Housing Starts

Once again all eyes are on the carry-trade driving Yen, whose avalance into oblivion is picking up speed, and where the formerly unimaginable USDJPY level of 120 as presented here in September, is now looking like this week's business, with the only question how long until Albert Edwards' next target of 145 is hit leading to nuclear currency warfare between Japan, Korea, China and ultimately, the US and Europe. Unfortunately, for Japan, at this point the terminal currency collapse will do nothing to incrementally boost exports or its economy, and the former Japan finmin was on the tape warning again that the Japanese recession will persist as USDJPY over 115 is now hurting Japan, something which should by now have been clear to most.

Perhaps the biggest shock following last night's completely expected and very predictable (previewed here over a month ago) Japanese slide into triple- (actually make that quadruple) dip recession, is that it took the BTFTripleDip recession algos as long as they did to recover most of the overnight futures losses. Because after surging to 107 on a confused short squeeze kneejerk reaction, the USDJPY subsequently tumbled 150 pips to 105.50 as rationality briefly emerged, and the market wondered for a few brief hours if rewaring the destruction of one's economy is actually a prudent thing. Then, however, when European traders started walking into work, the now default USDJPY levitation on no volume came right back, and with that the correlation algo buying of E-mini futures, no doubt helped by the Bank of Japan itself taking advantage of the CME's ES liquidity rebate program. Because without confidence as expressed by the lowest and only common denominator left - global equities - there is nothing else.

Following misses in yesterday's Markit Service PMI, Existing Home Sales and the Dallas Fed report, and today's Durable Goods numbers, we just made it a pentafecta for misses in US econ data, when the just released August Case-Shiller data for August confirmed once again that US housing is rapidly slowing down, when the Top 20 Composite Index (Seasonally Adjusted) posted another decline in August, its fourth in a row, declining by -0.15% and missing expectations of a modest 0.2% rebound (following last month's -0.5%) decline. The best summary of the situation came from S&P's David Blitzer: "The deceleration in home prices continues... The Sun Belt region reported its worst annual returns since 2012, led by weakness in all three California cities -- Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego." But who cares what the birth (and death) place of every housing bubble is doing, right?

September was another month in which US single-family housing starts stagnated, and in fact declined when it comes to permits, only to see a strong rebound in both permits and starts when it comes to multi-family, aka rental housing.

• Obama open to appointing Ebola 'czar', opposes travel ban (Reuters)
• Schools Close as Nurse’s Ebola Infection Ignites Concern (BBG)
• How the World's Top Health Body Allowed Ebola to Spiral Out of Control (BBG)
• European Stocks Rise Amid Growing Pressure for Stimulus (BBG)
• Putin Threatens EU Gas Squeeze Raising Stakes for Ukraine (BBG)
• ECB to Start Asset Purchases Within Days, Says Central Banker Coeuré (WSJ)
• Investors search for signs of end to stock market correction (Reuters)

If the last three days all started with a rout in futures before the US market open only to ramp higher all day, today it may well be the opposite, when shortly after Europe opened it was the ECB's turn to talk stocks higher, when literally within minutes of the European market's open, ECB's Coeure said that:

• COEURE SAYS ECB WILL START WITHIN DAYS TO BUY ASSETS

Which was today's code word for all is clear, and within minutes US futures, which until that moment had languished unchanged, soared by 25 points. So will today be more of the same and whatever early action was directed by the central bankers will be faded into a weekend in which only more bad news can come out of Ebola-land?

Today US activity will be very light given the Columbus Day holiday. As DB summarizes, we have a relatively quiet day for data watchers today but the calendar will pick up tomorrow and beyond with a big focus on inflation numbers amongst other things. Indeed tomorrow will see the release of Germany’s ZEW survey alongside CPI prints from the UK, France and Spain. Wednesday’s data highlights will include the US retail sales for September, the Fed’s Beige Book, CPI readings from China and Germany, US PPI, and the NY Fed Empire State survey. Draghi will speak twice on Wednesday which could also be a source for headlines. On Thursday, we will get Industrial Production stats and the Philly Fed Survey from the US on top of the usual weekly jobless claims. European CPI will also be released on Wednesday. We have the first reading of October’s UofM Consumer Sentiment on Friday along with US building permits/housing starts. Yellen’s speech at the Boston Fed Conference on Friday (entitled “Inequality of Economic Opportunity”) will also be closely followed.

With futures slamming the lows at their open yesterday evening, touching levels not seen since May, and with the EuroStoxx 50 officialy entering correction just hours ago, down 10% from the June highs, many were wondering if the NY Fed's Chicago Trading Desk, aka Overnight Ramp Capital LLC, would be put in damage control duty and send futures right back to unchanged (because with new Ebola patient alerts springing up everywhere from Boston to Los Angeles, the pandemic is clearly contained). The answer, with a whopping 20 point levitation on no volume, and futures which are pointing now well into the green (not to mention the Eurostoxx rebounding off the lows and now green too), is a resounding yes (thank the  AUDJPY, which is over 100 pips off the overnight lows and back over 94).

It is amazing how the government manages to continue selling Brooklyn Bridges to a gullible public. Americans buy wars they don’t need and economic recoveries that do not exist. Government in America is focused on something different from a healthy economy and the well being of citizens. We call it democracy, but it’s not.

For the 3rd month in a row, S&P Case-Shiller home prices fell MoM with July's 0.5% drop the biggest since November 2011. This dragged the YoY growth to 6.75% (missing expectations of 7.4%) and its slowest rate of increase since November 2012. Non-seasonally-adjusted the drop is even larger (-0.6% MoM). Perhaps most notably San Francisco was the biggest drag on the index.

New Home Sales rose a magnificent (seasonally-adjusted annualized rate) 18% in August - the biggest monthly rise since January 1992 albeit with a 16.3 90% confidence interval, meaning the final number may well be +1.7%. At 504k, new home sales are back at May 2008 levels (though obviously massively below the 1.4 million homes sold at the peak in 2005). As a reminder, May's 504K new home sales print was later revieed later to 458K. But even more stunning, new home sales in The West rose a mind-numbing 50% in August (and up 84.4% YoY - nearly double).  And just to confuse matters, the average new home sale price rose to a new record high of $347,900. So as existing home sales are sliding (and prices dropping), new home sales are surging (to new record highs) - makes perfect sense. We await the extrapolations for how great this move is. (or the realization that it is entirely seasonal-adjustment-biased and unsustainable given the realities of mortgage applications).

Believing they are filling the macroeconomic bathtub with aggregate demand and full-employment jobs, Janet Yellen and her merry band of Keynesian money printers are simply blowing chronic, giant, dangerous bubbles on Wall Street. Easy money is always the wrong medicine, but most especially for an economy that is already and self-evidently saturated with too much debt. The implication of all of this, of course,is that our monetary politburo is out of business; that “monetary accommodation” is nothing more than a one time parlor trick of central bankers.

One look at the August housing starts and permits data, and one will wonder just how is it possible that yesterday NAHB homebuilder confidence rose to a 9 year high, when according to the US Department of Commerce both Housing Start and Permits tumbled in the past month, with the housing "leading indicator" that is Permits sliding 5.6% from 1040K to 998K, and declining sequentially in every region of the US, with double digit drops in the Northeast and the Midwest, while Housing Starts tumbled by 14.4% from 1117K, to only 956K, wildly missing Wall Street expectations of "only" a 5.2% drop to 1037K.

• House votes to arm Syrian rebels (Reuters).... aka ISIS
• Fed Plots Cautious Course on Rate Rises  (Hilsenrath)
• Scots vote in independence referendum to seal the United Kingdom's fate (Reuters)
• Yes or No, the Winner of the Referendum Is Brand Scotland (BBG)
• Draghi Loan Plan Missing Estimates Hampers ECB Stimulus (BBG) - get with the spin, it simply means "Moar QE"
• Obama Plans to Tightly Control Strikes on Syria (WSJ)
• IMF warns of risks from 'excessive' financial market bets (Reuters)
• Russia Praises Ukraine's Autonomy Law for Rebel Areas (WSJ)

Yesterday's market reaction to Yellen's commentary was curious: there was none, because when all was said and done the S&P and DJIA traded precisely where they traded just before the show began.  Which, of course, was unacceptable, because one way or another the hawkish for the USD - the USDJPY just traded at the highest since 2008 - statement and conference had to be promptly interpreted for the algos as dovish for stocks - Futures are again just why of record highs - if not so much for the Fed-hated bonds, and sure enough, European equities traded in the green from the get-go even as RanSquawk notes, "there has been no major fundamental catalyst behind the spike higher seen in the morning, although do note that the move comes in the backdrop of the positive close on Wall Street which saw the S&P 500 (+0.13%) touch record highs before paring a large portion of the gains." In other words, the upside volatility in the intraday move is now a bullish catalyst, closing print notwithstanding. And what did US equity futures do? Why they followed Europe higher, with the ES now +8, on what is "explained" as a European move to intraday US futures previously. That, ladies and gentlemen, means we may have finally achieved perpetual motion, because all that would take to send the market higher is... for the market to go higher, etc, ad inf.