Cognitive Dissonance

Sounds easier than it is.

Permanent adolescence is the state of resolving insecurity, fear and social defeat by buying things that promise the invulnerability of a fantasy self and world, and by indulging in instant gratification to mask the self-destructive derangement of broken ecosystems: not just in the natural world, but in our bodies, in our society, in our economy and in our politics. Nurturing permanent adolescence, anxiety and alienation are highly profitable, for people responding to the fear and anxiety of Thanatos (the instinct for destruction) will not only become malleable consumers, they will lose their grip on Eros, the instinct for life and love. Once lost to the Dark Side, they have no way to experience health or intact ecosystems; their world darkens as there appears to be no alternative to the Status Quo. Health is horribly unprofitable; illness, anxiety and alienation are highly profitable. That is the destructive essence of our sociopathological "engine of growth," narcissistic consumerism.

According to a recent CNN poll, 60% of Americans want go to war with Iran to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons. This in spite of the fact that the US intelligence community is fairy unanimous that Iran is not even currently pursuing nuclear weapons. Simultaneously 71% of Americans — in total contradiction to the evidence recognised by both the CIA and Mossad that Iran is not currently even developing a nuclear weapon — believe that Iran currently has nuclear weapons. Unlike the 71%, I’m not really convinced by this — if anything, it could be Iranian disinformation to try and avoid an American or Israeli attack. More importantly, the US and Israeli intelligence community at large don’t buy it. If they had any real evidence that Iran had a bomb today, Netanyahu would have been presenting it at the UN instead of drawing red lines on Wile E. Coyote bomb diagrams.

Gallup's US economic confidence index surged 11 points last week (more than the 10 points when Bin Laden was killed) and has reached levels comparable to the pre-crisis highs from January 2008. As Gallup notes, it appears that the spark for the dramatic rise in Americans' economic confidence last week was the Democratic National Convention. A review of Gallup's nightly tracking results shows that the index was consistently near or below -25 each night in late August and early September, but then sharply improved on Sept. 4, the first night of the convention, to -18. Confidence then held at or near -18 through Sunday, despite the dismal August unemployment report Friday morning showing continued weak jobs growth. More specifically, the convention appears to have given Democrats and, to a lesser degree, independents, fresh optimism about the economy. We can only assume that the cognitive dissonance of the hope-holding believers-in-change will not carry through to real economic growth or all those other 'hopers' - the 'this-time-QE-is-different' crowd - will be sadly disappointed.

Fresh from his vacation with Mickey and Minnie, CNBC's Rick Santelli is back and mind-blown at the total cognitive dissonance of the fact that we just broke through $16tn debt. The relaxed Chicagoan summarizes, in words and tables that any Disney-princess-loving 6 year old girl could comprehend, why "a trillion is a big number" and while not dissing the first lady's speech, he notes that unlike her "money's not important to Barack" comment, when the number gets this big, it better matter to someone.

With an almost perfect six-year lag, the S&P 500 appears to be following the same path as it did into the Subprime crisis from the Feb 2003 lows - almost too accurately. The analog is stunning 'optically' and even more concerning from a behavioral perspective. By this time in 2006, we had seen the US Home Construction Index drop 40%, Subprime lenders going bankrupt left and right, Magnetar Capital had started to create CDOs with the express intent of failing, and Nouriel Roubini had just given his IMF presentation on the forthcoming US housing bust and major recession. Despite all of this, which in hindsight was extremely worrisome, the S&P 500 managed to gain 200 more 'the Fed has our back'-points before cognitive dissonance finally gave in to the reality that the 'music had stopped' - first out wins, and large crowds and small doors don't mix. With the current market rising on ever-decreasing volumes (in futures and stocks - so it's not about the high-price equities), divergence between the new highs in equity indices and falling 'net new highs' in NYSE stocks, and near-peak post-crisis level of complacency in options prices, it seems risk and reward are at best skewed neutral, and at worst flashing red warning signals.

Last week we pointed out the cognitive dissonance between the 'belief' that advanced economies are gradually (and rightly) deleveraging  - as central banks maintain the status quo by kicking the can - and the reality of no actual deleveraging. Today, we look at the global corporate re-leveraging cycle that, as UBS notes, has struggled to gain traction after the initial recovery phase following the 2008/9 crisis. The corporate re-leveraging process is broadly defined as trends in the use of cash as well as more active capital structure dynamics - a cycle that has ebbed and flowed over the last three years. In 2011 we witnessed some encouraging trends; but with the rolling crisis in Europe and continued uncertainty about the overall strength of the global economy,  it’s probably no surprise we’re seeing an apparent stalling out of the re-leveraging cycle. Returns on capital are set to decline this year - the first time since before the financial crisis as RoE is being squeezed from all sides: asset turns, profit margins, and leverage.

Market-top economics could be an entire university course, if people cared enough about such phenomena.  Most only consider the signs of a market top months or years after a crash when some unyielding economics researcher puts the pieces together.  As human-beings we have developed an uncanny ability to rationalize what we know to be bad news and convince ourselves, "This time is different," despite the fact that it usually never is. In a previous article we provided analysis on economic/equity decoupling (cognitive dissonance) and showed that the economy as we know it cannot persist--we are either due for a literal gap-up in leading economic conditions, or we are due for a serious correction in US equities.  With today's 5.4% slip in existing home-sales, let's go with the latter.

Quickly following up on Rick Santelli's epic rant (which CNBC decided not to publish) on the 'smoking gun' reality of Bernanke's testimony this morning: that they knew that rates were being manipulated but it was for the good of the people - and asking rhetorically, we assume, "Why Do We Have Regulators? Manipulation Is Manipulation!"; Steve Liesman has been brought out to relay the party line to the citizenry - that there is no smoking gun. Furthermore, Liesman sees a 1-2bps compression in Treasury yields as signalling the market's belief that NEW QE is indeed still on and the drop in stocks is merely a lack of instant gratification. It seems to us that Santelli's perspective that Bernanke knows he is at his limit with regard to efficacy of measures seems much more realistic than Liesman's re-iteration of the Fed-Watcher's desires and his own incredible cognitive dissonance - just what happens if the Fed is not omnipotent?

Erste Group's Ronald Stoeferle, author of the critical "In gold we trust" report (2011 edition here) has just released the 6th annual edition of this all encompassing report which covers every aspect of the gold space. What follows are 120 pages of fundamental information which are a must read for anyone interested in the yellow metal. From the report:  "The foundation for new all-time-highs is in place. As far as sentiment is concerned, we definitely see no euphoria with respect to gold. Skepticism, fear, and panic are never the final stop of a bull market. In the short run, seasonality seems to argue in favor of a continued sideways movement, but from August onwards gold should enter its seasonally best phase. USD 2,000 is our next 12M price target. We believe that the parabolic trend phase is still ahead of us, and that our long-term price target of USD 2,300/ounce could be on the conservative side."

All day long we are bombarded with surveys of sentiment. When positive; all is well. When negative they are used by any and every long-only manager as yet another money-on-the-sideline-like as justification to be the contrarian and buy-the-dip. There are however many times when the survey of people's 'views' is quite different from their positioning (cognitive dissonance aside) and we prefer to look at real market sentiment indications for our signals. Case in point is CSFB's Fear Index - which, unlike VIX, measures the sentiment skew in options prices (how much more bearish or bullish put options are relative to call options). In general, it shows a slight leading indication for larger-trend equity movements but most critically - it can signal when real market positions have become too bullish (or overly confident) or too bearish (overly conservative). The fact is that the options markets are NOT currently overly bearish here - as they were in Q4 (green oval) - providing the short-squeeze-levered ammo for a rally here; just as options markets were overly bullish (red oval) as the end of LTRO2 began - which provided the initial levered-long-squeeze ammo for the current sell-off. So the next time you hear someone saying how negative sentiment is - and that's a reason to buy - show them this chart (of real positions - not a survey!) and tell them to move along.

Negative interest rates continue to penalise pensioners and savers in European countries and this will lead to further diversification into gold. Financial markets are already starting to wonder about the solidity of last week's summit measures to tackle the euro zone crisis and soon they may question whether even looser monetary policies will help prevent recessions and sovereign defaults. With Independence Day today (Happy July 4th to all our American followers, clients and friends), the ECB decision tomorrow and NFP on Friday, trading should be quite today but as we know illiquid markets can lead to outsized market moves. We tend to try and avoid predictions in GoldCore as the future is largely unknowable and there are so many variables that drive market action that it is nigh impossible to predict the future price of any asset class. However, our opinion has long been that over the long term all fiat currencies will depreciate and devalue against the finite currency that is gold. For this reason we have long held that gold would reach its inflation adjusted high of $2,400/oz and silver its inflation adjusted high at $140/oz and the equivalent in euros, pounds and other fiat currencies. Gold at just over $1,600/oz today remains 33% below its record nominal high in 1980. Silver at just over $28/oz today remains 80% below its record nominal high in 1980. However, we have tended to focus on the important diversification, store of value and safe haven benefits of owning physical gold (and silver) bullion.

The gold exchange standard period, which followed WW2, was a period of unprecedented and unparalleled expansion, productivity growth, technological innovation, and financial stability. The Bank of England’s recent report on the gold standard periods concluded:

"Overall the gold standard appeared to perform reasonably well against its financial stability and allocative efficiency objectives."

The BBC concludes by quoting former Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord Lawson:

"You can’t force a government to stay on gold, so therefore gold has no credibility."

Do you see the cognitive dissonance here? If we are to believe Lord Lawson, gold has no credibility, because governments have previously proven themselves untrue to their word. Surely the thing that has no credibility is not gold, but government promises? And that is the answer to the BBC’s initial question.

With so much hollow and pointless discussion over the past week, month and year over such fundamentally trivial things as who will inject more money faster, who will be bailed out first, who will go back to their own currency before everyone else, it is easy to forget that reality actually matters. And the reality is not who has their CTRL-P macro stuck, but what does the future of the world truly hold when one sidesteps such idiotic flights of fancy that debt may be cured with more debt. In order to completely change the topic from what has become trivial and generic - i.e., the various encroaching forms of central planning: Fed, SCOTUS, G-8 through G-20; European Finance Ministers, and now, with the ESM passing German parliament, the German Constitutional Court, we focus on something few have discussed, yet all have a morbid fascination with: Robots... And China. And why the combination of the two just may be the most dangerous thing for China's several hundred million strong migrant labor force, which, on the margin may just be the deciding factor defining the engine of global growth for the next decade. Oh, and did we mention global structural unemployment which will only get worse as increasing automation leaves more and more millions collecting their 99 weeks of extended unemployment benefits.

Everyone knows that Europe is divided into the Periphery (aka the PIIGS), and the Core (aka the countries that are supposed to be safe). What everyone also knows, is that the core, naively represented by Germany and France, supposedly has homogeneous distribution of economic growth and prospects. That all changed last year, when France moved from being a AAA-rated country, to a fallen superduper angel following the Moody's downgrade to AA+. Yet nowhere is the glaring divergence between these two formerly comparable economies than in the two articles cited below, both from the same publication, and both from today.