I am back from the Forbes cruise to Mexico and starting to deal with a thousand things, but first on the list is making sure you get this week’s Outside the Box. And a good one it is. In fact, it is two short pieces coming to us from friends based in London over the pond.
Both of them have to deal with the unfolding crisis that is Europe, which is going to unfold for several years as they lurch from solution to solution. The first is from Dylan Grice of Societe Generale and reminds us why we should put no stock in what leaders say about a crisis. He has lined up the statements of leaders from one crisis after another. He finds a simple, repeating pattern. And shows where we are now.
The second is from hedge fund manager Omar Sayed, who I met last time I was sin London. A very bright chap and good guy. He offers us very succinctly four paths that Europe can take. Some of them are not pretty. It all makes for a very interesting OTB. I trust your week will go well.
Your over-dosed on guacamole (and it was worth it) analyst,
John Mauldin, Editor
Outside the Box
Flashback to Crises Past: Three Stages of Delusion
Popular Delusions
By Dylan Grice
The recent sequence of reassurances from various eurozone policymakers suggests we are in the early, not latter, stages of the euro crisis. Only an Anglo-Saxon style QE will prevent dissolution of the euro. Such a radically un-German solution will only be taken with a full acceptance of how serious the euro’s problems are. But denial persists.
The dawning of reality hurts. Prodded and bullied along a tortuous emotional path by events unforeseen and beyond our control, we descend through three phases: the first is denial that there is a problem; the second is denial that there is a big problem; the third is denial that the problem was anything to do with us.
US policymakers’ three steps during the housing crash fit the template well. Asked in 2005 about the danger posed to the economy by the housing bubble, Bernanke responded: “I guess I don’t buy your premise. It’s a pretty unlikely possibility. We’ve never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis.” Here was the…
I think this day chart of the 30 year says it all. After the very stinky NFP numbers the bond made a predictable jump higher. But it wasn’t long after that the air started leaking out and the bond closed on the lows.
Why the stinky price action when we get a big miss on NFP number? QE and the talk of stimulus done it. The numbers were so bad that by 9:30 talking heads and pundits concluded that the tax cuts were coming and we might just get a break on Social Security payroll deductions any day. Forget about restraining QE-2; the talk went straight into high gear with the only question; “How big might QE-3 be?”
So with that gibberish in mind bonds headed to the crapper while gold set new highs. The confirm that QE is now driving bonds lower came late in the day when there was a convenient leak of a Sunday TV appearance by Ben B. The only quote leaked was: “We might do more”. Stocks liked that talk and ended up; while the bonds ratcheted down another notch.
I am pleased that the market has made the connection that more QE and more stimulus is bad for bonds. The market is the only discipline left that may slow the insanity creeping over D.C. When market forces turn on the “New Monetarism” and shut the door on the insanity, the policies will change. Until they get hit hard over the head the Fed will continue to print. We are getting closer by the day. Consider this graph of the long bond since QE-2 was announced:
Long rates have backed up by 40 bp in just the past month. The exact opposite reaction that ‘the Bernank’ wants. How deflationary is this increase in interest rates? Mildly so. My guess is that the impact of rising rates exactly offsets the stimulative benefit of keeping short rates at historic lows. Yes, more debt is financed short term than long, but a back up in mortgage rates and the increase in long term fixed rate capital for municipalities and corporations will offset any benefits from ZIRP.
On the question(s): “Will interest rates fall from the current levels of ~3% for ten-year
Reality briefly penetrated the fog of appearance this morning as US Non-Farm Payrolls came in at 39,000, a significant miss from the expected 150,000. Unemployment ticked up higher from 9.5% to 9.8%.
An analysis of the data showed a slight indication that the recovery has stuttered and stopped, but it will take a few more months data to confirm this.
The adjustments seems to dampen the potential headline number but are within bounds of the prior six years. The Birth Death Model actually came in negative which was a bit of an outlier but certainly a refreshing nod to reality.
Looking at the historical Oct-Nov growth in the unadjusted numbers for the past six years shows a clear downward trend from the high in November 2005, with the low coming in November 2008. The growth as it stands in 2010 is roughly the same as it was in 2004, although the 2010 numbers will likely be revised in the next two reports.
Stocks and the Dollar initially plunged on the news while gold rallied threatening to take out psychological resistance at 1400. I guess we now know why gold and silver were obviously hit by sharp manipulative selling yesterday, in order to take the prices down below breakout levels. Be on watch for shenanigans in the markets today, especially the SP futures markets.
There can be no sustained economic recovery until the median wage and employment improve and this requires specific reforms and programs to repair the damage caused by twenty years of irresponsible monetary, regulatory, and fiscal policy and a growing imbalance in the balance sheets of the middle class. Repairing the status quo merely restores the unsustainable.
The Fed’s approach to quantitative easing is nothing more than an adjunct to the trickle down, supply-side approach. Provide money to the banks and the people will borrow; provide subsidies and tax cuts to those who have the most already and the condition of the many will improve. Trickle down, supply side, and efficient markets hypothesis are at best mistaken economic theories, and at worst coldly calculated propaganda by the same people who co-opted the political process and brought forward the control frauds that led to the financial crisis.
The Dirty Fed has been forced to open its books and, not surprisingly, data reveal that money managers capitalized nicely on the Fed’s intentions, as I suppose they well should have seeing as how our friends at 20th and Constitution are so f**king transparent about doing whatever it takes.
Grab the barf bag, you might need it.
HuffPo tells us that some familiar names made a quite awesome profit frontrunning the Fed, something not at all illegal but completely questionable in these troubled times. Is this the transparency you wanted?
The Fed effectively telegraphed its intentions to the Street before buying the bonds. Legendary money manager Bill Gross, who oversees more than $1.2 trillion at Pacific Investment Management Co. said last month during a television interview that part of his success over the last 18 months was due to buying securities in front of the Fed, and selling them to the Fed at a premium, allowing him to profit handsomely. Gross runs PIMCO’s $252.2 billion Total Return Fund.
Morgan Stanley sold the Fed more than $205 billion in mortgage securities from January 2009 to July 2010, while it’s [sic] much bigger rival, Goldman Sachs, sold $159 billion. Citigroup, the nation’s third-largest bank by assets, sold the Fed nearly $185 billion in mortgage bonds. Merrill Lynch/Bank of America sold about $174 billion.
It’s not clear how much these firms profited by engaging in the kind of activity that allowed Gross to profit so well, known as "front running." However, it’s abundantly clear that they did turn a profit.
JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s second-largest bank by assets, sold the Fed about $153 billion worth of mortgage securities.
Other foreign banks with extensive Wall Street operations also profited from the program.
Barclays, the British firm that took over failed investment bank Lehman Brothers, sold about $123 billion in mortgage bonds. UBS, a Swiss lender, sold about $94 billion. BNP Paribas, a French bank, sold about $67 billion.
That’s not all. The data also reveal that the Fed shoved fake money at everyone including McDonald’s, Verizon and Harley-Davidson. McDonald’s still laid off 700 in an attempt to "restructure", leaving any reasonable person to wonder how many they’d have cut if they hadn’t gotten a nice fat Zimbabwe Ben handout. Since when is the Fed in the business of loan sharking to anyone but the…
Unlike Zimbabwe, the U.S. can easily get the currency it needs without being beholden to anyone. But wouldn’t that dilute the value of the currency? No.
A month ago, the bond vigilantes were screaming that the Fed’s QE2 would be the first step on the road to Zimbabwe-style hundred trillion dollar notes. Zimbabwe (the former Rhodesia) is the poster example of what can go wrong when a government pays its bills by printing money. Zimbabwe’s economy collapsed in 2008, when its currency hyperinflated to the point that it was trading with the U.S. dollar at an exchange rate of 10 trillion to 1. On November 29, Cullen Roche wrote in the Pragmatic Capitalist:
Back in October the economic buzzwords had become “money printing” and “debt monetization”. . . . [T]he Fed was initiating their policy of QE2 and you’d have been hard pressed to find someone in this country (and around the world for that matter) who wasn’t entirely convinced that the USA was about to send the dollar into some sort of death spiral. QE2 was about to set off a round of inflation that would make Zimbabwe look like a cakewalk. And then something odd happened – the dollar rallied as QE2 set sail and hasn’t looked back since.
What really happened in Zimbabwe? And why does QE2 seem to be making the dollar stronger rather than weaker, as the inflationistas predicted?
Anatomy of a Hyperinflation
Professor Michael Hudson has studied hyperinflation extensively. He maintains that “every hyperinflation in history stems from the foreign exchange markets. It stems from governments trying to throw enough of their currency on the market to pay their foreign debts.”
It is in the foreign exchange markets that a national currency becomes vulnerable to manipulation by speculators.
The Zimbabwe economic crisis dated back to 2001, when the government defaulted on its loans and the IMF refused to make the usual accommodations, including refinancing and loan forgiveness. Zimbabwe’s credit was ruined and it could not get loans elsewhere, so the government resorted to issuing its
Continuing on the theme of stock market prices vs. real fundamental value, Mish writes: "This is what happens when investors chase "relative value" instead of asking if there is any real value at all…[This] applies to those chasing the stock market at these lofty levels on the basis ‘stocks are cheap relative to treasuries’ or some other nonsensical reason to justify valuations." – Ilene
Curve Watchers Anonymous notes a continuing bearish flattening of the yield curve as shown in the following chart.
click on chart for sharper image
A bearish flattening occurs when the curve tightens with yields generally rising. Conversely, a bullish flattening occurs when the curve tightens with yields generally falling.
Since early November, 5-year treasury yields have risen about 60 basis point, 10-year yields about 45 basis points, and 30-year treasury yields have risen perhaps 5 basis points.
Once again we can see the results in today’s action with thanks to Bloomberg.
Buy the Rumor Sell the News
Note the continued unwind of the "sure-thing" treasury bet, with the Fed concentrating its purchases in the 3-to-7-year range hoping to drive down rates, and everyone front-running the trade. That trade is now unwinding.
Clearly this reaction is not what Bernanke wanted at all.
Reflections on "Relative Value"
Check out that .81 yield on 3-year treasuries. On October 18, investors scarfed up $750 million of 3-year Walmart Bonds yielding .75% for the stupid reason they yielded more than treasuries. Now treasuries are yielding more.
This is what happens when investors chase "relative value" instead of asking if there is any real value at all.
The same idea applies to those chasing the stock market at these lofty levels on the basis "stocks are cheap relative to treasuries" or some other nonsensical reason to justify valuations.
This morning’s Case Shiller data shows more of what we’ve been seeing in other housing data despite being a lagging indicator. Clearly, the weakness in the housing market is back:
“New York, November 30, 2010 – Data through September 2010, released today by Standard & Poor’s for its S&P/Case-Shiller1 Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, show that the U.S. National Home Price Index declined 2.0% in the third quarter of 2010, after having risen 4.7% in the second quarter. Nationally, home prices are 1.5% below their year-earlier levels. In September, 18 of the 20 MSAs covered by S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices and both monthly composites were down; and only the two composites and five MSAs showed year-over-year gains. While housing prices are still above their spring 2009 lows, the end of the tax incentives and still active foreclosures appear to be weighing down the market.”
“The chart above depicts the annual returns of the U.S. National, the 10-City Composite and the 20-City Composite Home Price Indices. The S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index, which covers all nine U.S. census divisions, recorded a 1.5% decline in the third quarter of 2010 over the third quarter of 2009. In September, the 10-City and 20-City Composites recorded annual returns of +1.6% and +0.6%, respectively. These two indices are reported at a monthly frequency and September was the fourth consecutive month where the annual growth rates moderated from their prior month’s pace, confirming a clear deceleration in home price returns.”
Today global wealth is more highly concentrated in the hands of the elite than it ever has been at any other point in modern history. Once upon a time, the vast majority of the people in the world knew how to grow their own food, raise their own animals and take care of themselves. There weren’t many that were fabulously wealthy, but there was a quiet dignity in having land you could call your own or in having a skill that you could turn into a business. Sadly, over the past several decades an increasingly growing percentage of agricultural land has been gobbled up by big corporations and by corrupt governments. Hundreds of millions of people have been pushed off their land and into highly concentrated urban areas.
Meanwhile, it has become increasingly difficult to start a business of your own as monolithic global corporations have come to dominate nearly every sector of the world economy. So more people than ever around the world are forced to work for "the system" just to make a living. At the same time, those at the very top of the food chain (the elite) have spent decades rigging the system to ensure that increasing amounts of wealth will continue to flow into their pockets. So now in 2010 we have a global system where a few elitists at the top are insanely wealthy while about half the people living on earth are wretchedly poor.
There are very few nations around the world that have not been almost entirely plundered by the global elite. When the elite speak of "investing" in poor countries, what they really mean is taking control of the land, water, oil and other natural resources. In dozens of nations around the world today, big global corporations are stripping fabulous amounts of wealth out of the…
So do you have very high impact corporate stuff to release then?
Yes, but maybe not as high impact…I mean, it could take down a bank or two.
…
Will we?
Yes. We have one related to a bank coming up, that’s a megaleak. It’s not as big a scale as the Iraq material, but it’s either tens or hundreds of thousands of documents depending on how you define it.
Is it a U.S. bank?
Yes, it’s a U.S. bank.
One that still exists?
Yes, a big U.S. bank.
The biggest U.S. bank?
No comment.
When will it happen?
Early next year. I won’t say more.
What do you want to be the result of this release?
[Pauses] I’m not sure.
It will give a true and representative insight into how banks behave at the executive level in a way that will stimulate investigations and reforms, I presume. Usually when you get leaks at this level, it’s about one particular case or one particular violation.
For this, there’s only one similar example. It’s like the Enron emails. Why were these so valuable? When Enron collapsed, through court processes, thousands and thousands of emails came out that were internal, and it provided a window into how the whole company was managed. It was all the little decisions that supported the flagrant violations.
This will be like that. Yes, there will be some flagrant violations, unethical practices that will be revealed, but it will also be all the supporting decision-making structures and the internal executive ethos that cames out, and that’s tremendously valuable. Like the Iraq War Logs, yes there were mass casualty incidents that were very newsworthy, but the great value is seeing the full spectrum of the war.
You could call it the ecosystem of corruption. But it’s also all the regular decision making that turns a blind eye to and supports unethical practices: the oversight that’s not done, the priorities of executives, how they think they’re fulfilling their own self-interest. The way they talk about it.
If you were wondering why there’s a sudden desire to shut these guys down, after they "leaked" all sorts of information…
ANY Ireland bailout terms are onerous given that it is not Ireland that is bailed out but rather banks in the UK, Germany, US, and France (in that order).
Moreover and unfortunately, the exact deal foolishly agreed to by Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen is not only amazingly bad for Ireland, but one of the provisions violates EU and Irish law.
Ireland gets Euro 67.5 billion ($89.4 billion) in bailout loans
The 16-nation eurozone, the full 27-nation EU, and the global donors of the International Monetary Fund each commit euro 22.5 billion ($29.8 billion).
Interest rates on the loans would be 6.05 percent from the eurozone fund, 5.7 percent from the EU fund and 5.7 percent from the IMF.
Ireland will have 10 years to pay off its IMF loans.
The first repayment won’t be required until 4 1/2 years after a drawdown.
Prime Minister Brian Cowen said Ireland will take euro 10 billion immediately to boost the capital reserves of its state-backed banks
Comparison to Greece
For comparison purposes Greece has three years to repay its loans at an interest rate of 5.2 percent.
Debt Slave Entrapment
The key to understanding how quickly Ireland is made a debt slave can be found in this not so innocuous paragraph.
Ireland first must run down its own cash stockpile and deploy its previously off-limits pension reserves in the bailout. Until now Irish and EU law had made it illegal for Ireland to use its pension fund to cover current expenditures. This move means Ireland will contribute euro 17.5 billion to its own salvation.
The last sentence in the above paragraph should read "Ireland will contribute euro 17.5 billion to its own destruction"
Moreover, once all of its own funds have been deployed, Ireland would be dependent on the IMF for life.
Salt Onto Open Wounds
Like pouring salt onto an open wound, the EU finance ministers agreed on a permanent mechanism, starting in 2013, that would allow a country to restructure its debts once it has been deemed insolvent.
Improvement in first time unemployment claims is slowing. Actual, not seasonally manipulated data, including an adjustment for the usual weekly upward revision, shows that the year to year rate of change is on the cusp of a possible upside breakout, which would be good news for stock market bears if it happens.
Initial Unemployment Claims Chart- Click to enlarge
Here’s why it’s mind blowing. I’ve plotted it below on an inverse scale with the S&P 500 overlaid.
Unemployemt Claims and Stock Prices - Click to enlarge
Major US Markets including (NYSEARCA:DIA), (NYSEARCA:SPY), (NASDAQ:QQQ), and (NYSEARCA:IWM) dropped over 3% each on Italian bond fears and an increased worry that Europe will not be able to bail out its 4th largest economy. Furthermore, the iShares MCSI Italy Fund (NYSEARCA:EWI) wiped out over 9% today, further illustrating the dire situation in Italy and the European Union: ...
The second economic disappointment of the day comes from the Dallas Fed, which dropped from -2.0 to -11.4 on expectations of -9.0- this was the 4th consecutive negative print month. The report was, in a word, horrible, with just 2 of the 15 constituent indices posting an increase, and the bulk solidly in the red, led by Unfilled and New Orders which dropped 16.8 and 11.2, respectively: not good for economic growth. On the employment side there was nothing good either, with both employment and hours worked declining by -...
Bloomberg reports that Diana Containerships (NASDAQ: DCIX) files to offer stock up to $172.5M. Diana Containerships says that Diana shipping will also buy $20M of stock.
Top 5 RisersStockRatingAnalysisVLOSTRONGBUYAn increasingly positive growth rate of past earnings, along with improving expectations for long term growth, make Valero a good prospect for high returns.KROSTRONGBUYKronos Worldwide has been gaining recognition from analysts as a good canditate for achieving higher than expected earnings along with higher overall projected valuation.SFIBUYiStar is one of the top candidates projected to achieve both higher than previously projected earnings in the short run and a higher earnings growth rate in the long run.AMATSTRONGBUYApplied Materials has been...
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February is now past, and the Biotech Porfolio is loaded with winners and a miss (PLX). MRK is down a bit, but I expect that trade to recover, and one could be more agressive and double down on it, or play another round at the Jan13 $30 options for roughly the same price. Below is the summary, and note the grey boxes are ones that did not fill. I am still a fan of BMRN, and like DEPO as well. Now let's look at a few others.
Table 1. PSW Biotech Plays Since January 2011
 
Our newest play is Momenta Pharmaceuticals (MNTA), who is pursuing a three-part business model which includes complex generic equivalents in partnership with the Sandoz division of Novartis, proprietary compounds, and follow-on- biologics (FOB). It seems that this company is tied up in competition/litigation wit...
Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
(blogroll, archives,
more).
Contact Ilene to learn about our affiliate and
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programs.
I am back from the Forbes cruise to Mexico and starting to deal with a thousand things, but first on the list is making sure you get this week’s Outside the Box. And a good one it is. In fact, it is two short pieces coming to us from friends based in London over the pond.
The dawning of reality hurts. Prodded and bullied along a tortuous emotional path by events unforeseen and beyond our control, we descend through three phases: the first is denial that there is a problem; the second is denial that there is a big problem; the third is denial that the problem was anything to do with us.
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
(