their forecasts for 2014, there seems to be little change in the real underlying fundamentals. Much has been made of the modest uptick in NFIB optimism last month, but small businesshope remains 6 points below pre-recession average levels; and as Bill Dunkleberg notes so succinctly: "The President thinks the way to address the malaise in the economy is to give another $26 billion to the long-term unemployed, shown to produce new jobs by 'independent economists' (we know who that is) according to the President. If you borrow $26 billion from China and give it to consumers, it probably does have a positive impact, but does nothing to fix the economy or encourage labor force participation or improve the labor force." It is quite apparent from both individuals and businesses that the government is the real issue that is impeding economic progress.  Maybe it's time that the current Administration did a little less talking and did a little more listening to what the real drivers of the economy are saying.

If yesterday's rising PPI print suggested the Fed may continue its $10 billion a month taper at its next meeting, today's comparably rising CPI for December will likely mean that absent another payroll-like shock, the Fed will soon monetize "only" $65 billion per month. The reason: in December core consumer inflation rose by 0.3%, compared to the 0.0% change in November, and in line with expectations. Stripping away food and energy however, the increase was only 0.1%, also in line with expectations, and a decline from November's 0.2% increase. More importantly, on a Y/Y basis, core CPI was up by 1.7%, still shy of the Fed's 2% target but not too far.

• Charter, Comcast in renewed talks on Time Warner Cable bid (Reuters)
• Bankers' Stock Awards Jet Higher (WSJ)
• Yahoo CEO Mayer Dismisses Operating Chief De Castro (BBG)
• Amazon Employees Vote to Reject Union (Reuters)
• Luxury in China loses luster as wealthy flee (Reuters)
• UnitedHealth Profit Up on Stronger Enrollments (WSJ)
• U.S. government failed to secure Obamacare site: experts (Reuters)
• Spain Sells Bonds at Record-Low Yield as Rajoy Touts Rebound (BBG)
• Newport Beach’s $100,000 Lifeguards Feel Pension Squeeze (BBG)
• Bailed-Out Euro Nations Expect Painful Challenges to Remain (BBG)

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?).

After a botched rollout that was universally panned, it may seem like things are finally moving more smoothly for Obamacare. But 2014 and beyond promise more turbulence for consumers, with premium tax credits likely to be another crisis.

The Beige Book may well be renamed the Boring Book due to the uniformity of its monthly pronouncements, but a few things stands out in a report that saw moderate expansion in the economy across most of the US:

• the Fed said most districts reported increases in home sales... except we assume for San Francisco where home sales plunged to 6 year low,
• the Fed sees "very few reports of staff cuts of plant closings"... which we guess ignores the December jobs reports where the least jobs were added since January 2011,
• the Fed said nine districts reported an increase in retail spending... which is curious considering retail traffic plunged and the holiday spending season was the worst since 2009,
• the Fed said almost half of district reported prices were stable... which probably means the Fed's inflation benchmark is now well below 2%
• and Finally, the Fed said eight district reported upward movement in wages...  which also is confusing considering real disposable income per capita just dropped into the negative.

Oh well: we suppose we will take the Fed's word for it.

Day two of the bounce from the biggest market drop in months is here, driven once again by weak carry currencies, with the USDJPY creeping up as high as 104.50 overnight before retracing some of the gains, and of course, the virtually non-existant volume. Whatever the reason don't look now but market all time highs are just around the corner, and the Nasdaq is back to 14 year highs. Stocks traded higher since the get-go in Europe, with financials leading the move higher following reports that European banks will not be required in upcoming stress tests to adjust their sovereign debt holdings to maturity to reflect current values. As a result, peripheral bond yield spreads tightened, also benefiting from good demand for 5y EFSF syndication, where price guidance tightened to MS+7bps from initial MS+9bps. Also of note, Burberry shares in London gained over 6% and advanced to its highest level since July, after the company posted better than expected sales data. Nevertheless, the FTSE-100 index underperformed its peers, with several large cap stocks trading ex-dividend today. Going forward, market participants will get to digest the release of the latest Empire Manufacturing report, PPI and DoE data, as well as earnings by Bank of America.

"Bond King" Bill Gross may not have had a good year following over $40 billion in redemptions from his $250 billion Total Return Fund, but another aspirational Bond King, DoubleLine's Jeff Gundlach, had an even worse year on an relative basis, when his Total Return Bond Fund saw $6 billion in redemptions ending the year at $30.9 billion in AUM following seven consecutive months of withdrawals. So in his attempt to start the new year on better footing, here is his first webcast (as usual open to the public), titled "Let the Race Begin! 2014 Markets: Year of the Horse", in which as usual Jeff will discuss the economy, the markets and his outlook for the best investment strategiest of 2014. Let's hope that for bond fund manager, that 2014 is not just another "year of the donkey", as was the case in the past year which everyone managing duration would rather forget.