Monetization

Confused by the market? You are not alone with irrational and "Fear of Missing Out" momentum trades and (not so great) sector re(un)rotation all that matters (as has been the case for years with fundamentals not relevant for about 24 months now), so here are some tips from Scotiabank's Guy Haselmann who believes "market noise can be simplified into the following: QE= risk on, End of QE=risk off. QE is now half way toward ending, so now is the time to adjust. The fact that…… EM central banks are hiking, China is attacking its credit bubble, and Japan hiked its VAT tax while the “third arrow” is M.I.A., are also reasons to de-risk. If sanctions on Russia expand to products or industries, then real problems to EU growth will arise. This is something to watch carefully."

Despite popular belief, very few things in our world are exactly what they seem. That which is painted as righteous is often evil. That which is painted as kind is often malicious. That which is painted as simple is often complex. That which is painted as complex often ends up being disturbingly two dimensional. Regardless, if a person is willing to look only at the immediate surface of a thing, he will never understand the content of the thing. This fact is nowhere more evident than in the growing “tensions” between the elites of the West and the elites of the East over the crisis in Ukraine. The centralization of power is best achieved during moments of bewildering calamity. The conjuring of crises is one of the oldest methods of elitist dominance. Not only can they confuse and frighten the masses into malleability, but they can also ride to the public’s rescue as heroes and saviors later on. The Hegelian dialectic is the mainstay of tyrants.

With the world (or mostly the Japanese) front-running Draghi's ever-increasing threat of QE in Europe, Spanish and Italian government bond yields have reached levels commensurate with insanity compared to their risk (event and macro). Lower rates are great news right? They encourage growth... as the cost of borrowing drops across the nation's capital assets and the phoenix rises from the flames. Well - as the following 2 charts show - no! The lower rates are not 'trickling down' to real loans and loan creation continues to contract. So, aside from direct lending to SMEs, what exactly will Draghi's direct monetization of peripheral European bonds do aside from provide the leveraged speculators with their willing buyer to take profits (just as it did the last time he decided the time was right to buy bonds).

Over the weekend, Bloomberg had an interesting piece about two of the main reasons why while stocks continue to rise to new all time highs, the expected selling in bonds - because in a normal world, what is good for stocks should be bad for bonds - isn't materializing, and instead earlier this morning the 10 Year tumbled to the lowest since February, while last week the 30 Year retraced 50% of its post-Taper Tantrum slide, or in short a complete disconnect between stocks and bonds.

Since it's not Tuesday (the only day that matters for stocks, of course), call it opposite, or rather stop hunt take out, day. First, it was the BOJ which, as we warned previously, would disappoint and not boost QE (sorry SocGen which had expected an increase in monetization today, and now expects nothing more from the BOJ until year end), which sent the USDJPY sliding, only to see the pair make up all the BOJ announcement losses and then some; and then it was Europe, where first German retail sales cratered, printing at -1.9%, down from 2.0% and on expectations of a 1.7% print, and then Eurozone inflation once again missed estimates, and while rising from the abysmal 0.5% in March printed at only 0.7% - hardly the runaway inflation stuff Draghi is praying for. What happened then: EURUSD tumbled then promptly rebounded a la the flash crash, and at last check was trading near the high of the day.

The numbers were not bad. It is what was in the earnings slidedeck charts that is spooking the investors...

Japan is where the Keynesian economic model rubber hit the road. And it's proven that QE is ultimately an economic dead end.

While hardly coming as a surprise to anyone, Russia is getting increasingly more vocal about the near certainty that the country is about to slam headfirst into a technical (at first), and then outright recession.

• RUSSIA MAY ENTER `TECHNICAL RECESSION' IN 2Q, ORESHKIN SAYS
• RUSSIAN 2014 CAPITAL OUTFLOWS MAY REACH $70B-$80B: ORESHKIN
• RUSSIAN 2014 CURRENT-ACCOUNT SURPLUS MAY EXCEED $50B: ORESHKIN
• RUSSIAN GDP MAY CONTRACT IN 2Q OR 3Q VS YR EARLIER: ORESHKIN

The Cyprus bail-in laid the ground for a global wealth tax. The next time a crisis hits, savers will be picking up the tab.

America is being run by an unelected gang of essentially self-perpetuating PhDs. The notion of an economics coup d’ etat is not so far-fetched.  So the last 35 years have brought the greatest exercise in mission creep ever undertaken by an agency of the state. That explains why the monetary politburo persists in its absurd quest to force more debt into an economy which is already saturated with $59 trillion of the same. To pretend, as does Yellen and most of the monetary politburo that they must plow ahead printing money at lunatic rates because Congress so mandated it, is the height of mendacity. The Fed has seized power and is not about to let go - common sense be damned, and the constitution, too.

Widening income disparity has been a feature of many advanced and developing economies for the past few years and has myriad investment implications. As we noted yesterday, the USA is at levels of income disparity not seen since the roaring 20s (and by some counts worse) but how does that stack up to the rest of the world? Fed fans will be proud to say that once again USA in Number 1... in global income inequality.

Following yesterday's uninspiring 2 Year bond auction, today's 5 Year issuance of $35 billion was a whopper. Because while it was known well in advance that today's closing high yield of 1.715%, which priced through the When Issued of 1.732% by 1.7 bps, would be the highest since May 2011. However, the stunners were all within the internals. First, the Bid To Cover of 2.99 was the highest since September 2012, and an abrupt turn in the recent general downward trend in BTCs - who would have thunk that all it took for greater interest in US paper was higher yields . But it was the takedown where the real shockers lay.

In the land of the free and the home of the entitled, the sad (but true) nature of income inequality's inexorable rise in the past few years has a somewhat more startling impact on the future. With work being punished for the marginal employee and the wealth effect concentrated in the hands of the great and good, the following two charts show clearly the sad fact that those who need to save for the future the most don't (and likely can't) and those with all the income save the most (and thus 'spend' the least). As we noted previously, the rich have the assets and the poor have the debt (and debt is not wealth).

Just last week Goldman noted that February was "the busiest month in the buyback desk's history," so one has to wonder just what management is thinking when the Wall Street Journal reports that corporate insiders are more bearish than they have been at least since 1990. According to this adjusted measure, there have been two prior occasions when the insider ratio got almost as bearish as it is today - early 2007 and early 2011 - and the first came a half a year before the beginning of the worst bear market since the 1930s. Simply put, it seems management teams are using their company's balance sheet as their own personal piggybank.