Bank of America

What goes up, comes down considerably faster...

American consumers curbed their spending in December, a lackluster finish to a year marked by slowing consumption despite a steadily improving labor market and months of cheap gasoline.  But the biggest disappointment was the Retail Sales ex auto which was down 0.1% in December, below the 0.2% expected. Putting this miss in context, 66 out of 69 economists thought December retail sales ex autos would've been higher than actual. So much for those "gas savings" prompting Americans to spend, spend, spend...

EM debt bubble... emaciated, FX Carry... crucified, Crude...crushed,  High yield bonds... burst, Chinese equities... blown, Trannies... trounced, Small Caps... slammed, Biotechs... busted, and FANGs finally FUBAR! But there is one big (very big) bubble left in the world that no one is talking about, and a rather large liquidity-busting pin beckons...

While the market for corporate bond issuance has been relatively quiet among the recent broader market turbulence, in a few hours a historic new bond is about to price and be sold to investors. Earlier today, Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, the acquiror in the second largest M&A deal of 2015 valued at $117 billion and just shy of Pfizer's massive $160 billion merger with Allergan, started offering bonds that will back its takeover of SABMiller Plc in a sale that according to Bloomberg will stretch into Europe and is set to become the biggest corporate-debt offering on record.

As the towering forces that are prevailing against failing global economic architecture and the pit of debt beneath that structure, as laid out below, it is clear that the 'Epocalypse' - encompassing the roots "economic, epoch, collapse" and "apocalypse" - is here, and it is everywhere. The Great Collapse has already begun. What follows are the megatrends that will increasingly gang up in the first part of 2016 to stomp the deeply flawed global economy down into its own hole of debt.

Tank cars, once feverishly ordered during the US shale boom, are sitting on sidings. Lessors are obtaining car rents 20-30 per cent below early 2015 — “if you’re lucky enough to keep your car in service”, said James Husband of RailSolutions, a consultancy.

As BofA admits, "we are increasingly concerned with this trend, as on an unadjusted basis non-commodity earnings growth has been negative 2 of the last 4 quarters, representing the worst 4 quarter average earnings growth in a non-recessionary period since late 2000."

This is the title of its latest piece looking at retail spending paterns based on its credit and debit card data: "Confusingly cautious consumer." Here is why BofA so confused by the cautious consumers.

Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase
Brian T. Moynihan, Bank of America
Michael Corbat, Citigroup

I am writing to you to warn you about the disruption that is about to occur in banking.

"... after four long years without any profits growth, the risk is that MSCI World mean-reverts to its original 2011 PE multiple, which would imply a further 50% decline from here. Even decline back to average would imply a 15% drop."

In what may be the latest bad news for Hillary Clinton, whose various "previous life" scandals - from emails, to Clinton foundation donations - refuse to go away, the Hill reports, citing Fox News, that the FBI has expanded its investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server during her time as secretary of State to determine whether her Clinton Foundation work violated public corruption laws.

Initially both European stocks and US equity futures were grateful that China has picked at least one asset class to prop up overnight, and rose in an extremely illiquid market with European shares gaining for first time in 4 days, as S&P futures rise even as the MSCI Asia Pacific ex-Japan index just fell to the lowest level in more than 4 years. However, as of moments ago the Stoxx 600 had faded all its earlier gains and was trading near the flatline, as an algo takes out all stops on the top and bottom once more, and looks set to move on to US futures shortly.

Now that IBM, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JP Morgan and the NYSE all agree blockchain technology will dramatically transform finance and capital markets, how does the investor capitalize on the paradigm shift? First, by understanding the concept of "Pathogenic Finance", autonomy and Zero Trust.

• China turmoil sends oil, stocks sliding (Reuters)
• China's Stock Traders Go Home After 29 Minutes (BBG)
• Yuan hits weakest since Feb 2011 on fresh low midpoint (Reuters)
• Stocks Extend Rout, Oil Slides on China as Soros Warns of Crisis (BBG)
• China's 29 Minutes of Chaos: Stunned Brokers and a Race to Sell (BBG)
• North Korea Uses Bomb Test to Boost Dictatorship (WSJ)