Thursday, November 8, 2012

Europe's Scariest Chart Hits Peak Scariness Levels, And Rising



Things are rather unsurprisingly going from worse to worserer in Europe. Perhaps it is the anecdotal evidence we see in the now weekly riot-cams from Spain and Greece but just as we warned over a year ago, the truly scariest chart in Europe remains that of youth unemployment. The correlation (and causation) that runs from extreme levels of youth unemployment to general social unrest and anarchy is stunning throughout time (as we noted here and here). With Greek 'youth' unemployment jumping to a disheartening 58% (for August) - by far its highest ever - and Spain rising inexorably at 54.2%, the under-25 populations in these nations is truly set to burst (with overall unemployment rates of 25.4% and 25.5% respectively). Euro-zone youth unemployment overall has risen to 23.3% and while Greece jumped the most, Italy was close behind with a 1.2ppt rise to 35.1%. We are sure the austerity voted for last night by the politicians will 'help' - someone...

This Is Why Bridgewater Manages $138 Billion

For those who want to imitate what is once again the world's largest hedge fund (reclaiming the spot from Apple's own prop trading vehicle, Braeburn, first exposed here), Ray Dalio's Bridgewater, which at last check had $138 billion in AUM ($76 billion Pure Alpha, $63 billion All Weather), the path is simple: just recreate the performance shown on the chart below over a period of two decades. (Oh and stop "trading" on Twitter and do some real trading).

Apple Enters Gravtitational Singularity As Hedge Fund Hotel Evacuation Begins

AAPL had crawled it way into the green in the pre-open, bumping around yesterday's closing VWAP. In the early minutes of the US day session open, we saw very heavy selling volume in AAPL (and surprisingly S&P 500 futures ramped vertically). This smells a lot like someone getting a tap on the shoulder on their 'hedged' Long AAPL, Short ES position. AAPL bounced off yesterday's lows to get back to VWAP and then the real selling began... At $542 now, AAPL is over $160 off the highs and reverting back to the market cap of the entire European banking system. With 230 hedge funds holding this angel of death... small doors and large crowds do not mix... paging Topeka? Widows, orphans, and value investors first...

Samsung S3 Overtakes iPhone As World's Best-Selling Smartphone

Look up the phrase "inflection point" - it will be the most hated phrase by all those who day after day repeat that there is now way AAPL can ever drop because its "forward multiple is low" (hint: forward multiples are simply functions of forward earnings, and once the fadness and coolness of a memo, no matter how infectious in the past, is gone, so are "forward earnings', especially once the sellside behavioral finance lemmings crew takes the machete to their Price Targets and has to justify why it has been massively wrong... and also for those who have a calculator, calculate how many years of dividends $100 billion in cash funds before the cash hoard also runs out)

Bullish Money Flows, Favorable Seasonality Coincides & Growing Pessimism Toward Gold

Eric De Groot at Eric De Groot - 2 hours ago
Unexpected gold rallies tend to materialize when seasonality aligns with bullish money flow setups. Seasonality for gold has turned bullish (table). The invisible hand continues to regain control of the trend by accumulating the dips. An up tick in the 13DWA will signal the start of the second up count and another rally in gold (chart). Table: Seasonality Chart: ... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] 
 

The Standards Of Living In The Western World Will Continue To Decline

Admin at Marc Faber Blog - 3 hours ago
We don't know how the world will look in five years' time. I am pretty sure central banks will continue to print money and the standards of living for people in the western world, not just in America, will continue to decline because the cost of living increases will exceed income. The cost of living will also go up because all kinds of taxes will increase. - *in Business Insider * *Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.* 
 

Market Outlook: Money Printing Versus Global Slowdown

Admin at Marc Faber Blog - 3 hours ago
You have money printing supporting the market and on the other hand, you have an economic slowdown globally which will affect earnings negatively. It is difficult to tell where the market will go because we have so much manipulation. I think, minimum, it will drop 20 percent. - *in Bloomberg TV* * *Related: iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index ETF (EEM), SPDR SP 500 ETF (SPY), SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD) * * *Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.* 
 

The Money Printing Is Going To Run Amok Now

Admin at Jim Rogers Blog - 3 hours ago
It looks to me like the money printing is going to run amok now, and spending is going to run amok now. I have to invest based on what’s happening and not what I would like. - *in Money News * *Jim Rogers is an author, financial commentator and successful international investor. He has been frequently featured in Time, The New York Times, Barron’s, Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and is a regular guest on Bloomberg and CNBC.* 
 

Obama Means More Spending, More Money Printing And More Debt

Admin at Jim Rogers Blog - 3 hours ago
It’s going to be more inflation, more money printing, more debt, more spending. - *in CNBC * *Jim Rogers is an author, financial commentator and successful international investor. He has been frequently featured in Time, The New York Times, Barron’s, Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and is a regular guest on Bloomberg and CNBC.*

The Next Four Years Won't Be As Good As The Last

The people have spoken and President Obama will serve another four years presiding over the United States.  Furthermore, there is very little change to the makeup of the House and the Senate, which leaves the Administration in the same battle for control as it was prior to the election. The question now is what will the next four years look like economically? The amount of debt required today to create a single dollars' worth of GDP today is clearly unsustainable.  However, the current Administration has been increasing Federal debt at a run rate of more than $1.2 Trillion annually to date.  The understanding of the impact of increasing debt on economic growth is crucially important to understand.  Overall, the set up going forward looks like it has in the past couple of years.  It is unlikely that Obama will move to the center and be more of a politician with the best interest of the economy at heart.   It is also just as unlikely that the Republicans will back down and begin to cooperate with the Senate. However, the weight of evidence is stacked in favor of "more of the same" which means less for you and me.

Risk Off(er) 

  Because AAPL was not enough, Grexit is now back and fully frontal:

  • EU MINISTERS TO DELAY GREEK AID CALL FOR WEEKS, OFFICIAL SAYS
And dump. Funny how all the horrible news are hitting after the election.

The Three Key Themes From Q3 Earnings

Much like the Beige Book attempts to summarize the 'economic conditions' of all the 12 regional Federal Reserve branches, so Goldman's David Kostin screens the companies in the S&P 500 for common themese from their earnings calls. This anecdotal evidence provides critical insight into the current fundamental and thematic trends. The three key findings are (1) Managements delayed capital investment and hiring and gave conservative guidance given uncertainty about the real economy and near-term policy risk from the ‘Fiscal Cliff’; (2) Companies grappled with slow global growth: stagnation in the US, recession in Europe, and an unclear path in China; and (3) Many firms took strong action to protect high margins against tepid revenue growth, rising input costs, and frugal customers. Meanwhile, a near-record percent of small businesses rank government requirements as their biggest challenge!

ECB Admits Mistake In Spanish Collateral Haircut

For all the monotony of today's ECB press release in which Mario "talking in Keynesian circles" Dragi did his best impression of Diane Sawyer, not even the former Goldmanite could deny that the ECB did a mistake on its Spanish collateral haircut as reported previously:

  • DRAGHI SAYS COLLATERAL MISTAKE DIDN'T AFFECT ECB LENDING
  • DRAGHI: EUROSYSTEM AUDIT COMMITTEE TO ASSESS COLLATERAL USE
Luckily, the ECB has so much credibility that admitting it did not haircut billions in "money good" Spanish bonds will not impact how ze Germans view its monetary flouting prowess one bit. Also, if anyone can explain how ECB lending "was not affected" as a result of flawed collateral calculations we are all ears, because either we really have no idea how crediting works, or Mario Draghi seriously believes everyone out there is a consummate idiot.


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Initial Claims Lower Than Expected Due To Hurricane Sandy

 
Today's initial claims number, as well as that for the next several weeks, will be nothing but noise due to the impact of Hurricane Sandy. This is how UBS' Maury Harris explained the Sandy impact last night: "Hurricane Sandy will undoubtedly cause increased jobless claims. However, as after other hurricanes, there will probably be some lag with many potential claimants either unable to reach the Labor Department or otherwise pre-occupied. Indeed, we expect the hurricane artificially held down claims in the coming report (UBSe 340k, cons 365k after 363k)." Sure enough, today's Claims number came at 355K, below consensus expectations of 365K, and below last week's 353K, driven by the Sandy front-loading distortion as well as Seasonal Adjustments: the NSA claims number rose by 15.5K. No surprise. What is more peculiar is that after over a year of steady declines, those collecting extended benefits continued to rise, increasing by 20K in the past week, which is odd considering these programs have now been largely phased out for new entrants.


Mario Draghi Press Conference - Live Webcast

The ECB failed to provide anything actionable earlier today. There is some hope that Goldman operative Mario Draghi will shed some additional easing light at the press conference starting momentarily, but don't hold your breath. The focus, if any, will be on how many more months will the ECB pretend Spain is both broke and safe, and how much longer until the OMT, which is really the SMP with the promise of pari passu treatment (which has already been proven to be false following the ECB's refusal to be impaired on its official Greek holdings) is actually put to use.


Greek Unemployment Rate Hits Record 25.4%

Greek August unemployment: 25.4%, up from 24.8% in July and up from 18.4% a year earlier. Needless to say, this is a record, and at this rate will be just shy of 30% by the end of the year (sorry IMF). This is, however, good news though: the Greek unemployment is, believe it or not, the second worst in Europe, behind Spain's 25.5%. Yet a category where Greece is the indisputed champion is youth unemployment, which just hit a mindboggling 58%, up from 54.2% in July (more on that shortly).

Daily US Opening News And Market Re-Cap: November 8

European equities have made tentative progress this morning, led by the technology and basic materials sectors. The European morning was relatively peaceful until a flurry of activity on the back of European sources commenting that Spain are unlikely to seek ESM aid until the end of the year, and the ECB are not in a rush to commence bond-buying using their OMT facility. The delay of expectations of purchases has taken its toll on the Spanish debt markets which, despite completing their 2012 issuance smoothly today, show signs of strain as the 10yr yield breaches 5.81%, and the yield spread approaches 450bps against the German benchmark – the level at which LCH begin to review margin requirements. The pain in Spain has also impacted the EUR currency, with the major EUR/USD pair printing a two-month low of 1.2720 this morning.

No Rate Change From ECB Either

At today’s meeting the Governing Council of the ECB decided that the interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility will remain unchanged at 0.75%, 1.50% and 0.00% respectively.

Bank Of England Halts QE After "Potency Questioned"

In what may be the most disturbing news of the day, moments ago the BOE announced it is halting its own version of QE3, and capping the asset purchase program at £375 billion after "some policy makers questioned its effectiveness in supporting a recovery that remains lackluster." Could it be that even that peculiar Homo Sapiens subspecies known as "economist" is starting to realize that when applying the same "remedy" time after time to absolutely no avail, and where even the market no longer responds to unlimited injections of liquidity, then perhaps it is time to end said "remedy" altogether? And how long until the voodoo shamans in the dark lit room at Marriner Eccles follow through? Sadly, if Japan, and its 9 (so far) rounds of easing, is any indication, we have a lot more pain to go before what has been glaringly obvious to every hotdog vendor and shoeshine boy is also understood by Economics Nobel prize winners.

Frontrunning: November 8

  • Obama First Since FDR Re-Elected With 7.9% Joblessness (Bloomberg)
  • China Party Meets to Anoint Next Leader (WSJ)
  • Hu Sets China Income Target for Xi as Communists Gather (Bloomberg)
  • Hu Jintao dashes hope for political reform (FT)
  • Spain Sells $6 Billion Debt, Placing Longest Bond Since 2011 (Bloomberg)
  • Japanese Politicians Move to Steer Away From Fiscal Cliff (Bloomberg)
  • Hu says graft threatens state, party must stay in charge (Reuters)
  • Weidmann in Defeat Still Influences ECB Bond-Buying Plan (Bloomberg)
  • Spain Said to Consider Palace Sales to Raise Cash (Bloomberg)
  • First-term headwinds look set to turn (FT)
  • Focus Shifts to 'Fiscal Cliff' (WSJ)
  • Obama Victory Paves Way to Continue Fed Policies (Hilsenrath)
  • Swiss, Greeks Begin Talks on Tax Deal (WSJ)

 

All Quiet On The Day After The Day After

The much anticipated Greek vote on "self-imposed" austerity came, saw and passed... and nothing: the EURUSD is now well lower than before the vote for one simple reason - the vote was merely a placeholder to test the resiliency of the government, which following numerous MP terminations, has seen its overall majority drop to 168 of 300, which includes the members of the Democratic Left who voted against the Troika proposal. Which means any more votes on anything split along austerity party lines and the vote will likely no longer pass. And, as expected, Germany already picked up the baton on kicking the can on funding the Greek €31.5 billion payment (due originally many months ago) when Schauble said that it will still be too early to make a Greek decision net week.  Market-wise, Europe is limping into the US open, with the EUR weaker again due to a report that Spain may not seek an ECB bailout this year (as said here over and over, Spain will not seek a bailout until the 10 Year SPGB is back at or above 7%). Paradoxically, Spain also sold €4.76 billion in 2015, 2018 and 2032 debt (more than the expected €4.5 billion) at muted conditions, thereby the market continues to encourage Spain not to request a bailout, although this may not last, as promptly after the bond auction Spanish debt tailed off, the 2Y and 10Y both sold off, and the Spain-Bund spread is back to 445 bps, the widest since October, and means Spain can finally be getting back in selloff play: and probably not at the best possible time just as everything else, which was in suspended animation until the Obama reelection, also hits the tape. Today we get two key, if largely irrelevant, central bank decisions come from the BOE and ECB, both of which are expected to do nothing much. Finally, the most important event going on right now, is the Chinese Congress. For those who missed it, our previews are here: The Far More Important 'Election' Part 1: China's Political Process and The Far More Important 'Election' Part 2: China's Market Implications.


 





Today’s Items:

First…
EU slashes Euro-zone Growth Forecasts
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
The GDP across the 17-nation Euro-zone is predicted to be 1.4% in 2012.   The near 12% unemployment and the implementation of austerity measures is going to make the outlook for the Euro-zone even worse.   European financial experts believe that it will take until 2014 for the region to recover and that the U.S. will far outstrip Europe in growth.    Wow…   Talk about mass delusion.

Next…
For Investors, More Fed Easing
http://www.cnbc.com
An election that was supposed to be about change actually could end up being an intensified dose of the dysfunctional status quo.    So expect…
1. More irresponsible government spending; thus, higher debts and deficits.
2. More money printing by Benji Bernanke; thus, inflation.
3. Implementing more taxes; such as, the Carbon Tax, to help cut deficits and distribute wealth.
What we are experiencing is final stages of the frog being boiled alive situation folks.

Next…
Debt Limit…  Again!
http://cnsnews.com
Officials at the U.S. Treasury are quietly warning that the federal government will, once again, reach its legal debt limit before the end of the year.    Before the new Congress is seated, the Treasury will implement “extraordinary measures…    Meaning the Treasury will raid federal pension funds.   Of course, if one were expecting the Republicans to fight against higher taxes, then just forget it with John Boehner offering to raise taxes to avoid the “Fiscal Cliff“.    In short, get ready folks and welcome to the Wiemar Republic 2012 where dollars grow on trees.

Next…
The Silver Supply Squeeze In 1980 Could Look Like A Warm-up
http://goldsilverworlds.com
With as much silver paper flying around, David Morgan believes that we could very well see a 1980 type run-up of silver from $5 to $50…    But greater because while the demand for silver has skyrocketed, the supply side of silver has contracted.    So, after preparing, keep stacking physical.

Next…
The One-Hour Meltdown
http://www.economicnoise.com
The collapse is coming; therefore, please read this article on how the collapse will happen virtually within one hour.    If you have not prepared accordingly, the unfolding scenario, from banks, governments, businesses, to normal people in the first hour, could easily make those stuck in Hurricane Sandy look like they are having a pleasant vacation.  Then after the first hour, that is when it gets really bad.   In short, be prepared as much as common sense will allow you to be.

Next…
Why Data Theft Experts Recommend Paying in Cash
http://www.cnbc.com
Technology is making it easier for criminals to develop smaller, more effective skimming devices, to obtain debt card information.    In fact, compromised checkout machines are so widely dispersed that many crimes go unnoticed for quite some time.    In short, criminals have a much harder time getting to a person’s finances if people use cash, instead of a debit card.

Finally, please prepare now for the escalating economic and social unrest.    Good Day!

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