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The Tapir Strikes Again

Tyler Durden's picture




 

While the Fed would dearly love the market to believe that "tapering is not tightening," the message of today's reaction to merely the sugestion that a taper is closer than 'some' believed says it all about how boxed in the Fed really is. US equities have retraced half the pre-Yellen ramp gains, US Treasury yields had their 2nd worst day in 5 months, gold (and silver) collapsed (limit down for a while); the USD jerked higher (+0.3% on the week). VIX and credit markets had been hinting that markets were restless and while today's drop was only 0.5%, the sad psychological truth is that given realized volatility, it is significant. The ubiquitous late-day ramp saved us from a "deer" day - but nether FX carry nor VIX supported that lift. This is the first 3-day losing streak for the S&P in 2 months.

 

It just feels like a "deer" day... but not quite... Oops...

 

Some context for today's move - from when the Yellen excitement began last week... Spot The Odd One Out...

 

This morning's ECB negative rates comment broke the FX carry game - but the FOMC Minutes recoupled tyhat reality...

 

Credit remains under-impressed and over-saturated - not exactly supportive of moar buybacks...

 

and VIX remains bid...

 

Off the debt-ceiling lows, things are rolling over... led by homebuilders (and it seems financials didn't get the mainstream edia memo that higher rates are good)

 

 

Charts: Bloomberg

Bonus Chart: The last time China-US bonds were this far apart, Treasury yields hammered higher...

(h/t Brad Wishak of NewEdge)

 

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Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:11 | 4175049 puntme
puntme's picture

Give that tapir a beard and he could be Chairman of the Fed!

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:14 | 4175065 Say What Again
Say What Again's picture

Is that Tapir pissing in the lake?

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:24 | 4175095 Pladizow
Pladizow's picture

The Taper is a mythological creature that will NEVER be seen!

Just like Bigfoot, the Fed and others will claim they see it, but there wont be any evidence.

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:24 | 4175108 catacl1sm
catacl1sm's picture

I think he's taking a ploopy.

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:27 | 4175117 Pladizow
Pladizow's picture

That's actually just more QE being added to the monetary pond!

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:52 | 4175199 AlaricBalth
AlaricBalth's picture

The fact that the Fed is sending mixed signals concerning The Taper is a designed mechanism in a feable attempt to seem as if they are managing our bubblified economy, without actually doing anything. No one knows when the Fed will taper, except those who stand to benefit the most (and they aren't talking).  The Fed relies and thrives on the hyperbole that is created by noted fed watchers, pundits and the like.  Take a look at the headlines concerning Fed tapering over the last number of months. You will see opportunities to trade these event-non-events, only if you are one of the owners of privately-held Fed shares and Bernanke answers to you.  I can understand how JPM, Goldman and others have 91 out of 91 quarterly trading days without a loss when you are the Feds true reason for existing. 

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:55 | 4175211 Joe Davola
Joe Davola's picture

Is pissing in the pool the new taking away the punchbowl?

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 18:35 | 4175316 akak
akak's picture

That's just Janet Yellin practicing to inject Fed liquidity into the market.

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 19:19 | 4175427 AGuy
AGuy's picture

The Fed prefers the phrase: "Fertializing the economy!"

 

Thu, 11/21/2013 - 05:42 | 4175666 Supernova Born
Supernova Born's picture

The Federal Reserve Tapirs.

They'll make even the most notorious perennial losers look like winners.

Thu, 11/21/2013 - 08:23 | 4176741 kralizec
kralizec's picture

Out with green shoots...in with green pooh.

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 18:54 | 4175365 aVileRat
aVileRat's picture

I badly want one of the standing Fed board members in January to throw in a vieled joke about the taper along the lines of GWB's wisdomm of the ages:

Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice.... there is no fooling me twice.

 

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 19:12 | 4175416 SWRichmond
SWRichmond's picture

Taper = "please stop buying gold".

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 19:27 | 4175461 bunzbunzbunz
bunzbunzbunz's picture

<----- Bunz is a shameless prick

<----- I want to diversify my SHTF fund with free bitcoins: http://freebitco.in/?r=25727

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 21:15 | 4175474 Deo vindice
Deo vindice's picture

Why don't you just stop shilling your scheme and post a comment of some value?

Or ... do the honourable thing and take out an ad on ZH.

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 18:40 | 4175337 TheFourthStooge-ing
TheFourthStooge-ing's picture

Based on the large version of the photo (you really notice the characteristic splash formed from dropping an object into the water), it's clear that the tapir has just tapered and then tightened. One cannot tell from the single photo, though, whether or not more tapir tapering is imminent.

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 20:20 | 4175689 akak
akak's picture

The duplicitous nightsoiling of formerly pristine pools of liquidity is part and package of the eternal blobbing-down nature of US 'federal reserve' sphincter-tightening taperism.  Not very crusty, but still very mattering.

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 20:46 | 4175769 TheFourthStooge-ing
TheFourthStooge-ing's picture

Ah, US 'central banksterism' banksters...

The great brotherhood of crime. Don't spill on me, I don't spill on you.

This is how it works in US 'central banksterism'.

Get your share of the crime, US 'central banksterism' banksters do not feel comfortable with honest people. Time to blend in. Bear with it.

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:28 | 4175118 So What
So What's picture

When Bernanke says "taper" by that he meant he was swallowing obozo's cum in slow drip.

Fool the goy once, shame on the goy.
Fool the goy twice, fool the goy again.

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:34 | 4175140 Agent P
Agent P's picture

Brown shoots! 

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 18:55 | 4175370 olto
olto's picture

You might be right about that Taper, but the tapir in the foto looks just like my friend who lives in the forest nearby and comes by my place once a month or so as he grazes. I see him more than I see any taper.

There are only two thousand and five hundred---it is estimated---of the mountain tapir left on the planet. Their habitat has been taken up by 'you-know-who', and also hunted nearly into extinction.

Like your Taper, the tapir(ta-peer) is another prime examples of human folly----and wishes no ill will towards other species------just a simple easy-going dude trying to get by on this planet.

thanks for the lead-in

 

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:29 | 4175116 CaptainSpaulding
CaptainSpaulding's picture

"Its a Liger"

- Napoleon Dynamite

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkg7DPcMZ-s

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:32 | 4175134 Urban Redneck
Urban Redneck's picture

Does a bear shit in the woods?

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:31 | 4175128 Jumbotron
Jumbotron's picture

I cant' EVEN begin to tell you how true and NASTY that tapir picture is.

At our zoo....we have a tapir exhibit where you can look at them from above then go underground and look at them at ground level and a little below the water line of their pond.  And 3 of these things were just swimming around all happy and stuff.....when one stands ups and shits in the water while the others are still swimming around. 

And to make matters worse....it's tail was just swiveling around like mad spraying that shit all around like some shit aerator.

I lost all respect for that animal.  Besides....looks like a mad scientist's experiment gone bad....where he tried to cross a pig with a hippo and an anteater.

EPIC FAIL.....just like Ben Bernanke...or for that matter Janet Yellen

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:42 | 4175168 TwoCats
TwoCats's picture

Thank you for the apt description of what we can expect a Taper to do to the economy.

"... swiveling around like mad spraying that shit around like some shit aerator."

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:57 | 4175220 Joe Davola
Joe Davola's picture

Gotta mark your territory!

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 18:44 | 4175344 TheFourthStooge-ing
TheFourthStooge-ing's picture

.

Besides....looks like a mad scientist's experiment gone bad....where he tried to cross a pig with a hippo and an anteater.

Manbernankeaterippopig

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 19:00 | 4175384 olto
olto's picture

red w/ comment:

Who goes to a zoo---see one in the wild---completely different dude.

Burn that zoo down----or live in it yourself and see what happens with your toilet habits----

good luck to you and your family in what's coming

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 18:20 | 4175223 RmcAZ
RmcAZ's picture

Tapir? Double down on QE soon.

These guys are morons... they saw what happened to treasuries the last time they talked about taper... any talk about taper is simply a negative feedback loop which sends treasury yields higher, and in turn continues to put pressure on the new housing bubble, which would then make them want to do more QE--- OHHHHHHH. I see.

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:11 | 4175051 Black Forest
Black Forest's picture

"California's got the most of them."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z40YnJHVCR0 

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:13 | 4175064 HelluvaEngineer
HelluvaEngineer's picture

+1 if you added to the stack today!

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:44 | 4175172 TwoCats
TwoCats's picture

Does yesterday count?  Sold 2.3 BTC, bought 1 oz gold ($260 left over).  Both transactions with local dealers.

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:15 | 4175067 walküre
walküre's picture

Dow 16,000 hat can be mothballed

Dow 10,000 hat needs dusting off

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:16 | 4175075 icanhasbailout
icanhasbailout's picture

Collateralized Tapir Obligations, here we come!

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:19 | 4175085 youngman
youngman's picture

And the Gold graph is the odd one out.....going down with Yellen.....NOT...for someone who is going to print and print more and more...it should not be going down....to me its a raid before December deliveries...or lack their of....they don´t have the gold to deliver...so drop the price far enough so no one wants it anymore...kill the demand....I hope enough people see this and ask for the order anyway....lets kill them now...get it over with...that is why Gensler and blondie..and Bernanke quit......they want out before the crash

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 18:14 | 4175232 ziggy59
ziggy59's picture

China and others are very happy to relieve the West of their heavy burden...at reduced hauling fees too..

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:21 | 4175086 ebworthen
ebworthen's picture

Funny.

Even the mention of possible taper based on 6.5% unemployment "targets" and infinitely fungible data points pushes equities down and rates up for markets that supposedly are not being propped up, inflated, floated, and spun with FED cotton candy.

What does this tell us? 

If the FED does taper multiply these rumor amounts by 10. 

DOW down 660, 10 Year Treasury up to 3.8%.

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:20 | 4175090 Ancona
Ancona's picture

Fuck it. I'm going to watch some cat videos and be done with it.

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 19:03 | 4175391 olto
olto's picture

Ancona,

Yours is the best comment of the day

Congratulations on seeing cat videos----better than reading goldbugs view of things

thanks

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 20:56 | 4175800 Herd Redirectio...
Herd Redirection Committee's picture

The paperbug view of things.  Now I really have seen it all!

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 23:28 | 4176266 icanhasbailout
icanhasbailout's picture

I'll add you to the list of icanhasconverts.

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:26 | 4175112 youngman
youngman's picture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLR5lVLcWrM

 

I feel the market is more like this....

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:30 | 4175125 B.J. Worthy
B.J. Worthy's picture

Dude, where's my VIX rally?

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:30 | 4175129 jomama
jomama's picture

where's the bitcoin chart?

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:44 | 4175166 Black Forest
Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:35 | 4175141 djsmps
djsmps's picture

If nothing else, I recently discovered the best new music I've heard in years.

Thing of Gold  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZBlRkF0-to

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:48 | 4175185 trader1
trader1's picture

i must see this live!

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 18:26 | 4175288 djsmps
djsmps's picture

This whole album is a live performance, and it sounds as good as any studio recording. Here's another with them backing vocalist Lalah Hathaway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SJIgTLe0hc

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 18:07 | 4175252 Jethro
Jethro's picture

That was pretty good! Thanks!

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:46 | 4175178 HerrDoktor
HerrDoktor's picture

A turd in the puchflow?

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:49 | 4175193 Crash Overide
Crash Overide's picture

Gold and Silver on sale again today! :)

I am telling my friends and family to take their Christmas present money and just buy Silver. Boycott the retail consumer holiday madness and hedge your future, it's really a no brainer.

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 18:02 | 4175239 22winmag
22winmag's picture

For weeks silver has refused to budge below $20... until today.

 

It's not exactly at fire-sale prices yet, but I really want a 100oz bar and I can certainly forego the toxic made-in-China shit.

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:50 | 4175197 Yen Cross
Yen Cross's picture

   The Tapir is really Bernakenstein and the pond is the U.S. middle class being shit on...

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:53 | 4175208 CheapBastard
CheapBastard's picture

Tapir = Deeper Depression

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:58 | 4175224 ziggy59
ziggy59's picture

Its always about the flow of The Spice...

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 17:57 | 4175227 ArrestBobRubin
ArrestBobRubin's picture

That Tapir didn't make that.

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 18:03 | 4175241 Kreditanstalt
Kreditanstalt's picture

It must be about the ongoing desperate, mythical need for "yield"...otherwise, why would GOLD "collapse" on BAD news???

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 18:04 | 4175242 Jethro
Jethro's picture

LOL. How long did you search before you found an image of a tapir dropping a deuce? LOL

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 18:15 | 4175256 JR
JR's picture

The chief losers in America’s decline won’t be the rich; the real losers will be the new poor, America’s former middle class.

“They are the victims of the negative compound interest penalty (ZIRP) that high taxes and ‘free’ benefits impose on future living standards – it is their capital that is being sucked “into the black hole of income redistribution” both to Wall Street bankers and to the lower 48 percent.

As for the coming economic train wreck, it has only been postponed because the Fed chose to deflect its printing to debt infinity with ZIRP. Either way, the ultimate end will be a worthless dollar.

As for solving the problem other than through greed and crony fraud and QE with ZIRP, the former president of Peru, Alberto Fujimori, said in the 1990s while solving Peru’s financial crisis, that bad economic policies are an inherent feature of a representative political system, i.e., a democracy.  Nine times out of ten, he said, the politician who promises ‘free money’ to his constituents under “representative government” will get reelected.

For “it is an ancient insight,” wrote Clarence Carson in the Freeman, “that democracy is mob rule.” (It was the selling of democracy in the latter part of the nineteenth century and in the twentieth century that connected America’s limited government to “representative” government , culminating in WWI  bloodletting that “made the world safe for democracy.")

It is now culminating in full-fledged socialism.

Bankruptcy is the future of this welfare state because her politicians and central bankers will refuse to downsize until the nation is nothing but a graveyard.

Adding fuel to the debt fire with ZIRP, Benanke and Yellen are trying to overcome market forces by playing with matches.  It's like fighting the last war with an illusion that the Fed can pump money into the system and overcome the resulting inflation...with more printing.  But it’s not working..it is impoverishing America's middle class.

In short, the Fed's magicians are buying up bonds that no one else wants using the magic of ZIRP to create a false reality.  What the Fed really is fighting under the table are the bond traders whose ultimate power can veto both presidents and the Fed. James Dale Davidson of Strategic Investment Limited Partnership described it in 1995 as the final crisis of a welfare state:

“Bond traders aren’t elected, and they answer to nobody. But they possess knowledge about market prices around the world. In the new Information Age, bond traders can move trillions of dollars at the speed of light. And that makes them very powerful.

“At the first inkling that the government is trying to reflate the economy by pumping funny money into it, thousands of bond traders will dump hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. bonds. Interest rates will shoot up like an Apollo booster: slowly at first, then with unbelievable power and speed.”

And should the interest rate spike, Davidson warned, “the interest on the national debt (in 1995) would be four times what it is now… greater than all the rest of the budget combined. And there wouldn’t be a penny of tax money left for anything else, from Social Security to the Weather Services.

“It would take an Argentine-scale inflation to get out of this. The government wouldn’t be able to borrow again for a generation. The value of money would be totally destroyed, and with it most of the middle class.”

Added Davison: “Every major government that ever tried the inflation option ended up falling from power, usually in bloody revolutions. Our government is not going to try this.”

Instead, the bankers are sipping ZIRP, opting for the agony of a slower death.  No one could have predicted America would face nine years of ZIRP, of course; but then, no one would have predicted that in its greed the Fed would be willing to destroy America.

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 20:32 | 4175711 olto
olto's picture

JR,

fuck the middle class-----they had it all and could have quit while they had enough to live out the rest of their lives COMFORTABLY,

but, NO---they couldn't do that because a few pennies might fall on the ground

I see them down here all of the time, now

boomers and doomers, each telling the same sad tale to each other the same, same day after day

400 pound couples stuffing their faces and talking bad about everyone

fuck'em-----they can stand to lose some weight, anyway

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 21:52 | 4175985 JR
JR's picture

How do you know those fatties are middle class, otto? EBT card holders are getting hard to spot, driving SUVs and buying their groceries on the middle classes' dime.  The stimulus is wealth redistribution going to the lower classes for their votes and to the banker class for its yachts and estates, the latter and their corporations being the beneficiaries of stimulus spending. The losers are the middle class; they are the ones in “poverty”; you won’t be seeing them blocking the store aisles.

The truth is, the American middle class built this country and it is they who are being robbed of their labor, their heritage and their culture.

According to The Heritage Foundation in 2010, here are the facts regarding persons defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau:

“Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car (31 percent own two or more cars), air conditioning (80 percent), a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded (more than 67 percent of ‘poor’ households have two or more rooms per person).

"’Poor’ American children eat more meat than higher-income American children and average protein intake 100 percent above the recommended levels. Obesity is the predominant health hazard to America's ‘poor’ children. ‘Poor’ children in this country grow up to be on average one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than the average G.I. who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II.” 

There are two main reasons that American children are poor, says Heritage: “Their parents don't work much, and fathers are absent from the home. In good economic times or bad, the typical poor family with children is supported by only 800 hours of work during a year.”

Thu, 11/21/2013 - 20:43 | 4179302 olto
olto's picture

JR,

These fatties talk about their gold and silver that they bought with the proceeds of a QE facilitated real estate transactiion, and how taxes are so high in the US!

What else do fatties do? this is how they got those big asses that take up two places-------'working' for the .gov/mic and if what any of them did was really work----well, how did they get those big asses? Ex prison guards, police, retired double dipping military, etc. because they happened to have been born the right color-----------------------------who cares about 'justice for all, anyway?

The so-called 'poor' of the census dudes should have their debt forgiven because they were the 'economic growth' that could not have existed except for the un-repayable debt that the banks allowed knowing that the taxpayer is on the hook in some form of QE or other-----forget moral hazard when the banks are underwritten by the public weal and treated as 'special persons' under the tax law----it is all bull shit and should be thrown back to the banks.

I could go on with the rest, but I am not going to---you know the same things that I know so it is redundant to go over them anymore.

The Heritage Foundation is a joke of the extreme right all white christian segment of the population and their dope is not exactly un-biased in their favor, so I cannot, in all honesty, discuss this using such a one-sided view. With all due respect, we would have to come up with more honest data.

I like capitalism very much, I don't like the poor, the ignorant, or the middle class, but we are stuck with so many of these strictly as a result of the overpopulation required by the 'growth model' of the last fifty years or so. Now there is no need for so many, as a result of the technology and we rag on them all of the time. I don't have many friends among these folk, but it is not my problem to either feed them or eliminate them-----it is the business/.govt. order that received most of the gains-----they are the fatted calf---not we savers.

thanks for the reply and i apologize for this late response

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 18:19 | 4175274 Best Of Pute
Best Of Pute's picture

"If you like your QE, you can keep your QE".

 

Oh wait.

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 18:44 | 4175343 luna_man
luna_man's picture

 

 

I look forward to charts, I love technical analysis and "shorting" this market, has been PAINFUL!...However, never been one to say/do: "can't beat'em, join'em!! (CRIMINALS)

 

Oh, MY MAIN MAN, is still #1 and obtaining the PRECIOUS is forever on my mind.

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 18:49 | 4175352 xPat
xPat's picture

Gold was "limit down for a while" as reported both in this and another post, eh Tyler?

That's really saying something for a contract that doesn't have a daily price limit! Only ZeroHedge could be so retarded. I suppose now you're going to tell me that the "stop logic" events are somehow the same thing as "limit down"? Sorry, not even close - completely unrelated concept.

As per normal, ZH excels in so many areas, but all things Precious Metals related on this site continue to be 100% misinformed bullshit.

Go ahead, losers, vote me down. Show your loyalty to the goldbug retards, and celebrate your ignorance of such basic concepts as no-limit futures contracts being "limit down for a while". Go ahead, make my day. It amuses me to watch retards express themselves here.

xPat

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 20:44 | 4175764 olto
olto's picture

xPat,   +100

Well said. I could only give you green, so I thought that i would 'top-off' with a thank you for calling the hand

Plus, if we still had 'limit-down' no one could sell the manipulation gag to the 'good ol' boys'

limit down five days at five hundred or so in '79-----that was a real market and fun to play

thanks again

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 18:51 | 4175356 forwardho
forwardho's picture

The 10 yr chart is scary.

Over 100 bps in less than 6 hrs. How long ya think that can go on?  I tell anyone who will listen, watch the 10 yr bond yield, it represents the point at which reality bisects fantasy.

 

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 18:52 | 4175361 dynomutt
dynomutt's picture

I created this fucking meme.

Wed, 11/20/2013 - 21:02 | 4175819 Billy Shears
Billy Shears's picture

A Tapir tapering one!

Thu, 11/21/2013 - 21:02 | 4176328 are we there yet
are we there yet's picture

That Tapir in the water is a congressman passing a bill, polluting everyone downstream.

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