Murdered Or Imprisoned Journalists Named Time’s 2018 ‘Person Of The Year’

Time Magazine on Tuesday revealed that a group of journalists who were killed or imprisoned in the past year as its 2018 “Person of the Year,” while President Trump and special counsel Robert Mueller earned 2nd and 3rd place respectively, according to NBC News

Jamal Khashoggi

Specifically, “The Guardians and the War on Truth” received the annual designation, spotlighting the cases of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi and five employees of the Capital Gazette newspaper, who were killed in June by mentally ill gunman Jarrod Ramos after the outlet published an embarrassing article about his criminal past.

Capital Gazette victims clockwise from top left: John McNamera, Rebecca Smith, Rob Hiaasen, Gerald Fischman and Wendi Winters.

With a record number of reporters behind bars around the planet — the Committee to Protect Journalists documented 262 cases in 2017— an avalanche of misinformation on social media and government officials from the United States to the Philippines dismissing critical, real reporting as “fake news,” Time is spotlighting a handful of journalists who have one thing in common: They were targeted for their work. –NBC News

“Like all human gifts, courage comes to us at varying levels and at varying moments,” said Time Editor-in-Chief Edward Falsenthal in an essay about the selection. “This year we are recognizing four journalists and one news organization who have paid a terrible price to seize the challenge of this moment.” 

“They are representative of a broader fight by countless others around the world — as of Dec. 10, at least 52 journalists have been murdered in 2018 — who risk all to tell the story of our time,” added Falsenthal. 

President Trump was previously named “Person of the Year” in 2016, while “The silence breakers” spotlighting women who led the #MeToo movement were given the designation in 2017. 

Magazine editors on Tuesday said the president’s runner-up status reflected his impact on the world, as well as the reaction he spurs from others.

This year brought forth the consequences of Trump’s disruption,” they wrote. “The deficit soared. The stock market trembled. The voters revolted. Special counsel Robert Mueller circled closer. Trump has tested the system and exposed its weaknesses, but also revealed its strength.

Editors also wrote that Mueller engendered equally strong, but divergent reactions from individuals depending on their political leanings.

“The public narrative of Mueller’s investigation this year has often described its central character more as myth than man,” they wrote. –The Hill

Khashoggi – a Washington Post columnist and former business partner of Saudi Prince Alwaleed, was murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey in October. International intelligence communities including the CIA have concluded that Crown Prince bin Salman ordered the killing, however President Trump has suggested that “It could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event – maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” 

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Illinois Womens’ Studies Dept.: Abolish ICE, Police, Borders, & Judges

Authored by Blair Nelson via Campus Reform,

An Illinois Gender & Women’s Studies department endorsed a call for the abolition of both ICE and the police.

The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign’s (UIUC) Gender & Women’s Studies department sharedthis demand from a nine-point platform created by the National Trans Youth Council’s nine-point platform, prefacing the Facebook post with “something to believe in.”

“We call for the abolition of the police, ICE, borders, and the judicial system,” the NTYC platform reads.

Madeleine Hubbard, president of Turning Point USA at UIUC, called this demand “very concerning.”

Without these groups, you would not have Rule of Law. A society cannot function without the Rule of Law. Complete chaos and anarchy would break out,” Hubbard told Campus Reform.

“It is disturbing that a university department would call for the end of the judicial system. While there might be flaws in the judicial system, it is still the very fabric that holds society together.”

“We call for decolonization and reparations for all indigenous and black peoples,” another one of the NTYC demands shared by the university reads. 

The eradication of “cisgender heterosexual patriarchy,” “global white supremacy,” and “disposability politics” are also demanded on the infographic shared by the Gender & Women’s Studies department.

The UI department subsequently deleted the Facebook post and did not return requests for comment. But other controversial posts still remain on the department’s Facebook page. UIUC’s Gender & Women Studies department also encouraged students to leave a “feminist curse” and to “take or leave a feminist offering” via Facebook. 

“We invite you to leave a feminist curse on the wall or in the skull and pick up a feminist benediction (a button, a flyer, whatever offerings are her,” a sign posted in late September reads. “At the end of the month, we will burn all our curses together.”

The Yerbamala Collective is “a nebulous coven of anti-fascist witches whose poetry has been popping up on social media feeds, fenceposts, and other physical spaces since the U.S. presidential inauguration,” according to Medium

“As the witches say, survival is contingent on solidarity,” the sign concluded.

According to a picture of a flyer obtained by Campus Reform, the students burned the curses they left.

“It is quite worrisome [for] a group receiving funding from public tax dollars to be promoting “curses,” Hubbard said.

“I understand Halloween decorations and jokes, but encouraging harm to others through ‘curses’ is too far.”

In August, the department shared an article from The Nation, titled, “This Is Not A Time For Civility,” captioning the post with “no comfort for white supremacy.” The article describes police separation of white nationalist protesters from counter-protesters at the Unite the Right 2018 rally in Washington, D.C. It claims that “the call for civility is a call for undisturbed white supremacy.”

The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign did not respond in time for publication.

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Facebook Files Patent To Calculate Your Location – In The Future

Facebook has filed several patent applications for technology with the USPTO which would use your location data to predict where you’re going to go next, as well as when you’ll be offline, reports BuzzFeed‘s Nicole Nguyen. 

Facebook’s response when asked about the applications was essentially: “we file patents on tons of stuff we never actually implement.”

“We often seek patents for technology we never implement, and patent applications — such as this one — should not be taken as an indication of future plans,” said company spokesperson Anthony Harrison. 

As BuzzFeed‘s Nguyen points out, however, the patent applications themselves indicate that Facebook, in general, is interested in tracking and prediction of users and their habits.

A May 30, 2017, Facebook application titled “Offline Trajectories” describes a method to predict where you’ll go next based on your location data. The technology described in the patent would calculate a “transition probability based at least in part on previously logged location data associated with a plurality of users who were at the current location.” In other words, the technology could also use the data of other people you know, as well as that of strangers, to make predictions.

If the company could predict when you are about to be in an offline area, Facebook content “may be prefetched so that the user may have access to content during the period where there is a lack of connectivity.”BuzzFeed

 

A graph from the “Offline Trajectories” patent showing how the Facebook-developed technology would calculate the probability that a user will be offline based on geographic location prediction. If offline time is predicted, the app would preload News Feed content. via BuzzFeed

Google Maps for Android came under fire in 2016 for a similar feature called Driving Mode, which would use current location and web search history to guess users’ destinations. Following public outcry, Google clarified that the feature will only predict when users are going to preprogrammed home and work destinations – with other locations based on google searches shown as suggestions. 

Facebook also applied for a patent on “Location Prediction Using Wireless Signals on Online Social Networks,” which would track and use information from the strength of Wi-Fi, cellular, Bluetooth and near-field communication (NFC) signals to estimate a user’s current location and anticipate where they will go next. 

This “background signal” information is used as an alternative to GPS because, as the patent describes, it may provide “the advantage of more accurately or precisely determining a geographic location of a user.”

The technology could learn the category of your current location (e.g., bar or gym), the time of your visit to the location, the hours that entity is open, and the popular hours of the entity. –BuzzFeed

As an example, Facebook could see that a user is in “geographic location 302″ based on the map below, and then predict that you would travel to locations 304, 306 and 308 next based on places you’ve previously visited. ” (maybe you’ve gone to Starbucks after visiting Walgreens) or on the travel behavior of other users the same age as you,” suggests Nguyen.

In another Facebook patent application titled “Predicting Locations and Movements of Users Based on Historical Locations for Users of an Online System, location data from multiple people could be used to analyze location and movement trends in order to model “location chains,” which could then be used for a “variety of applications,” including “advertising to users based on locations and for providing insights into the movements of users,” according to the patent application. 

Right now Facebook’s app says it  collects your current location data in an effort to “provide more relevant and personalized experiences” (i.e. targeted ads). The company also continues to offer location-based features such as Nearby Friends and Messenger’s Live Location service – while the patent applications suggest that Facebook is also exploring the use of location data to predict and monetize users’ movements over time. 

Facebook is already recording information relevant to these applications, including data “about other devices that are nearby or on their network,” “nearby Wi-Fi access points, beacons, and cell towers,” “signal strength,” and “online and offline actions,” from third-party data providers.

Location data is valuable. It could help Facebook prove to businesses that it’s sending them lots of foot traffic, or it could improve Facebook’s ad-targeting mechanism. At the very least, it could give the company a better picture of who you really are, based on the kinds of establishments you visit. If you go to the gym a lot, you’re probably very interested in health and fitness, meaning that you’re more likely to click on ads or join groups related to health and fitness. –BuzzFeed

As we reported on Monday, location based targeted advertising sells at a premium, and tech companies have been scrambling to collect, analyze and make the most profitable use out of user location information – which is often sold without the knowledge of users

In order to limit what information you give to Facebook and others – you can follow these steps via BuzzFeed

• If you want to limit the location data you give Facebook, you can turn off location services for the mobile app (here’s how) — or, better yet, delete the mobile app from your phone and use Facebook in your mobile web browser. Refrain from adding your location to posts or checking into establishments.

• If you have an iPhone, go to Settings > Privacy > Advertising and enable Limit Ad Tracking. There, you can also reset your advertising identifier, which clears the data associated with your advertising number. You can also opt out of location-based ads by going to Settings > Privacy > Location Services and scrolling all the way down to System Services and disabling Location-based Apple Ads.

• If you have an Android device, go to Settings > Google > Ads > and enable “Opt out of ads personalization.” You can also reset your advertising ID there. All Google users can turn off ads personalization through the Ad Settings page.

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Buchanan: America Is “An Unserious Nation” In A “Deadly Serious World”

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

How Democracy Is Losing The World

If Donald Trump told Michael Cohen to pay hush money to Stormy Daniels about a one-night stand a decade ago, that, says Jerome Nadler, incoming chair of House Judiciary, would be an “impeachable offense.”

This tells you what social media, cable TV and the great herd of talking heads will be consumed with for the next two years – the peccadillos and misdeeds of Trump, almost all of which occurred before being chosen as president of the United States.

“Everywhere President Trump looks,” writes The Washington Times’ Rowan Scarborough, “there are Democrats targeting him from New York to Washington to Maryland… lawmakers, state attorneys general, opposition researchers, bureaucrats and activist defense lawyers.

“They are aiming at Russia collusion, the Trump Organization, the Trump Foundation, a Trump hotel, Trump tax returns, Trump campaign finances and supposed money laundering.”

The full-court press is on. Day and night we will be hearing debate on the great question: Will the elites that loathe him succeed in bringing Trump down, driving him from office, and prosecuting and putting him in jail?

Says Adam Schiff, the incoming chair of the House intelligence committee:

“Donald Trump may be the first president in quite some time to face the real prospect of jail time.”

And what will a watching world be thinking when it sees the once-great republic preoccupied with breaking yet another president?

Will that world think: Why can’t we be more like America?

Does the world still envy us our free press, which it sees tirelessly digging up dirt on political figures and flaying them with abandon?

Among the reasons democracy is in discredit and retreat worldwide is that its exemplar and champion, the USA, is beginning to resemble France’s Third Republic in its last days before World War II.

Also, democracy no longer has the field largely to itself as to how to create a prosperous and powerful nation-state.

This century, China has shown aspiring rulers how a single-party regime can create a world power, and how democracy is not a necessary precondition for extraordinary economic progress.

Vladimir Putin, an autocratic nationalist, has shown how a ruined nation can be restored to a great power in the eyes of its people and the world, commanding a new deference and respect.

Democracy is a bus you get off when it reaches your stop, says Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan. After the attempted coup in the summer of 2017, Erdogan purged his government and military of tens of thousands of enemies and jailed more journalists than any other nation.

Yet he is welcomed in the capitals of the world.

What does American democracy now offer the world as its foremost attribute, its claim to greatness?

“Our diversity is our strength!” proclaims this generation.

We have become a unique nation composed of peoples from every continent and country, every race, ethnicity, culture and creed on earth.

But is not diversity what Europe is openly fleeing from?

Is there any country of the Old Continent clamoring for more migrants from the Maghreb, sub-Sahara or Middle East?

Broadly, it seems more true to say that the world is turning away from transnationalism toward tribalism, and away from diversity and back to the ethno-nationalism whence the nations came.

The diversity our democracy has on offer is not selling.

Ethnic, racial and religious minorities, such as the Uighurs and Tibetans in China, the Rohingya in Myanmar, minority black tribes in sub-Sahara Africa and white farmers in South Africa, can testify that popular majority rule often means mandated restrictions or even an end to minority rights.

In the Middle East, free elections produced a Muslim Brotherhood president in Egypt, Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon. After this, a disillusioned Bush 43 White House called off the democracy crusade.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, relates how one minority is treated in much of the Muslim world:

“Christians face daily the threat of violence, murder, intimidation, prejudice and poverty…”

“In the last few years, they have been slaughtered by so-called Islamic State. … Hundreds of thousands have been forced from their homes. Many have been killed, enslaved and persecuted or forcibly converted. Even those who remain ask the question, ‘Why stay?’

“Christian communities that were the foundation of the universal Church now face the threat of imminent extinction.”

And all the while this horror is going on, Ronald Reagan’s treaty that banned all U.S. and Soviet nuclear missiles with a range between 310 and 3,400 miles faces collapse. And President Trump’s initiative to bring about a nuclear-free North Korea appears in peril.

Yet, for the next two years, we will be preoccupied with whether paying hush money to Stormy Daniels justifies removing a president, and exactly when Michael Cohen stopped talking to the Russians about his boss building a Trump Tower in Moscow.

We are an unserious nation, engaged in trivial pursuits, in a deadly serious world.

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WTI Jumps Above $52 After Huge Crude Draw

WTI prices rebounded today on renewed optimism that announced production cuts from the OPEC+ coalition will re-balance global markets, and was helped by the fact that Libya’s biggest field remained shut, taking supply off line.

“The Russians committing to the cut and putting a number out, even though it was relatively small, allowed the markets to rally,” said Bob Yawger, director of futures at Mizuho Securities USA.

“Once the rally started, there were still lots of people still short so it flushed a lot of them out.”

However, not everyone’s buying it:

“There’s the U.S.-China trade war, France, Italy, Brexit: these things just do not bode well for either regional or global oil demand,” PVM Oil Associates analyst Tamas Varga said by phone.

API

  • Crude -10.18mm – biggest draw since July

  • Cushing +642k

  • Gasoline -2.48mm

  • Distillates +712k

After last week’s shock surprise crude draw (the biggest in 5 months) ending a 10-week string of builds, API reports a massive 10.18mm crud draw (catch down to DOE?), the biggest since July.

 

WTI traded around $51.75 ahead of the API data having rallied during the day (as the dollar faded back from its spike) and jumped back above $52 after the bid draw…

On a side note, the US government left its forecast for domestic crude production unchanged for 2019 even with prices averaging almost $11 a barrel lower than its previous estimate.

Overall, “compared to early last week, the outcome was rather disappointing, the whole process wasn’t convincing, and it’s still uncertain whether they will actually cut,” says ABN Amro senior energy economist Hans van Cleef.

And if you need a bullish close, since they cut production Western Canada Select is up 200%…

 

 

 

 

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“The Economy Is Slowing”: Jeff Gundlach Live Webcast

One month after Jeff Gundlach’s latest webcast issued a stern warning to corporate bond investors, warning at just the right time that both corporate and high-yield bonds are at or close to their most extreme levels of overvaluation historically, and that if the BBB-rated market, is downgraded to junk, it would “flood” the high-yield market, the DoubleLine CEO is back discussing the current state of the market of the economy, and for those wondering, it does not start optimistically with Gundlach  warning that the global economic growth is slowing, that GDP – excluding inventories – is at one of the weaker levels in the past 4 years, and that consumer confidence expectations are lower than prior to the 2007 recession.

To listen to the free webcast, please register at the following link or click on the slide below.

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Stormy Daniels Ordered To Pay Trump $293,000 In Legal Fees And Sanctions

Finally some good news for the president on the legal front.

Stephanie Clifford, the porn star better known as Stormy Daniels, was ordered to pay $293,000 in attorney fees and sanctions to Donald Trump, also known as David Dennison, after she unsuccessfully sued the president for defamation.

U.S. District Judge James Otero in Los Angeles threw out Clifford’s lawsuit in November, saying Trump’s “defaming” tweet was protected free speech, Bloomberg reports.

The hefty $293,053 price tag includes $1,000 in sanctions that U.S. District Judge James Otero slapped Daniels with over her attempt to “chill” Trump’s “free speech rights,” according to Charles Harder, an attorney for the President.

“The court’s order, along with the court’s prior order dismissing Stormy Daniels’ defamation case against the President, together constitute a total victory for the President, and a total defeat for Stormy Daniels in this case,” Harder said.

Daniels’ attorney Michael Avenatti did not immediately return a request for comment.

Clifford had said in early 2018 that she was threatened by an unknown man in a Las Vegas parking lot in 2011 for agreeing to cooperate with a magazine article about a tryst she says she had with Trump in 2006. After her lawyer released a composite sketch of the man, Trump accused Clifford in an April tweet of “a total con job” concerning a “nonexistent man.”

The president sought to force Clifford to pay double his legal costs as a sanction to deter future frivolous litigation.

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‘Rumble In The Oval’ Sparks Shutdown Fears, Market Mayhem

Don, Chuck, & Nancy (oh, and Mike) battled it out in the Oval Office and sent stocks reeling… they both came out claiming victory though clearly both (and the markets) suffered a fleshwound…

China stocks were majestically bid into the close last night and sparked the overnight strength in US futures…(but China remains red on the week)

 

European stocks were buoyed by China early on but as Italy and France began to heat-up, risk rolled over and the US open added to selling…

 

As French credit risk has started to crack…

 

Overnight excitement after positive comments from Mnuchin and then from Trump on a big china announcement were quickly stymied by the apparent end of the trade truce (as WaPo reports Washington about to sanction China over cyberspying) and Trump’s Oval Office debacle with Chuck and Nancy sparked selling into and beyond the European close…

 

On the cash side, it’s clear that selling was instant at the open and accelerated after the Oval Office Deathmatch

 

Dow futures really show the chaos – a 400pt ramp, a 600pt plunge and 350 pt surged before dropping almost 200 into the close…

 

NOTE that at around 215pmET, AAPL shares were suddenly bid (cough…buybacks…cough) and that lifted the broad markets

 

And VIX was monkeyhammered to get Stocks green…

 

As @vader7x noted, ES bounced exactly at last weeks low 2621.25. There are no humans helping steer this ship. Just bots and pain.

 

Banks stocks opened gap up but quickly plunged into and beyond the European close…down for 5 days in a row

 

And GE puked to $6.66 March 2009 closing lows…

 

Early Cyclical stock strength was crushed from the open and then panic-bid as the last hour began…

 

And we note that the broad market bottomed to the tick when GE hit $6.66…

 

 

Once again the Treasury complex was selling across the curve dominated by the short-end as the long-end actually saw yields lower…

NOTE – once again as Europe closed, bonds started to sell off again

 

This sent the yield curve tumbling back to one-week lows…

The short-end of the curve remains inverted from 2s to 5s and 2s10s broke back to a 10 handle intraday…

 

The Dollar Index surged again intraday, but rolled over shortly after the European close – NOTE it has now made 2 Lower Highs since the peak in November

 

Cable was clubbed like a baby seal to fresh 18-month lows… (cable briefly broke below 1.25 intraday)

 

Offshore Yuan ended the day stringer (thanks to some overnight strength on trade hopes)

 

Cryptos continued to be sold with all the majors now in the red for the week…

 

Crude and Copper got a lift overnight but faded during the US day…

Gold in Yuan faded back towards its apparent 8500 peg

 

Finally, The T-Bill market is starting to worry about a government shutdown…

Who can blame them…

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“Collateral Damage”: Canada Goose Shares Fall 20% As Chinese Consumer Boycott Threatens Sales

The trials and travails facing Western purveyors of luxury goods as they seek to break into the Chinese market have been well documented in the press (see Dolce & Gabbana and Victoria’s Secret for two examples of what can happen when retailers hoping to gain entree to the world’s largest consumer market cross the Communist Party).

Canada

And in the demonstration of the leverage that China’s government exercises over Western retailers, shares of Canada Goose are tumbling as Chinese citizens have started a boycott of its goods in retaliation for the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou (the daughter of one of China’s most revered corporate titans). Formerly the second-best performer on Canada’s benchmark stock index, CG has seen its shares tumble some 20% over the past four days, as investors worry about a lasting impact on sales at two planned stores in Hong Kong and Beijing.

This suggests that China’s retaliation for Meng’s imprisonment won’t be limited to the arrest of a former Canadian diplomat.

CG

And a report in Communist Party mouthpiece the Global Times warned that this boycott could expand to other Canadian firms if Canada doesn’t release Meng. One “academic” quoted in the article warned that luxury goods brands are “very likely” to being targeted.

Zeng Mingyue, a research fellow at the Luxury China Institute of the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, said luxury brands, embedded with high added-value and representing their original countries’ cultural backgrounds, are very likely to be targeted when political or cultural friction emerges and escalates.

Global Times article about the boycott featured quotes from Chinese shoppers who patriotically criticized the Canadian government over its treatment of Meng. One woman said she had been planning to buy a Canada Goose parka until news of the arrest broke.

A Chongqing-based female surnamed Huang told the Global Times on Monday that she had been intending to buy a Canada Goose parka before Meng was arrested.

“I have been watching closely toward progress of the Huawei case. I feel very anxious about the Canadian side arresting the Huawei CFO out of groundless reason,” Huang noted.

“So far, I have not seen any sincere and cooperative attitude from the Canadian side. If the case is not dealt properly, I will definitely not buy the Canada Goose jacket and turn to other similar products,” she added.

Adding to the company’s anxieties about its prospects for expanding in the Chinese market, Canada Gooses losses have benefited one of its regional rivals, as shares of Hong Kong-based downy apparel maker Bosideng have climbed nearly 13% to a five-year high as investors expect the company could experience a sales bump thanks to the CG boycott.

And with Bosideng improving the quality of its products, investors are probably asking if the “collateral damage” to Canadian brands could result in a lasting disadvantage in the Chinese market.

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The World’s Biggest Hedge Fund Is Getting Whacked, And Why “Moneyness” Matters

Authored by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

A few years ago the Swiss National Bank (SNB) – which traditionally held “monetary assets” like government bonds, cash and gold to back up the Swiss franc – decided to branch out into common stocks.

This was a departure, but for a while a brilliant one. The SNB loaded up on Big Tech like Apple, Amazon and Microsoft, and rode them to massive profits, which enriched both the Swiss people and the SNB’s stockholders (in another departure, it’s a publicly traded company as well as a central bank).

But live by the sword, die by the sword. Turning your central bank into the world’s biggest hedge fund means outsized profits in good times, but potentially serious losses if those aggressive bets go wrong.

The following table shows the SNB’s seven biggest stock positions. Note that 1) they’re all US based multinationals – not a single Swiss stock – and 2) they’re all way up over the past few years but way down over the past two months. Total loss from these positions since September 30: nearly $2 billion.

SNB’s stock price, after quadrupling during the FANG stock bubble, has given back some of that gain.

Now, why should anyone other than the Swiss and the SNB’s stockholders care whether this central bank/hedge fund wins or loses? Because of the concept of “moneyness” and what it implies for the future.

The quick version of the story is that investors generally hold a variety of assets, some of which are money and some of which are not. Money is seen as risk-free or nearly so, and makes up the part of a portfolio that is expected to hold its value. Once that risk-free core is secured, other assets that fluctuate in value are added to generate excess returns.

But – here’s where it gets interesting – at different points in the credit cycle, different things are perceived to have “moneyness.” In stressful times the range of assets perceived as risk-free shrinks down to cash, gold and major-government sovereign debt. In more optimistic times – like the later stages of a credit bubble – other things come to be perceived as having moneyness because they’ve been going up for so long that it’s hard to conceive of them behaving any other way.

This sense that Amazon and its peers can never fall, and if they do that’s just an opportunity to buy the dip, had become widespread lately, to the point that most classes of investors had bought in. Pension funds, desperate to meet their unrealistic return targets, added equity and emerging market exposure. Hedge funds whose old models stopped working in the Everything Bubble were reduced to trend following, which meant loading up on FANG stocks because they were going up. Even retirees who couldn’t live on sub-1% bank CD rates moved into growth stocks, junk bonds and emerging market debt. All had the sense that these previously-risky asset classes had, by virtue of their awesome price charts, achieved moneyness and could therefore be trusted.

But now we’ve entered the downward sloping stage of the credit cycle, and the pool of assets with moneyness is shrinking. Here’s how Credit Bulletin’s Doug Noland explains the impact:

Throughout this Bubble period, I have referred to the “Moneyness of Risk Assets.” A “run” on perceived money-like Credit instruments sparked the collapse of the mortgage finance Bubble. Runs unfold when holders of perceived safe and liquid instruments suddenly recognize risk is much greater than previously appreciated. Past crises have typically originated in the money markets. But never have central bank and government policies so fostered the perception of safety and liquidity (“moneyness”) for risk assets – equities and corporate Credit, in particular. I would argue the proliferation and massive growth of index fund products poses a major risk to financial stability. And when it comes to policy-induced distortions, already extraordinary risks to financial stability are only compounded by the proliferation and growth of derivative trading strategies, both retail and institutional.

In other words, pretty much everything the financial world is doing these days relies on a false sense of security fostered by “innovations” (ZIRP, QE, ETFs) that hide the true risks of financial assets. And people are starting to figure this out.

The ultimate end game is the realization by investors that most major asset classes – including today’s fiat currencies lack moneyness. The resulting stampede out of the dollar, euro and yen and into real assets will be one for the history books.

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