The Next Leg Of The Junk Bond Crisis: Third Avenue's Liquidating "Focused Credit Fund" Gates Redemptions

"Effective December 9, 2015, the following information supplements the Funds’ Statement of Additional Information dated March 1, 2015: At the recommendation of Third Avenue Management LLC, the investment adviser to the Third Avenue Focused Credit Fund (the “Fund”), the Fund’s Board of Trustees approved a Plan of Liquidation for the Fund effective December 9, 2015. The Prospectus is revised to delete in their entirety all references to the Fund."

How Electricity Markets Could be Upended By This Supreme Court Decision

The Supreme Court may shortly decide an obscure case entitled Federal Energy Regulatory Commission v. Electric Power Supply Association (FERC v EPSA). The issue before the court is whether FERC can compel regional power markets to pay consumers who reduce their electricity usage at critical peak periods. And if so, at what price?
 

This Is The Scariest Chart For Angela Merkel

Having won Time's "Person of the Year" award, German chancellor Angela Merkel may have little time, or cause, for celebration. The reason for that is shown in the chart below.

Is The Fed Being Forced To Hike Rates To Defend The Dollar?

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/10/2015 - 11:55 At the moment, the strength of the USD correlates very strongly to equities. When King Dollar is torpedoed like it was yesterday, stocks plummet. So does this mean that a rate hike next week will be tremendously bullish for stocks?

US Has Secret, "Non-Negotiable" Plan To Send 100,000 US, Saudi Troops To Iraq, Lawmaker Claims

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/10/2015 - 11:42

College Cry Bullies In Pennsylvania Demand "Racist" Lynch Memorial Hall Be Renamed

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/10/2015 - 11:20 In the latest example of the rising idicoy in today's colleges, Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania, students remarkably want to rename a building commemorating Dr. Clyde A. Lynch, the college’s 11th president who served during the Great Depression and WWII, because the word “lynch” has racist implications.

Jeremy Grantham Urges "Easily Manipulated" Americans To "Become More Realistic" About World's Demise

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/10/2015 - 11:10 Americans have a broad and heavy bias away from unpleasant data. We are ready to be manipulated by vested interests in finance, economics, and climate change, whose interests might be better served by our believing optimistic stuff "that just ain’t so." We are dealing today with important issues, one so important that it may affect the long-term viability of our global society and perhaps our species. It may well be necessary to our survival that we become more realistic, more willing to process the unpleasant, and, above all, less easily manipulated through our need for good news.

Trump Polling Lead Surges After Anti-Muslim Comments

“There are enough people in the last two nights of the sample to question the widespread assumption that Trump’s comments will hurt him among GOP primary voters.”

US Wants To Send Attack Helicopters To Iraq As Battle Wages For Key ISIS-Held City

"The United States is prepared to assist the Iraqi Army with additional unique capabilities to help them finish the job, including attack helicopters and accompanying advisers."
"By the time we figure out how to stop that, ISIS will have the next thing. They use tricks. Always they are a step ahead of you, no matter how smart you are."

Charles Gave: "I Cannot Remember A Time When Less Thinking Has Ever Been Done In The Financial Markets"

"What I find most hilarious is that some serious commentators have been pontificating at considerable length about what the market’s participants think. These days, some 70% of market orders are generated by computers, and many of the rest by indexers. And computers do not think... I cannot remember a time when less thinking has ever been done in the financial markets, which is why I find today’s financial markets infinitely boring."
- Charles Gave

The Death-Spiral Of American Entrepreneurism

And if American Entrepreneurism is in a death spiral, then so too is the U.S. economy and the state that lives off the surplus generated by American Entrepreneurism.

South African Bonds Crash, Rand Hits Record Low After FinMin Fired

Without giving any reasons, South African President Jacob Zuma has fired his finance minister (after just 19 months in office). This has shocked investors, already anxious about the nation's surging debt and sluggish economy and South African bonds and FX have collapsed andhas given rating agencies “perfect justification” for further downgrades and the loss of investment grade status. 10Y yields spiked 140bps to 10.18% - the highest since July 2008 - and CDS have soared. The Rand has crashed to new record lows above 15 to the USD.



Payback is a bitch...

China Exports Most Deflation To The US Since The Financial Crisis

While the headline import price figure suggested there is some hope that import prices will improve at the headline level in the coming months, something else has emerged which suggests that the real importing of others' deflation is only just starting. Or rather, someone else. China.

ConocoPhillips Cuts Capex Amid Intractable Oil Rout

It's a bad time to be in the commodities business. Crude is in a veritable tailspin as an increasingly disjointed OPEC ramps production to three-year highs and thanks to a worldwide deflationary supply glut, the Bloomberg commodities index is sitting near its lowest levels of the 21st century portending doom and gloom for prices across the entire commodities complex. On Thursday, we get the latest round of desperate cost saving measures as oil major ConocoPhillips slashes capex by some 25% and looks to raise $2.3 billion from asset sales.

Initial Jobless Claims Suddenly Surge To 5-Month Highs, Continuing Claims Spike

Weak surveys, mass layoffs, and poor outlooks appear to have finally rippled through the government's data and sparked a significant rise in initial jobless claims. Up 13k to 282k, this is the highest claims since early July. Of course, it remains below the Maginot Line of 300k which 'proves' everything is awesome, but initial claims is now at the same level as it was when The Fed ended QE3. Perhaps more notable is the spike in continuing claims (up 3.8%) - the end biggest jump since 2008 to 3 month highs.

A Whole Lot Of New Lows For A "Market" Near Its High

While the major indexes remain within arm’s length of their 52-week high, the number of stocks hitting new lows is piling up.

"China's Warren Buffett" Guo Guangchang Disappears

Whether Beijing is questioning Guo about his habit of eschewing investments in China in favor of deploying capital overseas or whether Fosun did something “wrong” in the markets during the selloff is hard to know, but one thing’s for certain: “kill the chicken to scare the monkey” is alive and well.

Onshore Yuan Has Been In Freefall Since The IMF Added China To The SDR Basket

For the 5th day in a row, Onshore Yuan has tumbled against the USDollar. Absent the violent devaluation in August, this is the largest drop since March 2014, leaving the Chinese currency at its weakest level against the USD since August 2011. It appears that after showing some signs of 'stability' to appease The IMF's political decision, and following the weak trade data this week, China has decided to escalate the currency wars, perhaps in anticipation of (or in an attempt to stall) any market turbulence when The Fed hikes rates next week and withdraws up to $800bn in liquidity from global markets.




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