Market Crash

With the long-weekend rapidly approaching, ConvergEx's Nick Colas takes a trip to the Hamptons, but through a time warp back to the Great Depression.  Examining the social registers (colloquially called the “Blue Book”) from 1927 and 1940, he finds that “The great and the good” of the day had real trouble holding their status during the social upheavals of the late 1920s and 1930s.  Only 32% of the families appearing in the Blue Book in 1927 were still there in 1940.  The ratio was even worse, at 29%, for the ultra-elite who belonged to the Meadow Club in Southampton.  It’s too early to tell what the last few volatile years will do to the upper crust of East Coast society, of course.  Or what may still be in store.  But when the hedgie in the Bentley cuts you off on Route 27 this weekend, take some solace in knowing he may not be there in a few years. “Yes, the wealthy are different. Every year there are different wealthy people.”

What was that single that soul singer Otis Clay brought out in 1980? Oh yeah, ‘The only way is up’! Well, if ever there were a more fitting signature tune these days for CEOs in the USA, then that’s what I’d be betting (my bottom) dollar on!

In all the hoopla over Japan's stock market crash and China's PMI miss last night, the biggest news of the day was largely ignored: copper, and the fact that copper's ubiquitous arbitrage and rehypothecation role in China's economy through the use of Chinese Copper Financing Deals (CCFD) is coming to an end.

Yesterday afternoon, following the rout in the US stock market, we made a spurious preview of the true main event: "So selloff in JGBs tonight?" We had no idea how right we would be because the second Japan opened, its bond futures market was halted on a circuit breaker as the 10 Year bond plunged to their lowest level since early 2012, hitting 1% and leading to massive Mark to Market losses for Japanese banks, as we also warned would happen. That was just the beginning, and suddenly the realization crept in that the plunging yen at this point is not only negative for banks, but for the entire stock market, leading to what until that point was a solid up session for the Nikkei to the first rumblings of a ris-off. Shortly thereafter we got the distraction of the Chinese Mfg PMI which dropped into contraction territory for the first time since late 2012, and which set the mood decidedly risk-offish, although the real catalyst may have been a report on copper from Goldman's Roger Yan (which we will cover in depth shortly) and whose implications may be stunning and devastating and may have just popped the Chinese credit bubble (oh, btw, short copper). And then all hell broke loose, with the Nikkei first rising solidly and then something snapping loud and clear, and sending the index crashing a massive 1,143 an intraday swing of 9% high to low, leading to an over 200 pips move lower in the USDJPY, and leading to a global risk off across the world.

As the global equity and bond markets grind ever higher, abundant signs exist that we are once again living through an asset bubble – or rather a whole series of bubbles in a variety of markets. This makes this period quite interesting, but also quite dangerous. This can be summarized in one sentence:  How could this be happening again so soon?

If we’ve learned one thing over the years from following markets, economics, and geopolitics is this: no man can push the Wheels of History. It unfolds in its own time and no other. The waves of human emotion, of optimism and pessimism both long and short term haven’t changed. So why are the markets still going up? Why can’t people respond to warnings of the blogosphere, or warnings of collapsing economies and accounts right before their eyes? Answer: Because they can’t. It isn’t time - yet... Human emotions and behavior run in cycles of set period. Obviously humankind cannot become infinitely more optimistic forever into the future. In the same way trees don’t grow to the sky, at some point human expectation must reverse and become less optimistic, more conservative and pessimistic until it reaches an opposite extreme. And this theory has a lot going for it: if governments truly controlled stock markets, economies, nations, then why would they ever decline? No government or market would ever voluntarily get smaller, less powerful, and prosperous. And yet despite everything they can do to prevent them, markets and economies always, always DO reverse. Always.

During an interview with The Globe and Mail, 'Gloom, Boom, and Doom's Marc Faber unleashed some awful truthiness about gold "I buy gold every month", real estate "bubble territory", and the likelihood of a crash in smoke-and-mirrors-like asset markets - "In the 40 years I’ve been working as an economist and investor, I have never seen such a disconnect between the asset market and the economic reality... Asset markets are in the sky and the economy of the ordinary people is in the dumps, where their real incomes adjusted for inflation are going down and asset markets are going up... Something will break very bad."

For 727 editions, and nearly 30 years, Bill Buckler, the "captain" of the free market-praising Privateer newsletter provided a welcome escape from a world overrun with "free-lunch" economists, "for-hire" politicians, "crony-capitalist" oligarchs, "heroin-addict" bankers, "the-solution-to-record-debt-is-more-record-debt" Keynesians, and all those other subclasses of that species which Einstein, or whoever, described so aptly in saying that they all expect a different, and happy, outcome when applying the same flawed methods over and over. And for 30 years, Buckler's steadfast determination and adherence to his arguments, beliefs, reasoning and ironclad logic brought him countless followers, all of whom are now able to see past the bread and circus facade of a world every day on the edge of political and social collapse. Sadly, all good things come to an end, and so does The Privateer. We are delighted to celebrate its illustrious memory by presenting to our readers the final, must read, issue of the newsletter which encapsulates the philosophy and ideology of its author - a man much respected and admired in the free market circles - and thirty years of objective, unbiased market and economic commentary, best of all.

What once used to be a field in which men of towering intellect tried to establish, discuss and lay down the tenets of what was widely considered an entirely new science as recently as the late 19th century, has become a field in which a great many rather mediocre intellectuals are mainly serving the interests of the State. Nassim Taleb recently too to task a number of the so-called mainstream economists - assessing and analyzing the flaws of modern policy-making and central economic planning as well as the fractionally reserved banking system. We wish him success in tackling the handmaidens of statism and their pseudo-scientific output. Anyone criticizing the producers of fig leaves for interventionism deserves our support. Of course, if an economist rejects interventionism and supports the establishment of an unhampered free market, then there is obviously no role for him as an 'economic planner' and 'adviser to policymakers' (except for advising them to stay the hell out of the economy and stop meddling with it). 

The political class set in motion the eventual obliteration of our economic system with the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. Placing the fate of the American people in the hands of a powerful cabal of unaccountable greedy wealthy elitist bankers was destined to lead to poverty for the many, riches for the connected crony capitalists, debasement of the currency, endless war, and ultimately the decline and fall of an empire. The 100 year downward spiral began gradually but has picked up steam in the last sixteen years, as the exponential growth model, built upon ever increasing levels of debt and an ever increasing supply of cheap oil, has proven to be unsustainable and unstable. Those in power are frantically using every tool at their disposal to convince Boobus Americanus they have everything under control and the system is operating normally. Nothing could be further from the truth.

"This could be even bigger than the US housing crisis," warns senior Chinese auditor Chang Ke, as his accounting firm has all but stopped signing off on bond sales by local governments (as we warned most recently here). As the FT reports, Zhang's firm "audited some local government bond issues and found them very dangerous," as they don't have strong debt-servicing abilities. "It is already out of control," he continues, "the only thing you can do is issue new debt to repay the old," he said. "But there will be some day down the line when this can’t go on." With more than 2,800 counties having discovered the investment-vehicle-bond (a way to avoid the prohibition or directly raising debt), Zhang notes that this "frightening" evolution has led to a situation where he puts little faith in the government guarantee, advising that "when the time comes, it won’t be the government that assumes responsibility. It will be the accounting firms and the banks that do."

"Gold has become much more affordable in recent days as the price has collapsed. Such a collapse is unpleasant, but not cause for concern," advises Dylan Grice. "Gold remains durable," as a source of protection from loss of confidence in the system, and, he adds "a correction was overdue. Now, the gold market has become healthier." Critically, Grice warns during this interview with Finanz und Wirtschaft, "gold will not protect against a crash in the financial markets, it showed 2008," since if many investors simultaneously urgently need cash, they sell everything they have, including gold. However, Europe is a time-bomb, China's credit bubble is ow where the US was before the financial crisis, and while inflation may not be an imminent threat (and likely shuffled more gold holders out leaving "a more stable investor base,") Grice concludes, "Gold endures. If confidence in the currency is lost, or in the bond market; Gold is a safe haven." There are good reasons to own gold. And to buy gold, there is now a reason more than a week ago: It's 30% cheaper.

Yes, there was economic news overnight, such as a Eurozone and UK CPI, both of which came in line with expectations (1.7% and 0.4% respectively), and a German ZEW which confirmed Europe's accelerating deterioration, tumbling from 48.5 to 36.3, far below expectations of a 41.0 print (somehow the huge miss has managed to push the EURUSD up by 60 pips to an overnight high of 1.31 but this is merely the pre-US open manipulation to ramp US equities higher), just as there was news that Angela Merkel's support for a Cyprus bailout is growing (was there an alternative?), and that as part of their ongoing investigation into Italy's repeatedly insolvent Monte Paschi, investigators had seized €1.8 billion worth of assets from Nomura Holdings, and that Spain as usual sold more Bills than expected, driven by oversize Japanese and Pension Fund purchases, but what everyone has been looking for is whether the relentless and record rout in gold is over. For now, it appears that is the case, with gold printing an overnight low of just over $1320 and ramping higher ever since, up 3% so far and rising.

Former Soros' Japan advisor Fujimaki takes center stage: “The volatility in the JGB market as well as the fact that there is large selling represent fear among investors,” Fujimaki said. “They are early signs of a larger selloff and we should continue to monitor the moves in the long-term bonds.” Fujimaki said he recently bought put options for Japanese government bonds of various maturities, without elaborating. He continues to hold real estate in Japan and options granting the right to sell the yen against the greenback expiring in less than five years. He also holds assets in U.S. dollars and currencies of other developed nations. "Japan’s finance is sinking into the ocean,” Fujimaki said. “There’s no escape from a market crash in the future when you have such enormous debt.”  “By expanding the monetary base to 270 trillion yen, the BOJ is making a huge bet which I think it will ultimately lose,” Fujimaki said in an interview in Tokyo on April 11. “Kuroda’s QE announcement is declaring double suicide with the government. The BOJ will have to share the country’s fate and default together. Shirakawa did more than enough and he had good reasons to not do any more,” said Fujimaki. “There will be tremendous side effects from monetary stimulus. QE doesn’t work and has no exit... Things may look rosy for now as stocks rise, but should we see hyper-inflation, JGBs will see a huge selloff, leading to a stock market crash,” said Fujimaki, adding that he sold “almost all” of his Japanese stock holdings some time ago.

The stock market is not crashing yet, but there are lots of other market crashes happening in the financial world right now.  Just like we saw back in 2008, it is taking stocks a little bit of extra time to catch up with economic reality.  But almost everywhere else you look, there are signs that a financial avalanche has begun.