CPI

The seventh anniversary of Zero Hedge is just around the corner, and so, for the seventh year in a row we continue our tradition of summarizing what our readers found to be the most relevant, exciting, and actionable news of the year, determined by the number of page views. We bring you the articles that you, dear reader, found to be the most interesting in the past 365 days.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try, keep trying again and again. That appears to be the mantra of Goldman's credit strategists.

"The most important channel through which the Dragon's Tail scenario can affect other markets is trade, although financial linkages and market contagion could also have a significant impact on some markets and asset prices."

"The trouble is that rents are running high not because house prices are booming and/or construction is sawing but because structurally new entrants to the housing market are renters not owners. This is reflected in the very low first time homebuyer rate, less than 30 percent."

There are many half-truths perpetrated on individuals by Wall Street to sell product, gain assets, etc. However, if individuals took a moment to think about it, the illogic of many of these arguments are readily apparent. The index is a mythical creature, like the Unicorn, and chasing it has historically led to disappointment. Investing is not a competition, and there are horrid consequences for treating it as such.

So there you have it: a riskless "profit" handout for foreign banks, subsidized by the most famous US "public" institution - the Federal Reserves - amounting to approximately $11 billion in just one year.

In a weekend of very little macro newsflow facilitated by the release of the latest Star Wars sequel, the biggest political and economic event was the Spanish general election which confirmed the end of the PP-PSOE political duopoly at national level.  As a result, there was some early underperformance in SPGBs and initial equity weakness across European stocks, which however was promptly offset and at last check the Stoxx 600 was up 0.4% to 363, with US equity futures up nearly 1% after Friday's oversold drubbing. In other key news, the commodity slide continues with Brent Oil dropping to a fresh 11-year low as futures fell as much as 2.2% in London after a 2.8% drop last week.

Yellen and her cohort have no clue, however, that all of their massive money printing never really left the canyons of Wall Street, but instead inflated the mother of all financial bubbles. So they are fixing to blow-up the joint for the third time this century. That was plain as day when our Keynesian school marm insisted that the Third Avenue credit fund failure this past week was a one-off event - a lone rotten apple in the barrel. Now that is the ultimate in cluelessness.

Not since December 2013 have Canadian Consumer Prices dropped by such a large amount. November CPI dropped 0.3% MoM, dramatically worse than expected to the largest drop since Dec 2013. The largest YoY drop in Canadian CPI, amid a surge in inventories relative to a collapsee in wholesale sales sent the loonie crashing above 1.4000 for the first time since August 2003.

• Oil heads for third straight weekly loss as supply weighs (Reuters)
• BOJ's $2.5 Billion ETF Boost Seen Having Little Impact on Stocks (BBG)
• Japan core CPI seen flat in November, household spending down (Reuters)
• Dollar gets altitude sickness as BOJ disappoints (Reuters)
• Fed Hikes, but Some Rates Veer Lower (WSJ)
• White House calls for 'common sense steps' to help Puerto Rico (Reuters)

Following the latest BOJ statement, the market found itself wrongfooted assuming the BOJ was actually launching another episode of easing, sending the USDJPY soaring, until suddenly the realization swept the market that not only was the incremental action not really material, but even Kuroda spoke shortly after the announcement, confirming that "today's decision wasn't additional easing." The result was one of the biggest FX headfakes in recent days, perhaps on par with that from December 4 when EUR shorts were crushed, as the biggest carry pair first soared then tumbled and since the Yen correlation drives so many risk assets, also pulled down not only Japanese stocks but US equity futures.

It is widely assumed that the gold price must decline when the Federal Reserve is hiking interest rates. It seems logical enough: gold has no yield, so if competing investment assets such as bonds or savings deposits do offer a yield, gold will presumably be exchanged for those. There is only a slight problem with this idea. The simple assumption “Fed rate hikes equal a falling gold price” is not supported by even a shred of empirical evidence.

"The party's over and bond investors who always tend to be more sober types, realize this and have headed for the exits whereas equity investors are so intoxicated they haven't realized that the music has stopped. Equity investors are still gyrating around the dance floor - just as in 1999 and 2007... I believe the Yellen Fed will soon be treated with the same contempt the Greenspan Fed was in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. And they will deserve it."

Heading into the Fed's first "dovish" rate hike in nearly a decade, the consensus was two-fold: as a result of relentless telegraphing of the Fed's intentions, the hike is priced in, and it will be a "dovish" hike, with the Fed lowering its forecast for the number of hikes over the next year. Consensus was once again wrong on both accounts: first the rate hike was far more hawkish than most had expected (see previous post), and - judging by the surge in Asian, European stocks and US equity futures - the "market" simply is enamored with such hawkish hikes which will soon soak up trillions in liquidity from the financial system.

The day has come when the boxed-in Fed has no choice: with the vast majority of the market expecting a rate hike, Yellen has to deliver or suffer a crushing confidence blow like no other. And deliver she will, with expectations that said hike will be "as dovish as possible." For now however, the market is desperate to convince itself that just as more easing and more QE were bullish for the market, so rate hikes are just as bullish. Recall from late 2013: "tapering is not tightening," then the 2015 version of this refrain is "tightening is not tightening."