Market Sentiment

An overview of the technical condition of the major currencies.  

Copper futures prices are plunging once again, back under $3.00 back at the lowest levels since July 2010. The last 3 days have seen prices drop over 7.5% as China credit contagion concerns surge and letters-of-credit from last summer's cash-for-copper financing deals roll-off and businesses need the cash. The vicious circle of tumbling collateral values (copper and Iron ore) is exacerbating the tightening financial conditions in China as banks hoard liquidity, unwilling to lend to the over-capacity industries that the government has deemed unworthy. Rumors today of further defaults triggered this latest drop, and as we noted previously, there are a lot more to come.

The "smart money" indicator is at its most extreme degree of selling since November, 2010.

The technicals break with the news!

A look back in time helps one spot the banker propaganda about gold and silver so prevalent today.

This is a headwind we shouldn't ignore.

... We know how "difficult" it was for China to do the wrong thing when it bailed out two insolvent shadow bank Trusts and encourage moral hazard, despite repeated assurances by one after another PBOC director that this time the central bank means business, we have good news: these two narrowly averted Trust defaults are just the beginning - it is all downhill from here.

Overview of the events and data that will be of interest to investors. 

How quickly emerging markets’ fortunes have turned. Not long ago, they were touted as the salvation of the world economy – the dynamic engines of growth that would take over as the economies of the United States and Europe sputtered. Economists at Citigroup, McKinsey, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and elsewhere were predicting an era of broad and sustained growth from Asia to Africa. But now the emerging-market blues are back. This is not the first time that developing countries have been hit hard by abrupt mood swings in global financial markets. The surprise is that we are surprised. Economists, in particular, should have learned a few fundamental lessons long ago...

Crisis was averted. Or was it just put off for another day?

A technical look at the currencies.  The phase that has characterized the first few weeks of the year has ended and a new one has begun.

While we are sure it is a very sad coincidence, on the day when Argentina decrees limits on the FX positions banks can hold and the Argentine Central Bank's reserves accounting is questioned publically, a massive fire - killing 9 people - has destroyed a warehouse archiving banking system documents. As The Washington Post reports, the fire at the Iron Mountain warehouse (which purportedly had multiple protections against fire, including advanced systems that can detect and quench flames without damaging important documents) took hours to control and the sprawling building appeared to be ruined. The cause of the fire wasn’t immediately clear - though we suggest smelling Fernandez' hands...

As we noted previously there is a race to the bottom between the Argentine currency and its central bank's reserve balance as day by day both slide seemingly unceasingly. However, as JPMorgan notes in a rather aggressive note, a local press article sheds doubts over Argentina's 'honest' reporting of international reserves. Though long used to the lies about inflation (that ended up with the economy minster being fired and it being deemed 'illegal' to tell the truth), JPMorgan blasts that during a balance of payments crisis - as Argentina is undergoing - such manipulation of official statistics (and one so critical for market sentiment) is detrimental to the needed confidence building around the transition in the FX regime and is "a very very bad idea". Simply put, Argentina is over-stating its reserves... considerably.

There is one main reason why complacency is bad: selloffs. Because as Bank of America explains, in an environment in which there are "too few bears", and where investors are "not prepared for a downside correction", when you do finally get a sell off for whatever reason, with nobody hedged and otherwise prepared for such an outcome, the only logical continuation is piling on until one gets selling exhaustion. And in a world in which hedge fund leverage is about 500%, by the time exhaustion comes, there will be very few left standing.

In essence, you need to be selling strength.