Renaissance

• Troops Forage for Food While Golfers Play On in Shutdown (BBG)
• Police suspect dental hygienist Miriam Carey was behind the wheel of Capitol chase (WaPo)
• Italian Senate committee starts Berlusconi expulsion process (Reuters)
• Swiss Regulator Probing Banks Over Foreign-Exchange Manipulation (WSJ)
• GOP Begins Search for Broad Deal on Budget (WSJ)
• No Jobs Report Means Economists Chew on Football Instead of Data (BBG)
• U.S. default seems unthinkable but investors have options (Reuters)
• Citigroup fined $30 million after analyst sent report to SAC, others (Reuters)
• FBI Snags Silk Road Boss With Own Methods (BBG)
• Recession Warnings Found in Asset Price Falls (BBG)
• Bank of Japan warns of severe global impact from U.S. fiscal standoff (Reuters)

There appears to be 3 big lies (among many other smaller ones) currently driving the flow of speculative capital around the world. First, Bernanke said the Taper was off due to 'worsening' financial conditions (except financial conditions remain very near all-time highs). Many mean-reverting extrapolators are calling for a renaissance in emerging markets and Asian growth that will lead us out of this 'temporary' slowdown (except consensus growth expectations for Asian economies are tumbling in reality) and most people assume US economic 'escape velocity' growth is around the corner and the Fed will normalize policy 'just right' (but a glance at Eurodollar futures suggests the market is far more dovish than previous tightening cycles would suggest). With normaliation implying 600bps rates rises, we suspect the reality of these 'lies' will come back to bite sooner rather than later.

The number whispered on Wall Street is $10 billion (or $14-$15 if you ask The Saudis), but potential investors in the micro-blogger’s IPO will need more to go on than simple valuation math and guided judgment.  As ConvergEx's Nick Colas notes, Tech firms are particularly dependent on innovation and human capital for their viability. So while Twitter may come out with a double-digit billion dollar IPO, Colas points out the most important question – Is it actually worth buying there?  The bottom line to the success of thriving tech companies (historically names such as Amazon, Google and Apple) is that they consistently and reliably build products that people want to purchase and use.  Colas explores multiple avenues to determine whether Twitter has the engine to do this, or whether it could emerge more “Groupon” than “Google” in the public company tech arena – and the answer lies in how you weigh the pros and cons of our top 10 points related to the social network’s IPO.

In the summer of 1956, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, sparking a worldwide crisis. Britain was a major stakeholder in the canal, and almost immediately, the British government put together a small coalition consisting of the UK, France, and Israel to regain Western control. Their subsequent military action, however, greatly displeased the US government. And Uncle Sam quickly asserted its new role as the world’s superpower. But to anyone paying attention, this status has waned. Asia is rising. Major centers of wealth and power have grown around the world. US finances are desolate. And its currency is now widely reviled by foreign governments. But US politicians have completely ignored this trend over the last decade. They spend and act as if US global dominance is an endless river. With Syria, though, the US may have finally reached its Suez moment.

About an hour ago, Bank of America served the latest indication that the US housing "recovery" (also known as the fourth consecutive dead cat bounce of the cheap credit policy-driven housing market in the past five years) may be on its last breath. Namely, the bank announced that it will eliminate about 2,100 jobs and shutter 16 mortgage offices as rising interest rates weaken loan demand, said two people with direct knowledge of the plans and reported by Bloomberg. In some ways this may be non-news: previously we reported, using a Goldman analysis, that up to 60% of all home purchases in recent months have been, which of course shows just how hollow the "recovery" has been for the common American for whom the average home has once again become unaffordable. However, judging by an update presentation given earlier today by the CFO of none other than JP "fortress balance sheet" Morgan, things are rapidly going from bad to worse for the banking industry as a result of the souring mortgage market for which, absent prop trading, loan origination is the primary bread and butter.

As a proxy for economic activity, the addition of US exports and imports provides a useful indication of 2-way trade underlying growth in the US. Following the collapse in 2008/9, 2-way trade surged by over 30% YoY providing the impetus for the initial 'recovery' off the lows. That 'growth' has now dissipated and for almost 2 years, 2-way trade has gone nowhere. The last 3 times that this activity indicator was so poor, very significant systemic events occurred. Will 4th time be the charm?

Unless this Friday's NFP number plummets, the taper is now assured. Moments ago the US joined the rest of the world in its "manufacturing renaissance" spurt reported over the past two months, with the Manufacturing ISM headline number rising from 55.4 to 55.7, beating expectations of a 54.0 print, and printing the highest number since April 2011 and the biggest beat since August 2011. The components which posted a notable increase were New Orders, which rose from 58.3 to 63.2, recording the largest 3 month rise in 4 years, Prices jumped the most or 5 from 49.0 to 54.0, while exports also rose by 2.0 to 55.5 as it appears everyone is exporting more to everyone else at the same time: hopefully someone is reminded that trade just happens to be a zero sum game. Among the decliners, the most notable one was Employment which dropped from 54.4 to 53.3, Production down 2.6 to 62.4, and  Customer Inventories down 5 to 42.5. Maybe there is a reason why customers are rapidly destocking despite the the ramp up of production at the material stage.

Early-year tax increases and higher gasoline prices have probably dented U.S. consumer expenditures and as Bloomberg's Joseph Brusuelas notes, tomorrow's report of July’s personal income and spending report may illustrate the weakness that poses a significant risk to the much-anticipated economic growth renaissance in the second half of the year.

Less than a month ago, potash stocks around the world cratered overnight following news that Russian potash producer OAO Uralkali announced its decision to break up a 'marketing venture' that controlled around 43% of global potash exports in the process ending the cartel that many US fertilized companies enjoyed for years. The end of the cartel was also a big hit for former partner Belarusian Potash Company (BPS) and the host nation Belarus, a country of 9.5 million people, where revenue from its potash industry accounts for almost 20 percent of the budget.  Everyone, Goldman Sachs, included were confounded by the move: Such behavior by Belaruskali in a structurally oversupplied potash industry should push for stricter competition for end customers and result in a significant swift decline in pricing... " What was most surprising is that Uralkali would voluntarily engage in this move, knowing full well that the Belarus government would retaliate. The only question is how severely. Turns out the answer is "very."

Over six weeks ago we first noted that there were problems with the industry-specific data underlying the Chinese PMI numbers when we added that "the random disappearance of data was disorienting." Fast-forward to last week and the greater-than-50 PMI print heard around the world, which provided just enough momentum ignition to warrant more optimism in world equity markets that the second-half of the year would indeed prove to be a mythical renaissance. Well, it turns out that China's official National Bureau of Statistics has admitted that "we can’t ensure all industry-specific data can reach accuracy requirements," adding that they "were concerned that some of the numbers may affect related investors and users." Translation - the data in some industries was so bad that by telling the truth, our data would have become viciously self-fulfilling for their demise. The Juncker-rule is alive and well...

As Western economies start to regress in earnest following decades of failed and destructive monetary inflation and debt accumulation, yield-starved investors are allocating real capital to the one industrially untapped continent in the world: Africa. However, we’re not seeing industry moving to Africa to set up shop. Rather, politically-directed capital flowing into the African resources sector is fueling and financing the strongest consumer boom in the world. It’s a vendor financing model for Asia, and it portends a major boom and bust cycle for the African continental economy.

In East Africa, the major water resource is the Nile river, the world’s longest, at 4,130 miles, referred to by Egypt since antiquity as the country’s heart. Instability, poor governance, lack of finances and the availability of other water sources left the issue largely dormant until the 1990s, when Nilotic governments seriously started to consider using their Nile Basin waters to generate energy and irrigate crops. But now, most African countries (expecting growth), where only about 25% of the population is connected to electricity grids, are seeking any and all electric power sources; guaranteeing an ongoing and increasingly fractious source of tension for Nilotic states. With the current political turmoil roiling Egypt, Cairo’s ability to influence upstream states is currently constrained, which until the dust settles may well provide Egypt with a number of aquatic fait accomplits. If Kampala and Addis Ababa press forward with their (Chinese-sponsored) hydroelectric projects in the interim, then they will probably eventually face some “frank and candid” diplomatic discussions with Egypt, which, after all, has a 4,000 year old history of Nile concerns.  Not a happy scenario.

• Critics Decry Risks Posed by Link Between China's Banks and Bonds (WSJ)
• U.S. retailers say uneven recovery keeps consumers cautious (Reuters) - er, what recovery?
• Easy Credit Dries Up, Choking Growth in China (NYT)
• Fed's Bullard Floats Idea of Small Cuts to Bond Buying (WSJ)
• EU wants one definition of bad loans for bank tests (Reuters) - because in Europe they can't even agree what an NPL is...
• Nagasaki Bomb Maker Offers Lessons for Fukushima Cleanup (BBG)
• With Gmail Overhaul, Not All Mail Is Equal (WSJ)
• Snowden downloaded NSA secrets while working for Dell, sources say (Reuters)
• Apollo co-founder buys into New Jersey Devils (FT)
• Republicans to vote on debate boycott because of Clinton programs (Reuters)
• J.C. Penney Heads for Ninth Quarter of Plunging Sales (BBG)

With calls for a European renaissance and a general belief in stability through the German elections, it is perhaps worth a reminder of the structural problems that the supposedly bottoming union is facing. Nowhere is that single monetary policy-facing dilemma more evident than in the massive economic growth divergences across the EU nations and the current huge gap in unemployment rates from Greece to Austria and beyond. It seems the world is waiting for Merkel's re-election and fold on austerity (seemingly confirmed by the leaked BuBa report recently) but EU stress test transparency may remove the symbiotic safety net of bank bond buying sooner than many believe. With monetary policy somewhat euthanized across the EU, what's left for the fragmented transmission channels but more promises as pension funds and banks are stuffed to the gills with their own domestic bonds.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission Is Using Obviously Faulty Models to Pretend Crumbling Nuclear Reactors Are Safe