Global Economy

The latest small business survey from NFIB shows mounting pressures for small business resulting from limited pricing power and modestly rising wages (in fact the worst pressure since 2008's crash and 1999/2000's plunge). This has not ended well in the past...

The cries for going totally crazy are growing louder... the lunatics are running the asylum. One shouldn’t underestimate what they are capable of. The only consolation is that the day will come when the monetary cranks will be discredited again (for the umpteenth time). Thereafter it will presumably take a few decades before these ideas will rear their head again (like an especially sturdy weed, the idea that inflationism can promote prosperity seems nigh ineradicable in the long term – it always rises from the ashes again). The bad news is that many of us will probably still be around when the bill for these idiocies will be presented.

“Consider for example a tax cut for households and businesses that is explicitly coupled with incremental Bank of Japan purchases of government debt – so that the tax cut is in effect financed by money creation”

- Ben Bernanke, Some Thoughts on Monetary Policy in Japan, 2003

Until recently, the consensus assumed a strengthening of the global economy in 2016. It won’t happen. If the global economic growth manages to reach 3.1% next year, as forecast by the IMF, it will be a miracle. We are close to the end of the current economic cycle. The outbreak of a new global crisis in the coming years is inevitable.  The Fed and other central banks are in a dead-end having fallen in the same trap as the Bank of Japan. If they increase rates too much, they will precipitate another financial crisis. It is impossible to stop the accommodative monetary policy.

"Real Output" is perhaps an even more accurate indication of the true state of the US domestic economy considering all the complaints by the Fed over the state of the global economy and eliminate the "noise" from trade which has been depressing GDP for quarters. Unfortunately, what the real output data reveals is not pretty. Rising by 2.3% Y/Y in Q3, this was not only down substantially from 3.4% in Q3 and 3.5% in Q1, but this was the weakest increase since Q1 2014! And then there are jobs...

Trucks, Trains and now Ships: suddenly everything seems to be in freefall.

The current stock market melt-up hardly qualifies as limp. Even the robo-machines and hyper-ventilating day traders apparently recognize that their job is to tag the May 2015 highs and then get out of the way. So when and as they complete their pointless mission, the question recurs as to why the posse of fools in the Eccles Building can’t see that they are inflating one hellacious financial bubble; and that when it blows it will deconstruct their entire 7-year project of make-pretend recovery.

In an interview on CNBC's "Trading Nation," the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report editor revealed he may not be as bearish as some may think and that he is actually a “great optimist.”

"The "bailout culture" often coincides with sustained weak growth because, among other consequences, successful companies have to compete with companies who are alive only because of cheap credit. Overcapacity and inefficient production are engendered by such policies, causing price and profit declines. Failure is an essential element of capitalism, and if failure is politically denied, the most effective, efficient and innovative solutions cannot "win" over the "living dead" who clutter markets and consumer baskets."

"It is ironic that we are perhaps best known for advising “that you panic”. However, if you are anxious at the wrong time it can prove very painful. Today, we would advise that you don’t panic!
... by withdrawing the “Greenspan put” and using their asset purchase schemes to eviscerate any notion of value, the authorities have paradoxically created a safer yet more paranoid market."

- Hugh Hendry

"zero interest rate policy actually reduces demand in the economy, prompting the Federal Reserve to prescribe even further doses of a medicine that, for a long time, has been impeding rather than promoting economic recovery."

- JPM's David Kelly

There are very real threats to the business models of oil companies, threats that need to be explained to investors, according to a new report by Carbon Tracker. Right now, those threats are not being taken seriously.

Anyone who thinks that somehow this will not impact the rest of the globe is out of his or her mind.

"... we have more single short names than long positions in our book today. We have reduced our net exposure by nearly a third through sales and new shorts over the past few months."

Central banks can’t afford a big correction to take place as it goes counter to their mandate, a stable growing economy, hence they interfere every single time a correction of size is about to unfold. And any threat to the global economy must be prevented. Now that fiscal year end mark-ups are over for many funds buyers have to prove how committed they are to driving markets higher. Price will ultimately confirm how this will play out, but altogether this chart is an amazing construct of symmetry and, as fans of structures and symmetry, it certainly has our attention. We can’t recall ever seeing such a precise structure.