Eastern Europe

A specter is haunting Washington, an unnerving vision of a Sino-Russian alliance wedded to an expansive symbiosis of trade and commerce across much of the Eurasian land mass - at the expense of the United States.

Wondering what Eastern Europe will blame its economic weakness on? No, not sanctions... but perhaps the second coming of Noah might slow things down a little. The overall death toll in the worst flooding in the Balkans has risen to at least 47 people. The images have to be seen to be believed.

American foreign policy is mindlessly driven by the machinery of our Warfare State - a vast accretion of economic, diplomatic, spying and military capabilities which are ceaselessly in search of missions and justifications for their colossal call on the nation’s resources. Absent a dismantlement of the Warfare State machinery, giant policy errors like the Bill Clinton’s double-cross on NATO and Obama’s foolish present confrontation with Putin are nearly guaranteed to recur.

If We Don’t Learn Our History … We May Very Well Blow Off Our Own Foot

Everyone knows that when it comes to apologists and scapegoats, Q1 was all about weather excuses, and as SocGen already showed earlier today when it took a $730 million charge on its Russian subsidiary, Q2 misses will all be Ukraine's fault, which is ironic because as recently as a month ago experts were screaming over each other how little Ukraine matters for the global economy, how meaningless Russian exposure is to western banks and so on. But while one can at least superficially justify a bank provisioning against deposit flight and the accumulation of bad debt in a country in which paying one's debt is the last thing on the population's mind, a new and quite different victim of the Ukraine crisis was revealed earlier today when beer titan Carlsberg swung to a net loss and issued a profit warning: beer.

Washington has no intention of allowing the crisis in Ukraine to be resolved. Having failed to seize the country and evict Russia from its Black Sea naval base, Washington sees new opportunities in the crisis.

Having been quiet all day, Vladimir Putin chose just before 330 on a Tuesday to respond to US and EU sanctions:

*PUTIN: U.S., EU SEEKING TO BLAME RUSSIA FOR UKRAINE CRISIS
*PUTIN SAYS HE CAN'T UNDERSTAND MOTIVATION FOR SANCTIONS
*PUTIN SAYS NO CAUSE-EFFECT BEHIND SANCTIONS

And while he said he sees no need for counter-sanctions currently, he did warn that Russia may reconsider participation of Western companies in egenergy projects if sanctions continue.

If one needed a flurry of "worse than expected" macro data to "explain" why European bourses and US futures are up, one got them: first with UK Q1 GDP printing at 0.8%, below the expected 0.9%, then German consumer prices falling 0.1% in April, and finally with Spanish unemployment actually rising from a revised 25.73% to 25.93%, above the 25.85% expected. All of this was "good enough" to allow Italy to price its latest batch of 10 Year paper at a yield of 3.22%, the lowest yield on record! Either way, something else had to catalyze what is shaping up as another 0.5% move higher in US stocks and that something is the old standby, the USDJPY, which ramped higher just before the European open and then ramped some more when European stocks opened for trading. Look for at least one or two more USDJPY momentum ignition moments at specific intervals before US stocks open for trading. But all of that is moot. Remember - the biggest catalyst of what promises to be the latest buying panic rampathon is simple: it's Tuesday (oh, and the $2-$2.5 billion POMO won't hurt).

Conflict with Russia may have a “massively bullish impact on gold prices.” The concept of MAD or mutually assured destruction was what prevented war between the superpowers during the Cold War. Today, there appears to be a lack of awareness regarding the risk of mutually assured economic destruction.

Russia and China are becoming closer thanks to Obama and his insane policies behind the NSA that have left America trying to find friends in a dark hour. The sanctions being imposed on Russia have sent China into its camp. The USA is finding it increasingly more difficult to be the bully in the school-yard. No former administration has ever acted with such arrogance and blind stupidity than the Obama Administration. The net result is to empower Russia and to inspire a new dynamic-duo of Russia-China against the USA. China supported Russia, when Western countries launched an anti-Russian campaign. With both of their economies turning down, this is by no means the proper time to impose sanctions. All this policy is doing is re-enforcing Putin and placing him in the position where he must become more aggressive or seem weak in the shadow of Obama.

UPDATE: Ukraine Says Provocations Possible Over May 1-9 Holidays

The fighting-talk (and actions) is growing louder from Eastern Europe.  Following Lavrov's "bloody justice" comments, Ukraine's Acting Head of the Presidential Administration Serhiy Pashynskyi expects a Russian invasion is imminent, warnings that "in case Russian troops cross the Ukrainian border we will qualify it as military invasion and eliminate invaders." These strongly worded comments come after a Ukrainian military helicopter exploded at a base near the eastern town of Kramatorsk (held by pro-Russian forces) on Friday after being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. Pashynskyi concludes, rather ominously, "I would not recommend Mr. Putin experiment with lives of his servicemen."

Despite the considerable risks created by the situation in eastern Europe, most western stock, bond and property markets, fed on massive central bank fiat liquidity, continue to flirt with new highs. This strikes me as an exercise in whistling past the graveyard. In the short term, investors may continue to profit from risk-taking in financial markets. In the larger picture, much of the geopolitical balance of power that has been in place for much of the past 25 years will be tested on the banks of the Black Sea. Investors should take a few minutes from their daily technical chart analysis to consider these major developments.

It has been exactly six days in which algos, reversing the most recent drop in the S&P with buying sparked by a casual Nikkei leak that the BOJ may, wink wink, boost its QE (subsequently denied until such time as that rumor has to be used again), have pushed the market higher in the longest buying streak since September, ignoring virtually every adverse macroeconomic news, and certainly ignoring an earnings season that is set to be the worst since 2012. Today, the buying streak may finally end on rumors even the vacuum tubes are scratching their glassy heads if more buying on bad or no news makes any sense now that even the likes of David Einhorn is openly saying the second tech bubble has arrived. Keep an eye on the USDJPY which has had seen some rather acute "trapdoor" action in early trading and is approaching 102 after breaching its 55-DMA technical support of 102.38. If the support is broken here we go again on the downside. Keep an eye on biotechs and GILD in particular - if the early strength reverts into more selling again (after the two best days for the biotech space in 30 months), the most recent euphoria phase is now over.

It seems the truce "deal" is well and truly dead...

600 U.S. TROOPS HEADING TO EUROPE FOR EXERCISES: PENTAGON
U.S. AIRBORNE TROOPS GOING TO POLAND, LITHUANIA, LATVIA,ESTONIA
U.S. MILITARY EXERCISES ARE IN RESPONSE TO UKRAINE CRISIS:KIRBY
MORE MILITARY EXERCISES 'COMING THROUGH' NATO: PENTAGON

The question now, of course, is - what will Putin do in response to this action?

It has been a largely event-free weekend except, of course, for the previously reported re-escalation in Ukraine following what was a lethal shooting in the east Ukraine city of Slavyansk blamed on Ukraine's Right Front, which has made a mockery, as expected, of the Geneva Ukraine de-escalation announcement from last Thursday. Overnight in Asia, Japan reported its largest ever trade deficit, providing yet more evidence that Abenomics has been an abysmal failure: all we are waiting for now is confirmation that basic Japanese wages have fallen yet again, which would make nearly 2 years in a row of declines. Still, the USDJPY, gamed as usual by HFT algos for which FX is now the last respite as the equity market crackdown gets louder, is doing its best to ramp from the overnight lows and ahead of the traditional US market open surge, as a result equity futures are modestly higher.