Mark Grant And Rick Santelli On Europe: "It's A Ponzi Scheme To Be Honest With You"

As Simon Hobbs noted this morning, Olli Rehn confirmed ahh that err "both the European Union and the ECB are ready to take action" but only conditional upon requests for aid. What is perhaps missed by most observers is what Rick Santelli and Mark Grant discuss in more detail in the short clip below. Greece managed to sell EUR4 billion short-dated bills this morning at remarkably low yields - not exactly the kind of thing that incentivizes political leaders to request aid - but how did they do it? Who bought it? Well, we suspect you know the answer but Mark Grant's clarifying response to Santelli's question concluded simply that the ECB-to-Greek-Banks-to-The-Bank-Of Greece-to-ECB circle-jerk is "in a sense, a kind of Ponzi scheme." Santelli's response that "it really is a rigged game" and that our reflexive response to the signaling of bond yields is remarkable given the manipulation; Grant agrees adding that "the real money guys are either out of Europe, getting out of Europe, or have cut back as much as they can" since simple math shows you that at some point Europe will have it's 'moment'.

Institutions Scream Ahead Of Imminent Death Of Money Markets

Previously we explained on at least two occasions (here and here) why the upcoming death of the US money market industry is not greatly exaggerated: quite simply, as we wrote back in 2010, the Group of 30, or the shadow group that truly runs the world (see latest members) decided some time ago that it would rather take the "inert" $2.6 trillion held in money markets, and not used to boost the fractional reserve multiplier, and instead have it allocated to such more interesting markets as bonds and stocks. As a reminder, Europe already achieved this last month when it cut its deposit rate to zero leading to a sequential shuttering of money market funds. The Fed, however, has to be far more careful to not impair the overnight General Collateral repo market which as everyone who understands the nuances of Shadow Banking knows is where all the bodies are buried, and as such has been far more careful in implementing such a shotgun approach. Instead, Ben, the SEC, and the Group of 30 have adopted a far more surgical approach to destroying money markets: they want investors themselves to pull their money by implementing such terminally destructive measures as floating NAV, redemption restrictions and capital requirements, which will achieve one thing - get the end user to pull their money from MM and put the cash either into either deposits, where it can then proceed to be "fractionally reserved" into the banking system, or to boost AMZN's 250+ P/E. After all the number under observation is not modest: at $2.6 trillion, this is almost 20% of the market cap of the US stock market. So it was only a matter of time before major money market institutions, in this case Federated first, but soon everyone else, starts screaming and warning that money markets are about to die (which they are).

Meanwhile Over In The French Riviera...

.... The local socialists are suffering under oppressive austerity. And by that we mean the 1% continues to party like it is 1999. Of course, this is amateur hour for the luxury beach club: recall that the man, the FX myth, the, well, criminal, Alex Hope spent $323,483 back in March. That was right before the market swooned. Is this another interim top?

European Equities Have Become Inexpensive

Admin at Marc Faber Blog - 2 hours ago

“For the first time in my life, I’ve started to buy some European stocks, and I will buy more over time. Equities have become inexpensive. - *in Bloomberg Radio * *Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.*

Gold Gets Attitude Adjustment On Hot PPI Number

Troubles Abroad Keep Cash Flowing to U.S.

Eric De Groot at Eric De Groot - 4 hours ago

While trouble abroad (Europe's Core Begins to Look Like the Periphery) forces capital to flee to U.S. assets (stocks, bonds, etc), it doesn't mean these assets will rally without a short-term correction. A growing number of negative divergences of price against trend internals imply a tired rally. For example, relative new highs in the NYSE composite have been accompanied by lower highs... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

The Economic 'Recovery' In Historical Context

How does the current 'recovery', which according to the NBER officially began in June 2009, compare to those of the past? The Council on Foreign Relations updates its recovery chartbook and succinctly notes that "the current recovery remains an outlier among post-war recoveries along several dimensions." Consumers remain reluctant to take on new debt and the stock of debt is lower than it was when the recovery officially began. The global economic slowdown is beginning to manifest itself in world trade. After staging the strongest recovery of the post–World War II era (thanks to the depth of the plunge), growth in world trade has begun to decelerate.

Bill Gross On Where "Bad Bonds Go To Die": Joins Paul Singer In Hatred Of Treasurys

A week ago we brought you Elliott Management's summary opinion on US paper: "We Make This Recommendation To Our Friends: If You Own US Debt Sell It Now." Today, Bill Gross doubles down.

Gross: The #Fed is where bad bonds go to die. Today it was 10-years. Tomorrow 30-years. Stay short my friends.
— PIMCO (@PIMCO) August 14, 2012

The Shape Of The Debt Reset

It is important to consider how beneficial a debt reset — so long as society comes out of it in one piece — will be in the long run. As both Friedrich Hayek and Hyman Minsky saw it, with the weight of excessive debt and the costs of deleveraging either reduced or removed, long-depressed-economies would be able to grow organically again. This is obviously not ideal, but it is surely better than remaining in a Japanese-style deleveraging trap. Yet while most of the economic establishment remain convinced that the real problem is one of aggregate demand, and not excessive total debt, such a prospect still remains distant. The most likely pathway continues to be one of stagnation, with central banks printing just enough money to keep the debt serviceable (and handing it to the financial sector, which will surely continue to enrich itself at the expense of everyone else). This is a painful and unsustainable status quo and the debt reset — and without an economic miracle, it will eventually arrive — will in the long run likely prove a welcome development for the vast majority of people and businesses.

Knight Blames Trading Fiasco On "Dormant Program" Glitch

Remember - when in doubt, always blame it on the software: that way the risk of tainting one's "business model" no matter how irrelevant and anachronistic it has become, may be preserved - after all it is the vacuum tube's fault. If possible add the words "glitch", "dormant" and "stupid algo" and always, always, use the passive voice: once again - it can never be insinuated that a carbon-based lifeform (human, monkey, Mary Schapiro) was behind the screw up. Sure enough, here comes Knight two weeks after nearly destroying its trading platform responsible for 10% of the daily market churn, and to a big extent for the endless levitation to VWAP on low volume we have seen every day for the past 3 years, and blaming it all on "dormant software" which was accidentally reactivated. From Bloomberg: "Knight Capital Group Inc. (KCG)’s $440 million trading loss stemmed from an old set of computer software that was inadvertently reactivated when a new program was installed, according to two people briefed on the matter. Once triggered on Aug. 1, the dormant system started multiplying stock trades by one thousand, according to the people, who spoke anonymously because the firm hasn’t commented publicly on what caused the error. Knight’s staff looked through eight sets of software before determining what happened, the people said." Of course, one may ask just why did someone put in code in the first place, that multiplied stock trades by one thousand: is that the special turbo buy option reserved for when the Liberty 33 phone rings?

Charting Morgan Stanley's $60 Billion Crushing Of IPO Animal Spirits

Last Friday we presented the dismal performance (and major divergence with broad equity markets) of recent IPOs and reflected on what this meant for the millions of retail investors who were 'suckered' into these must-win dot-com-renaissance names. Again and again one name keeps coming up with regard to the worst-performing and most-1999-dot-com #fail-like names - Morgan Stanley. Since November of 2011, Morgan Stanley has 'successfully' brought three of the biggest disasters of Silicon Valley to market - GRPN, ZNGA, and of course, most recently, FB. What is stunning is that since the GRPN IPO on 11/3/11, investors in these three 'new' normal names have lost an incredible $58 billion in market cap with GRPN and ZNGA now down 70% from their IPO price and FB down 44%. Perhaps more intriguing is that IPOs keep coming as there appears to be a 'muppet' born every day.

Here Come The Praises For The "Stronger Than Expected" Retail Sales From Bank of America And Goldman

Instead of actually doing the work to figure out what is going on behind the headlines, both Goldman (which also hiked its Q3 forecast GDP to 2.3% as a result) and Bank of America rushed to come to market with their congratulatory notes praising the "far stronger than expected" retail sales number. And as a result clients of these two banks will be promptly skewered as happens now virtually all the time on belief that the "rebound" in the economy is real instead of an ARIMA driven seasonal adjustment abortion.

Mystery Of July Retail Sales "Beat" Solved: It Is All In The "Seasonal Adjustment"

The July retail sales beat came as a surprise to many: an 0.8% increase (full series here) at a time when the data was supposed to grow at less than half this would surely be indicative of a potential turnaround in the US economy. Then we decided to do a quick spot check if maybe the Census Bureau had not adopted one of the BLS' worst habits: fudging seasonal adjustment factors. The reason for this is because we happened to notice that Not Seasonally Adjusted (full series here) retail sales data in July actually declined by 0.9% from $405.8 to $402 billion. Of course, if the Census Bureau was using a consistent, or at least remotely comparable July seasonal adjustment factor as it has in the past, this would make sense and we would move on. So we decided to look at what the July seasonal adjustment variance over the past decade has been. What we found would have shocked us if indeed this is not precisely what we expected: with the July seasonal adjustment factor routinely subtracting a substantial amount from the NSA number, averaging at -$5.2 billion, in 2012, for the first time this decade, the seasonal adjustment not only did not subtract, but in fact added "value" to the NSA number, resulting in a seasonally adjusted number that was $1.9 billion higher than the NSA number at $403.9 billion.

Syrian Humanitarian Crisis – As Food, Fuel Prices Soar al-Assad Desperately Attempts To Get Gold

As was seen in Iraq, it is the people who suffer most from sanctions and economic and civil war and the Syrian people are indeed facing increasing hardships. Hunger is a problem that is growing more acute by the day. As the prices of what little food is available soar, there are increasing signs of desperation among parents seeking to feed families. Prices of fuel and medicine have also soared amid shortages compounding the misery of Syrians and leading to another humanitarian crisis. Professor Nouriel Roubini and other financial experts have pointed out that “you cannot eat gold.” However, people in nations suffering from currency and economic wars can testify as to how they can use gold in order to buy food, fuel and medicine for their families in difficult times. To wit, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad announced measures facilitating imports of gold bullion coins and bars. Gold bullion imports no longer require a special permit and travellers are allowed to bring gold bullion coins and bars with them into the country, the decree said. Gold is, as it has done throughout history, protecting them and their families from the ravages of currency devaluation and economic collapse.

Small Business Optimism Hits 9-Month Low

Despite the majestic efforts at jawboning 'markets' higher with constant reassurance that infinite QE will come 'we promise', it seems the real economy - full of small businesses and job creators - hasn't got the message. As while equities trade at multi-year highs, small business optimism just printed at its lowest in 9 months. Trickle-down QE doesn't seem to be taking hold among the dismal reality in which we all actually live - as opposed to the vacuum tune hyperplane that stocks exist on.

Gold/FX/TSYs Signal QE-Off, Equities Still Believe

The inevitable headline-driven algo-kneejerk reaction to retail sales and inflation coming hotter than expected was a 4-5pts pop in S&P 500 futures (testing the magical 1410 line). But almost immediately, gold, silver, FX, and TSYs all reacted in a decidedly QE-off manner and are extending QE-unwind-type moves. For now, S&P 500 futures still believe in miracles...

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