Tuesday, June 28, 2011

The Charts You Need to See This Week

Regardless of what Greece does, the facts remain that we are headed into another Crisis in the near future. The global economy has already begun to roll over. Social unrest has spread from the Middle East to Europe. The US is now actively raiding pension funds to fund its debt issuance, and more.




Insider Selling Update: 2 Buyers, 50 Sellers; Ratio Of Corporate Stock Buybacks To Insider Purchases: 16,800 To 1 



Nothing new in the latest S&P 500 insider selling (and occasional buying). There were 2 (count them: two) purchases of stock by corporate insiders, of which one, which accounted for 97% of all purchases, came from Berkshire Hathaway. As usual selling dominated, with a ratio of 41 in notional sales to buys. And while we have been exposing this relentless dumping by insiders for years now, TrimTabs has added some voice to these ongoing warnings in which insiders sell their holdings to far less knowledgeable investors who are happy to burn "other people's money." Specifically, TrimTabs looks at the corporate share repurhcase-to-insider stock buying ratio, and gets some shocking results, namely that companies that have enacted $168 billion in corporate buybacks in 2011 have matched this with just $10 million in insider buying, a 16,800-to-1 ratio.




In The News Today

Dear CIGAs,
Please note: money market funds are experiencing increased withdrawals. This could be dangerous.

Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
The ship will follow either way. Paper over to paper over or default to default.


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U.S. Consumer Confidence Hits Seven-Month Low
By Alex Kowalski and Jillian Berman – Jun 28, 2011 7:16 AM MT
Confidence among U.S. consumers unexpectedly fell in June to a seven-month low, indicating that slowing employment gains are weighing on Americans’ outlooks.
The Conference Board’s index decreased to 58.5 from a revised 61.7 reading in May that was higher than previously estimated, figures from the New York-based private research group showed today. Economists predicted the June gauge would rise to 61, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. The percent of respondents expecting an increase in job availability fell to the lowest in 11 months.
Joblessness hovering around 9 percent, rising inflation and falling share prices may keep household sentiment in check, raising the risk that the biggest part of the economy will stagnate. Employers last month added the fewest workers since September, and spending, adjusted for inflation, dropped for a second consecutive time, figures from the Labor and Commerce Departments showed.
“We have a fairly weak economy with little to no job growth,” said Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina. “With consumers so worried about their job prospects, I’m not so sure that we can count on demand picking up.”
Estimates for the Conference Board’s gauge ranged from 55 to 66.7 in the Bloomberg News survey of 69 economists. The index averaged 98 during the last economic expansion that ended in December 2007.
More…




Jim’s Mailbox

Pimco sees rising inflation for 3 – 5 years 

CIGA Eric

This is why the bearish setup in bonds is so interesting today. Capital discounts and anticipates the future. Persistent bearish concentration in 2011 suggests not only rising interest rates but also inflation as early as 2012.
Headline: Pimco sees rising inflation for 3 – 5 years
- Inflation set to increase in next 3-5 years, says Pimco
- Rising commodity prices are not "transitory"
- By focusing on core inflation, Fed could risk making policy error

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Prospects of higher commodity prices and currency shifts will drive global inflation higher in the next few years, according to a report released Monday by Pacific Investment Management Co., the world’s largest bond fund.
The upward push from commodity prices also raises risks of a monetary-policy error by the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks.
Pimco expects inflation in the developed economies, including the U.S., "to average about 3% and developing market inflation to average about 5% over the secular horizon," which is generally considered the next three to five years. 

Source: marketwatch.com
 
More…




Yesterday's Risk Spread Has Now Closed 




The magical RISK (commodities, rates, carry FX)-ES spread trade which we pointed out yesterday as soon as it blew out, providing a 7.5 ES equivalent pick up, suggesting a compression trade at this divergence level usually leads to a happy ending, has just closed (although in a classic reminder why trading just one leg of the spread can lead to hazardous conclusions - remember: this is a pair trade). Oddly, today RISK has notably outperformed the ES for three main reasons: the outperformance of crude, the plunge in the JPY, and the big move in the butterfly as a result of two consecutive abysmal bond trades. On an intraday indexed basis, the spread is actually favoring going long ES here while shorting the entire risk basket. The bad thing for the IEA and the administration is that today's move in crude higher is more than offsetting the jump in stocks (which intuitively should now be moving in opposite directions as Brian Sack has gotten his marching orders to kill oil and send stocks back to 1350). 
 
 
 
 
 

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve Release Has Now Been Fully Priced In As Crude, Gasoline Surge 


Remember how 4 very long days ago, the 60 million barrel SPR release was vaunted as being the reason for the second consumer renaissance after it was largely expected it would lead to sub $90 crude, and low $3/gallon gas, and result in every Joe Sixpack going out and buying 3 houses at least? Well, so much for that: the IEA's action has now been fully priced in and WTI is back to precisely where it was before the IEA announcement on Thursday. Which means that what some said was a shadow QE (and don't get us started on all the mainstream media "journalists", among which Bloomberg and CNN, who continue to confuse QE Lite with something they call QE 2.5) had a half life of just over 3 days. Expect future intervention half lives to continue declining, as the criminal banking cartel's ammunition is now down to just one thing, the only thing, printing.





But don't worry...It's no problem that the FDA stopped testing radiation levels for our food supply, (especially fish) after fukushima reactors melted down....you trust them right? 


1 Sievert Water Leaking From Fukushima As Full Body Radiation Checks Begin Across Prefecture 

The story that the world forgot, and that everyone wishes could just be buried under a 10 foot lead plate, not only refuses to go away but is getting worse by the day. The latest news from Fukushima is that the highly radioactive water has started leaking from Reactor #2, into a trench which is located just 180 feet away from the sea, prompting more fears that the most radioactive water recorded to date would soon seep into the ocean. The Telegraph reports: "The water seeping into a trench outside the Number two reactor at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeast Japan had a radiation level of more than 1,000 millisieverts per hour." To be expected, here's captain "all is fine" aka TEPCO, to remind us that this is perfectly normal and 1 sievert water is no cause for concern: "we do not believe it is leaking into the ocean. We are now working out where the cause of the leak is and finding ways to remove the water as soon as possible." Luckily, nobody believes the lies out of Japan anymore: "Speculation surrounding the extent to which the radiation may be leaking into the Pacific Ocean was also mounting after tests last weekend found nearby seawater contaminated 1,850 above legal limits." Too bad they still believe the lies out of the US government. And while this recent development is happening, people in Fukushima have finally started getting full body radiation screens from the prefecture.. a move that is about 3 months overdue.




IMF Board Selects France's Christine Lagarde As New IMF Managing Director 



As expected. Just sent out from Lagarde's twitter account: "The results are in: I am honored & delighted that the Board has entrusted me with the position of MD of the IMF!" Now can the symbolic IMF and its double symbolic head please step aside and leave the real bailouts to China, please?





Afghanistan Central Bank Head Flees To US 


In what may be the most prophetic news of the day, we learn that the head of Afghanistan's central bank, Abdul Fitrat (what an oddly appropriate name for a central banker), has escaped the country, emigrated to the US and "isn't expected to return because he fears for his safety after investigating fraud allegations at the country's largest lender, according to two Western officials." It gets funnier. From the WSJ: "Mr. Fitrat said he left the country because his life had been threatened and that the Karzai government was refusing to prosecute those allegedly involved in fraudulent loans, the Associated Press reported. "My life has become completely endangered," he told the AP. "Since I exposed the fraudulent practices on April 27 in parliament I have received information about threats on my life." Mr. Fitrat's family lives in the Washington suburbs, and he has permanent resident status in the U.S., according to a person close to the banker." Surely, Mr. Fitrat had nothing to do with the $850 million in "suspect loans" made by Kabul Bank which is at the core of the scandal. After all, central banks are never involved in such things as massive money laundering schemes and fund flows that are respectable fractions of a host country's GDP. Oddly enough, when it comes to matters of central bank kleptocracy, we are willing to side with the position of the so called despotic domestic regime: "Mr. Fitrat "has escaped Afghanistan and is in the list of those responsible for wrongdoing at Kabul Bank," Mr. Karzai's spokesman Waheed Omer said on Monday. "This is not a resignation but [an] escape from legal implication of his having failed to act responsibly as the head of the Central Bank." Fear not, Mr. Karzai, we can assure you that when our own ponzi scheme unravels, you can be the host of our own central bank head. Then at some point, an exchange can be effected.






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