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As Rand Paul grows more vociferous with regard the Janet Yellen nomination, he and his father are once again pressing for more transparency into what really occurs at the Fed. While some argue that there has never been a more ‘transparent’ Fed as we are plagued with volumes of double-speak (projections and prognostications), Ron Paul explains in this brief clip that “the big stuff is done in secret,” including international central bank bailouts. His hope, based on the fact that Janet Yellen is a self-described agent of transparency that “the time is ripe,” to truly audit the Fed.

 

“We don’t know the details of the trillions of dollars that were used to bail out banks and central banks around the world and corporations during the crisis,” Paul said. “The numbers that they give you I don’t think are all that revealing.”

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/AZUfJcWWVq0/story01.htm Tyler Durden

While the market is focused on AAPL’s income statement, we decided to take a quick glance at its balance sheet, where we looked at – what else – its infamous cash hoard. Once the envy of every company in the universe, AAPL’s cash and equivalents, while still very impressive at a record $146.8 billion, is potentially a reason of concern. Because while AAPL’s Q4 $9.9 billion in cash from operations were certainly impressive as a result of the company’s recent shareholder friendly overtures it has been burning cash at a far faster clip than in prior quarters and spent $7.8 billion in Q4 in dividends and share buybacks. So much so, that the amount by which its total cash holdings grew in the quarter was a tiny $140 million, a far cry from prior quarters when it generated billions in cash in any given quarter. So one wonders: was this the peak for the most fantastic cash balance growth in history?

We hope to have the breakdown of domestic vs foreign cash soon, although if prior quarters are any indication, this is the 3rd consecutive quarter in which domestic cash has declined and will force the firm to either repatriate some of its offshore cash, or issue even more debt.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/ryzfPlF65nQ/story01.htm Tyler Durden

While the market is focused on AAPL’s income statement, we decided to take a quick glance at its balance sheet, where we looked at – what else – its infamous cash hoard. Once the envy of every company in the universe, AAPL’s cash and equivalents, while still very impressive at a record $146.8 billion, is potentially a reason of concern. Because while AAPL’s Q4 $9.9 billion in cash from operations were certainly impressive as a result of the company’s recent shareholder friendly overtures it has been burning cash at a far faster clip than in prior quarters and spent $7.8 billion in Q4 in dividends and share buybacks. So much so, that the amount by which its total cash holdings grew in the quarter was a tiny $140 million, a far cry from prior quarters when it generated billions in cash in any given quarter. So one wonders: was this the peak for the most fantastic cash balance growth in history?

We hope to have the breakdown of domestic vs foreign cash soon, although if prior quarters are any indication, this is the 3rd consecutive quarter in which domestic cash has declined and will force the firm to either repatriate some of its offshore cash, or issue even more debt.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/ryzfPlF65nQ/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Moments ago, AAPL beat the top and bottom line as follows:

• Q4 EPS of $8.26, Est. $7.92
• Q4 Revenues of $37.5 billion, Est. $36.84
• Q4 gross Margin: 37.0% vs Est. 36.9%
• See Q1 revenue $55-58 billion, on expectations 55.5 billion
• iPhone sales 33.8 million vs Est. 32.8 million
• Mac Units shipped 4.6 million vs Est. 4.3 million

That was the good news: the bad is as follows:

• IPad sales of 14.1 million missed estimates of 14.3 million
• Q1 margin between 36.5-37.5%, below the street estimate of 37.74%, which is what according to some is pushing the stock lower after hours

Welcome to the commodity world: after all this is what AAPL wanted with the 5C right?

The breakdown of the components – Margins:

 

Sales:

 

And sales by product:

And the after hours action: first pump, then dump.

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/S2v58tOBTN0/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Shitty data, worse earnings, worst volume, new highs. Among the lowest volume days in NYSE single-stocks, S&P futures trading, and VIX options saw stocks levitate back to overnight highs during the day only to slide lower to around unch by the close. Trannies have managed 11 up days in the last 13 and gained 10.3% – sure why not? S&P 500 hit new all-time highs but ended the day well off its highs. Gold hit 5-week highs but faded back to modest gains. The USD rallied early and faded to unch by the close. Treasuries rallied early on but faded into close +/1bp on the day… The pattern was the same across most assets but a very last minute 4.5 point rampapalooza closed the S&P at all-time highs.

 

The S&P was resecued from a red close by a 5 poinrt vertical ramp into the close…

 

Treasuries rallie early on dismal data (moar un-Taper) but faded back to unch into the close…

 

And it weas all the USD into the close…

 

Charts: Bloomberg

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/AkxrXHBIk5Q/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Shitty data, worse earnings, worst volume, new highs. Among the lowest volume days in NYSE single-stocks, S&P futures trading, and VIX options saw stocks levitate back to overnight highs during the day only to slide lower to around unch by the close. Trannies have managed 11 up days in the last 13 and gained 10.3% – sure why not? S&P 500 hit new all-time highs but ended the day well off its highs. Gold hit 5-week highs but faded back to modest gains. The USD rallied early and faded to unch by the close. Treasuries rallied early on but faded into close +/1bp on the day… The pattern was the same across most assets but a very last minute 4.5 point rampapalooza closed the S&P at all-time highs.

 

The S&P was resecued from a red close by a 5 poinrt vertical ramp into the close…

 

Treasuries rallie early on dismal data (moar un-Taper) but faded back to unch into the close…

 

And it weas all the USD into the close…

 

Charts: Bloomberg

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/AkxrXHBIk5Q/story01.htm Tyler Durden

The National Republican Senatorial Committee has laucnhed a bumper sticker campaign to “remind Americans of the same error messge they are seeing each day when trying to log on to Healthcare.gov.”

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/RtBDr9hQ_zY/story01.htm Tyler Durden

One has to wonder if somewhere deep down a change is occurring in America. While stock prices soar to record highs, it is clear a growing number of ‘real’ people are realizing the nonsense that watching a ‘market’ as anything indicative of reality has become. The latest ‘shift’ is the appearance on New Orleans local TV of a two-minute primer on an “alternative” school of economic thought – Austrian Economics. While the anchor is careful to add the caveat that the mainstream economists think the world would be a terrible place if they didn’t help us along, the brief clip begins with some useful common sense, “the market alone should decide the value of products and services. If a company is not successful, it should go bankrupt.” Indeed…

 

Click image for 2-minute clip…

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/O63-CiDClUA/story01.htm Tyler Durden

JPM’s Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, editor of the “Flows and Liquidity” weekly research piece, is one of the greater experts on, not surprisingly, global monetary flows and liquidity. Which as we noted back in 2009, is all that matters in a world in which the micro, and recently the macro, have all been made obsolete by one simple thing: credit-money creation by the monetary authorities. Which is why we read with interest his latest edition in which he sets off to answer a not so simple question: “how much liquidity is there?” What he finds is disturbing.

From JPM:

Excess money supply is currently at record high positive territory. The residual of the regression turned positive in May 2012 and has risen steadily since then. This is both because of real money supply increasing and money demand decreasing due to lower uncertainty (Figure 3). In particular, global M2 is up $3tr or 4.6% since the beginning of the year (to September), outperforming the Global CPI inflation index which is up by only 2% since then. Global M2 reached $66tr in September this year.

 

Of the $3tr increase in global M2 money supply in the first three quarters of the year, around $1tr is due to G4 countries, i.e. US, Euro area, UK and  Japan. The remaining $2tr is due to EM countries, driven by strong bank lending growth in EM. As we highlighted last week, EM bank loan credit creation has been unaffected by the EM selloff in the summer and was running in July/August at a $170bn per month pace. So strong credit growth in EM economies continues to boost our measure of excess liquidity.

 

And the conclusion:

The rise in excess liquidity, i.e. the residual in the model of Figure 4, is supportive for risky assets especially when we compare the past nine months with the period between the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2012 when excess money supply was negative. Looking further back in Figure 4, we can see three major episodes of excess liquidity (i.e. positive residual): 1993-1995, 2001-2006 and Oct 2008-Sep 2010. These were periods of strong asset price inflation suggesting that excess liquidity could have been a factor supporting markets at the time. The current episode of excess liquidity, which began in May 2012, appears to have been the most extreme ever in terms of its magnitude.

To summarize:

• In just the first 9 months of 2013, DM countries have injected $1 trillion in liquidity sourced exclusively by central banks; EMs have injected another $2 trillion driven by bank loan demand.
• The total global M2 is over $66 trillion, growing at an annualized pace of over 6%.
• The amount of excess liquidity, i.e. the infamous “liquidity bubble” in the global fungible system is “the most extreme ever in terms of its magnitude”

And that’s really all there is to know: the music is playing and everyone has to dance… just don’t ask what happens when the music ends.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/2_miu_Qiel4/story01.htm Tyler Durden

JPM’s Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, editor of the “Flows and Liquidity” weekly research piece, is one of the greater experts on, not surprisingly, global monetary flows and liquidity. Which as we noted back in 2009, is all that matters in a world in which the micro, and recently the macro, have all been made obsolete by one simple thing: credit-money creation by the monetary authorities. Which is why we read with interest his latest edition in which he sets off to answer a not so simple question: “how much liquidity is there?” What he finds is disturbing.

From JPM:

Excess money supply is currently at record high positive territory. The residual of the regression turned positive in May 2012 and has risen steadily since then. This is both because of real money supply increasing and money demand decreasing due to lower uncertainty (Figure 3). In particular, global M2 is up $3tr or 4.6% since the beginning of the year (to September), outperforming the Global CPI inflation index which is up by only 2% since then. Global M2 reached $66tr in September this year.

 

Of the $3tr increase in global M2 money supply in the first three quarters of the year, around $1tr is due to G4 countries, i.e. US, Euro area, UK and  Japan. The remaining $2tr is due to EM countries, driven by strong bank lending growth in EM. As we highlighted last week, EM bank loan credit creation has been unaffected by the EM selloff in the summer and was running in July/August at a $170bn per month pace. So strong credit growth in EM economies continues to boost our measure of excess liquidity.

 

And the conclusion:

The rise in excess liquidity, i.e. the residual in the model of Figure 4, is supportive for risky assets especially when we compare the past nine months with the period between the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2012 when excess money supply was negative. Looking further back in Figure 4, we can see three major episodes of excess liquidity (i.e. positive residual): 1993-1995, 2001-2006 and Oct 2008-Sep 2010. These were periods of strong asset price inflation suggesting that excess liquidity could have been a factor supporting markets at the time. The current episode of excess liquidity, which began in May 2012, appears to have been the most extreme ever in terms of its magnitude.

To summarize:

• In just the first 9 months of 2013, DM countries have injected $1 trillion in liquidity sourced exclusively by central banks; EMs have injected another $2 trillion driven by bank loan demand.
• The total global M2 is over $66 trillion, growing at an annualized pace of over 6%.
• The amount of excess liquidity, i.e. the infamous “liquidity bubble” in the global fungible system is “the most extreme ever in terms of its magnitude”

And that’s really all there is to know: the music is playing and everyone has to dance… just don’t ask what happens when the music ends.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/2_miu_Qiel4/story01.htm Tyler Durden