"Don't Forget, I'm The King Of Debt, I Love Debt" - Trump Chimes In On Puerto Rico

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2016 - 10:40 

 

 

 

 

Trumped! Why It Happened And What Comes Next, Part 1

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2016 - 09:23 First there were seventeen. At length, there was one. Donald Trump’s wildly improbable capture of the GOP nomination, therefore, is the most significant upheaval in American politics since Ronald Reagan. And the proximate cause is essentially the same. Like back then, an era of drastic bipartisan mis-governance has finally generated an electoral impulse to sweep out the stables.

Russian Orchestra Performs In Syria's Palmyra Ruins, Recently Held By ISIS - Live Webcast

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2016 - 11:21 In an surprising development for war-torn Syria, Russia's famous Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, is giving a concert on Thursday on the stage of Palmyra's world-famous amphitheater, which until recently was under ISIS control and parts of which had been destroyed.

Federal Reserve Tries Wizardry to Cure Derivatives Problem

by Pam Martens and Russ Martens, Wall St On Parade:
Yesterday, the Federal Reserve held a public board meeting to propose two new Byzantine rules to prevent another 2008-style financial contagion on Wall Street and potential crash of the U.S. economy. Unfortunately, the details brought images of the curtain scene from the Wizard of Oz. If you looked beyond the copious verbiage, there didn’t seem to be much there, there.
Both plans appeared to target concerns over derivatives. Coincidentally, Freddie Mac, already a ward of the government as a result of the 2008 crash and a derivatives counterparty to some of Wall Street’s largest banks, reported yesterday that it had lost $4.56 billion in its derivatives portfolio in just the first three months of this year. Derivative losses were an early precursor to the 2008 crash.
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Haunting Pictures Of A Transportation Recession As Freight Rail Traffic Plunges

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2016 - 07:42 The impact of the transportation recession on railroads is now very visible. Here’s how Union Pacific is dealing with this issue, via Google Earth, on May 3: 292 engines idled on a siding west of Benson, Arizona, along I-10, for a stretch of nearly 4 miles. Note how the line of locomotives curves and fades into the left edge of the photo – an once majestic and haunting sight, all these powerful machines idled on a track in the Arizona desert...

Party's Over - High Yield Bond ETF Crushed By Largest Outflows Ever

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2016 - 12:38 It appears the credit market's dead-cat-bounce party is over. Following the almost unprecedented bounce off the February lows, the last few days have seen HYG (the largest high yield bond ETF) tumble back below its 200-day moving average as credit spreads (in IG and HY) start to widen significantly. The driver of this sudden weakness is now clear - a $2.3bn 4-day outflow which is the most sudden and largest redemption ever.

A Summary Of The Sheer Political Chaos In Brazil In Under 150 Words

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2016 - 12:22 Here, in under 150 words, is the best summary of the utter political chaos and corruption that is playing out behind the scenes in Brazil at this moment.

Why Gazprom's 'Monopoly' In Europe Is Far From Over

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2016 - 11:56 The first U.S. shipment of liquefied natural gas (LNG) arrived in Portugal last week and Gazprom did not immediately cut its own gas prices for Europe. While European media has hailed the entry of U.S. gas into the market as a game-changer and a monopoly-breaker, in the short term, nothing has changed at all.

Surprise! Baltic Dry Index Plunges Most Since November As Commodity Bubble Bursts

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2016 - 11:40 Who could have seen this coming? Remember a week ago when TV entertainers crowed about the surge in The Baltic Dry Freight Index was a "clear signal" that 'China is back' baby and that escape velocity growth was just around the corner as global growth was destined to pick up... Well, just as we warned very explicitly, the ramp in the index merely reflected the frenzied speculation in industrial metals by the Chinese and as authorities have cracked down on that idiocy, so the Baltic Dry has plunged by the most since November... as real demand punches back.

Has The Long Yen Trade Run Its Course?

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2016 - 11:00 Despite an unprecedented amount of monetary easing taking place at the Bank of Japan, the yen has - since the middle of 2015 - been on a consistently strengthening trend versus the USD. As paradoxical as it may seem in a period when the Fed talked about, and then did raise interest rates coincident to the BOJ firing off ever more arrows, the strengthening yen has been the reality. That reality may be about to take a breather, though, as too many investors have moved to the same side of the boat in betting on yen appreciation while the “smart money” is net short the yen.

In Latest Blow To Hedge Funds, Largest US Life Insurer Is Redeeming Most Of Its Investments

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2016 - 10:22 Moments ago we the latest confirmation that the hedge fund business model is indeed suffering through an existential battle when MetLife Inc., the largest U.S. life insurer, said was seeking to exit most of its hedge-fund portfolio after a slump in the investments. According to Bloomberg, the insurer is seeking to redeem $1.2 billion of the $1.8 billion in holdings, a process that may take a couple of years to complete.

"Rich" Americans Confidence Crashes Most Since 2013

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2016 - 10:02 Despite equity prices soaring to within inches of all-time record highs, it appears 'rich' Americans are no longer impressed by The Fed's handiwork. As Bloomberg's Consumer Comfort index slumps to its weakest since Dec 2015, high-income (over $75k) Americans suffered their biggest plunge in confidence since October 2013 seemingly unable to revive their animal spirits as much as CFOs and their buybacks.

The Olympics Of Misery

from The Sleuth Journal:

RIO DE JANEIRO – When Rio de Janeiro was chosen as an Olympic city in 2009, nobody foresaw a Brazil in such a decaying state as it is today.
The then President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who celebrated victory effusively, never imagined that the country’s economy could make a turn for the worse.
Back then, and despite the global economic crisis, Brazil saw a GDP growth of over 5%, which kept everyone optimistic.
The crisis came later, under the presidency of president Dilma Rousseff, who has faced the economic crisis plaguing the country; the worst recession since 1990. Rousseff also had to dribble the biggest case of corruption of the democratic history of Brazil, most of which was perpetrated by her Workers Party.
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America’s Biggest of All Big Lies

from Washington’s Blog:

On April 26th, Reuters headlined from Romania, “‘We’re Not Here to Provoke,’ Say U.S. Pilots on Putin’s Doorstep”, and gave as an example: “‘We’re not here to provoke anybody, we’re here to work with our allies,’ says Dan Barina, a 26-year-old pilot on his first trip to a region where tensions have risen markedly since Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Romania’s neighbor Ukraine two years ago.”

How can it not be ‘provoking’, when Russia now faces a threat from Obama and America’s NATO alliance, that’s vastly worse than what America had faced from the Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev and the USSR’s Warsaw Pact alliance in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis?

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