FBI Cracks Into Pensacola Shooter’s iPhone, Find “Significant Ties” To Al Qaeda

FBI Cracks Into Pensacola Shooter’s iPhone, Find “Significant Ties” To Al Qaeda

Tyler Durden

Mon, 05/18/2020 – 12:00

After months of trying to break into the encrypted iPhone of the Pensacola, Florida naval base shooter – Saudi Arabian national Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, the FBI was able to access information on the device and discovered a contact with a suspected al-Qaeda operative, according to Bloomberg.

Access to the data was obtained via alternate methods after Apple, Inc. refused to help the DOJ.

Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani

The alleged link to al-Qaeda is also significant because it suggests the terrorist organization is still able to encourage, and possibly direct, operations in the U.S. almost two decades after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

The Trump administration asked Apple in January for help unlocking a pair of iPhones belonging to the shooter, Mohammed Alshamrani, a 21-year-old 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Saudi Air Force. Alshamrani was killed by law enforcement responding to the attack. -Bloomberg

Alshamrani, a Saudi Air Force lieutenant who shot and killed three people at Naval station Pensacola the day after hanging out with friends – also Saudi military trainees – who were watching mass shooting videos the night before and filmed the attack the next day, was killed in the attack after law enforcement responded to the incident.

Alshamrani and the three friends visited New York City in the days leading up to the shooting – visiting several museums and Rockefeller Center, according to the New York Times

On Monday, Attorney General William Barr acknowledged that the FBI was successful in accessing Alshamrani’s iPhone, saying that the information obtained establishes “significant ties” to Al-Qaeda “in the Arabian Peninsula, not only before the attack, but be fore he arrived in the U.S.”

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Powell Makes History By Unleashing Record “Buying Panic” In Stocks

Powell Makes History By Unleashing Record “Buying Panic” In Stocks

Tyler Durden

Mon, 05/18/2020 – 11:47

Powell’s promise to the American people that there is a “lot more [the Fed] can do”, coupled with his ‘explanation’ that the Fed “prints money digitally”, alongside the news that a tiny coronavirus vaccine trial showed promise, was enough to unleash the biggest buying panic in history this morning, when according to the NYSE TICK index, a record 2,049 stocks saw positive ticks moments after the open, the highest print on record; it was this buying scramble that may have knocked out online retail brokers such as Robin Hood and Etrade in the first hour of trading.

There’s more: as Bloomberg’s Heather Burke shows, about 94% of the S&P 500 is rising today, the most since March 24 – the day after the covid-bottom, when Fed announced it would steamroll over moral hazard and start buying corporate bonds.  As Burke says “investors are in a buy-everything mode on hopes that lockdowns are easing and a virus vaccine is on the way” with gains led by beaten-down and heavily shorted cyclical stocks: autos, energy, transport, banks, while recent winners such as tech and consumer staples are lagging.

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Euro, EU Bonds Surge On Merkel/Macron EU Bailout Fund Headlines

Euro, EU Bonds Surge On Merkel/Macron EU Bailout Fund Headlines

Tyler Durden

Mon, 05/18/2020 – 11:42

It’s not ‘coronabonds’ yet, but on a day like this it doesn’t matter.

Reuters headlines from France’s Macron and Germany’s Merkel have sparked a panic bid for EURUSD, European stocks (and US stocks), and European peripheral debt.

The two core European leaders agreed to back a plan for a 500 billion-euro ($543 million) recovery fund to help the European Union weather the worst recession on record.

Merkel said the fund will be within the framework of the bloc’s budget, which will have authority to borrow money.

EUR spiked…

Italian bonds were panic bid…

But, even as Germany and France find common ground, the world’s largest trading bloc is far from reaching an agreement over a package to help stricken member states and this is not the official recovery plan which the European Commission is due to present May 27.

We await the response from Netherlands, who until now at least, have been a vocal opponent to commonly issued debt.

The plan, which will have to be endorsed by the European Parliament and national governments, would see most of the funds spent on public investments and reforms in the countries most deeply affected by efforts to contain the disease.

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Another week, another $3 trillion bailout

At precisely 9:26pm this past Friday night, May 15th, the House of Representatives in the United States passed the “Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act.”

For short, they call it the HEROES Act.

And yes, it’s as ridiculous as it sounds.

Bear in mind that Congress passed the first bailout bill– the “Families First Coronavirus Response Act” on March 14th. That set the taxpayers back $1.3 trillion.

Less than two weeks later, Congress passed the “Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act”, or CARES, which cost a hefty $2 trillion.

A few weeks after that, they passed another half-trillion dollar bill, the “Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act,” which, sadly, did not come with a catchy acronym.

Are you keeping score? In total that’s around $3.8 trillion in federal bailouts.

And now on top of that, the House just passed the HEROES Act, which adds another $3 TRILLION to that total.

If the HEROES Act becomes law, that will bring the total bailouts in the Land of the Free to nearly $7 trillion, more than 30% of the entire US economy!

The HEROES Act itself is extraordinary. At 1,815 pages and nearly 300,000 words, it’s more than twice as long as the New Testament.

And I spent several hours this weekend reading it.

With a high-sounding name like “HEROES,” I naively thought the focus of the bill is to take care of front-line healthcare workers.

But I was wrong.

HEROES hands over taxpayer money to everyone from the Fish and Wildlife Service to the National Endowment for the Humanities.

There’s money for school lunches, broadband Internet access in rural areas and tribal lands, prison phone calls, “environmental justice grants,” and pretty much anything else you can think of.

There’s a phrase they use in this bill over and over again: “to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus. . .”

For example, they’re giving the General Services Administration (GSA) $1 billion to modernize their technology… leading a rational person to wonder,

“Hey wait a minute– what does that have to do with Covid?”

Nothing. And that’s why they include those magic words– The GSA will receive $1 billion “to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus.”

Oh gee, then I guess it makes sense.

It reminds me of right after 9/11, nearly two decades ago. Back then the government could get away with anything they wanted. They just had to use the magic words “for your safety and security,” or “in the interest of national security.”

They were able to pass the most insidious laws and say the most ridiculous things. But as long as it was for your safety and security, it was all OK.

Today it’s the same thing.

If this HEROES bill passes, for example, the National Endowment for the Humanities will receive a bunch of taxpayer money “to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus.”

Wait, what? What does one thing have to do with another?

Nothing. It’s just empty justification to spend all the money they ever wanted.

But astonishingly, even this doesn’t seem to be enough.

Last night the news show 60 Minutes aired an interview with the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, who expressed clear concern that all the government spending and all the federal reserve money printing so far might not be enough:

Reporter: “In terms of stimulus, has Congress done enough?”

Fed Chairman: “. . . I don’t think we know the answer to that. It may well be that the Fed has to    do more. It may be that Congress has to do more.”

The interview was pretty extraordinary– the Fed Chairman didn’t bother sugarcoating what they’re doing–

Reporter: “Fair to say you simply flooded the system with money?

Fed Chairman: “Yes. We did. That’s another way to think about it. We did.”

Reporter: “Where does it come from? Do you just print it?”

Fed Chairman: “We print it digitally. So as a central bank, we have the ability to create money   digitally. And we do that by buying Treasury Bills or bonds for other government guaranteed securities. And that actually increases the money supply. We also print actual currency and we distribute that through the Federal Reserve banks.”

Reporter: “In terms of size, Mr. Chairman, how does what the Fed is doing right now compare     to the unprecedented action it took in 2008?”

Fed Chairman: “So the things we’re doing now are substantially larger. The asset purchases that we’re doing are a multiple of the programs that were done during the last crisis. . .

That pretty much sums it up–

The government is on track to have a nearly $7 trillion bill for Covid so far, while the Federal Reserve has already expanded its balance sheet by nearly $3 trillion.

And even with that bonanza of money, they’re still not sure if it’s enough.

They acknowledge that they’re simply [digitally] printing money, and that the size of the problem is MUCH bigger than the last crisis.

He then acknowledges later in the interview– sure there will be consequences to all the debt and money printing, but we’ll worry about it later: “This is not the time to prioritize that concern.”

So, on top of everything else, they’re flat-out telling you that there are going to be problems down the road… but they’re going to keep printing and going into debt regardless.

No one here is being subtle.

And you’re not some wild conspiracy theorist to think that there might be consequences down the road. The Federal Reserve is telling us that this is the case.

And they’re also telling us that they’re going forward with their plan to print money and facilitate government debt regardless of the long-term damage.

If that’s not a reason to own precious metals and real assets, I don’t know what else could be.

Source

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Uber Surges After Announcing Another 3,000 Job Cuts, Bringing Total Layoffs To A Quarter Of Its Workforce

Uber Surges After Announcing Another 3,000 Job Cuts, Bringing Total Layoffs To A Quarter Of Its Workforce

Tyler Durden

Mon, 05/18/2020 – 11:27

Last week, Wall Street was shocked following a report that Uber was seeking to acquire its biggest competitor in the food delivery space, Grubhub, in hopes of creating a food-delivery giant. The news was good enough to send the stock price surging however as it suggested Uber saw a light at the end of the coronavirus pandemic tunnel. Maybe not, because moments ago, the Journal reported that Uber was cutting another several thousand jobs, and closing 45 offices as part of its re-evaluation of “big bets in areas ranging from freight to self-driving technology as Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi attempts to steer the ride-hailing giant through the coronavirus pandemic.”

According to the report, the CEO announced the plans in an email to staff Monday, less than two weeks after the company said it would eliminate about 3,700 jobs and planned to save more than $1 billion in fixed costs. Monday’s decision to close 45 offices and lay off some additional 3,000 people means Uber – whose core rides business was down 80% year-over-year in April – is shedding roughly a quarter of its workforce in under a month. Drivers aren’t classified as employees, so they aren’t included.

Stay-at-home orders have ravaged Uber’s core ride-hailing business, which accounted for three-quarters of the company’s revenue before the pandemic struck.

Employees in the U.S. will be the hardest hit by the cuts. Uber is closing one of its offices in downtown San Francisco, which had more than 500 employees. It is also considering moving its Asia headquarters from Singapore to a different market.

As part of the new changes, Uber will also scale back on noncore businesses, with the company winding down its product incubator and artificial-intelligence lab, and exploring “strategic alternatives” for Uber Works, which pairs prospective employers with gig workers. The company is also re-evaluating cash-burning businesses such as freight and autonomous driving. Uber has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to advance self-driving research in recent years.

Employees in the U.S. will be the hardest hit by the cuts. Uber is closing one of its offices in downtown San Francisco, which had more than 500 employees. It is also considering moving its Asia headquarters from Singapore to a different market.

Does that mean the “recovery” is put on hold? Here’s what Khosrowshahi said in his note to employees:

“We’re seeing some signs of a recovery, but it comes off of a deep hole, with limited visibility as to its speed and shape.”

And while the company’s food-delivery arm, Uber Eats, has been a bright spot during the crisis, but “the business today doesn’t come close to covering our expenses”, something we pointed out two weeks ago when Uber reported earnings and showed that depsite a surge in Uber Eats, the EBITDA actually declined.

In an attempt to deflect investor attention from woes in its core business, Uber recently entered talks to buy rival Grubhub, a deal that would help stem losses from the cost-intensive business of building out delivery operations and give it an edge in competing with industry leader DoorDash. Khosrowshahi didn’t reference the potential deal in his memo.

As the journal notes, the pandemic hit “when Uber was pivoting from growth at all costs to a profitable future” and the company was trimming costs even before the outbreak, in an effort to propel Uber toward a path to profitability by the end of the year. He recently pushed that timeline to next year.

“I will not make any claims with absolute certainty regarding our future,” Mr. Khosrowshahi wrote in his note. “I will tell you, however, that we are making really, really hard choices now, so that we can say our goodbyes, have as much clarity as we can, move forward, and start to build again with confidence.”

And since nothing makes sense any more, Uber’s admission that it continues to be surprised by the severity of the coronavirus slowdown was enough to spike its stock to session highs, sending it up as much as 10% on the session.

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Consumer Spending Will Not Rebound – Here’s Why

Consumer Spending Will Not Rebound – Here’s Why

Tyler Durden

Mon, 05/18/2020 – 11:05

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Any economy that concentrates its wealth and income in the top tier is a fragile economy.

There are two structural reasons why consumer spending will not rebound, no matter how “open” the economy may be. Virtually everyone who glances at headlines knows the global economy is lurching into either a deep recession or a full-blown depression, depending on the definitions one is using. Everyone also knows the stock market has roared back as if nothing has happened.

While most financial pundits have accepted that a V-shaped recovery is not possible, few (if any) observers have discussed two factors that will cause consumer spending to crash harder than generally expected:

1. The top 10% of households account for about half of all consumer spending, and these are the households that will be most affected by the sharp drop in assets, small business income and the shrinking of heretofore “safe” white-collar jobs in higher education, healthcare, finance, etc.

In other words, since the top 10% own roughly 85% of all non-family-home assets (i.e. stocks, bonds, business equity, rental real estate), the decline in the value of these assets and the decline in the income generated by these assets will hit the top 10%, not the bottom 90% who own a tiny sliver of these assets.

Companies are slashing dividends, tenants are not paying rent and family-owned businesses will experience declines in revenues and profits–even those which have yet to feel the consequences.

All of these income streams and assets are owned by the top 10%, and so all these declines in wealth and income will be concentrated in the top 10%.

2. The majority of the wealth owned by top 10% households is held by people 50 years of age or older, and this older cohort that owns most of the wealth and the income streams generated by the wealth are more at risk of Covid-19 than younger people. Surveys have found that people who feel more at risk are much less inclined to start going back to restaurants, musical events, etc., or going on cruises or airline flights.

It’s important to note that risk is an internal assessment. Thus the economy can be completely open again but people who feel cautious won’t resume their old spending habits, and there is no way to force them to do so.

The data strongly suggests elderly people and those with metabolic issues–obesity, high levels of sugar or cholesterol, and high blood pressure–are at greater risk than healthier people. (Vitamin D and zinc deficiencies may also play a role, as well as general immune response.) I recently saw a statistic that only 15% of the American populace is metabolically healthy. The point here is that a sense of heightened risk is sensible for a great many people, and since the owners of most of the wealth are older, this caution will have outsized impacts on consumer spending.

Combine this with the shrinking wealth and income of the top 10%, and you get a double-whammy reduction in consumption.

It’s also instructive to gauge the enormous asymmetry in what the top 10% spend on services compared to the bottom 90%. The bottom 90% may get their hair or nails done and have the oil changed in their car, but they typically can’t afford (or don’t need) all the services routinely engaged by the top 10%: dog walkers, CPAs, tax accountants, attendants for elderly parents, piano lessons and other tutoring for children, fitness trainers, career counselors, landscape designers and so on–the list is practically endless.

Once the top 10% are forced to tighten their belts, it won’t be Wal-Mart sales that are hit–it will be millions of service providers who depended solely on the top 10% (or top 5%) for virtually all their income.

All the professions that only served the top 10% will be decimated, as they are all inessential. Virtually every one of these tasks can be cancelled, put off into the future, or performed by the household if push comes to shove financially.

The arts and performing arts that depend almost entirely on costly ticket sales to the wealthy and donations from top 5% households will also be decimated. If you attend the symphony, ballet or opera, you know 90%+ of the audience is over 60–the very cohort that will now hesitate to spend lavishly or attend crowded performances.

Based on my admittedly informal observations, I think it’s a fair assessment to say that a great many top 10% households are in denial about the financial tsunami that’s about to hit them. Since they weren’t furloughed like lower-income workers, they have a delusional faith that their incomes, business and wealth will survive the depression intact.

They are looking at the water receding from the bay, leaving all the fish flopping in the seabed, and reckoning that’s the worst that will happen. They don’t yet understand that the tsunami that’s about to roar ashore is not yet visible. The financial wave has yet to hit them, but when it does, they will find:

1. Their unearned/investment income will drop.

2. Tax hikes will be aimed exclusively at the top 10%, further eroding their income.

3. Their services weren’t as essential or in demand as they assumed, because they assumed the top 10% that make up the bulk of their customers would resume spending freely.

4. Their assets will decline in value, as the only buyers are other top 10% households, and these declines in wealth and income will create a self-reinforcing downward spiral.

If assets will lose $10 trillion in value, virtually all of this will come out of the accounts of the top 10%. If investment and business income declines by $1 trillion, virtually all of this will come out of the incomes of the top 10%.

In summary: the vast majority of spending by the bottom 90% isn’t discretionary: it’s mostly servicing debt (student loans, mortgages, auto/truck loans, credit cards, etc) and essentials (rent, food, utilities, etc.), with modest discretionary spending on fast food and cheap goods.

In contrast, the top 10% spending–almost half of all consumer spending– has supported a vast number of service businesses, jobs, arts organizations, etc.–entities that receive very little of their revenues from the bottom 90%. As the top 10%’s income crashes, so will their discretionary spending. The older the wealthy household, the more likely they will hesitate to spend as their nestegg is crushed and their caution about crowds endures.

These dynamics are under-appreciated in my view, and so the majority of media commentators and the top 10% themselves are unprepared for the asymmetric impacts on their own wealth, income and livelihood that will sweep ashore later this year.

This trend reversal in top 10% spending has been building for some time: Early warning sign of recession? High-wage workers are spending less (11/29/19) “The trend is noteworthy because the top 10% of households by income make up nearly half of all consumption.”

Any economy that concentrates its wealth and income in the top tier is a fragile economy.

*  *  *

My recent books:

Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World ($13)
(Kindle $6.95, print $11.95) Read the first section for free (PDF).

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The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake $1.29 (Kindle), $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

Money and Work Unchained $6.95 (Kindle), $15 (print) Read the first section for free (PDF).

*  *  *

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Obama Staffer Scrambles To Salvage Reputation After Trump-Russia Lies Exposed, Implies Zero Hedge A “Disinformation Clearinghouse”

Obama Staffer Scrambles To Salvage Reputation After Trump-Russia Lies Exposed, Implies Zero Hedge A “Disinformation Clearinghouse”

Tyler Durden

Mon, 05/18/2020 – 10:46

Atlantic Council senior fellow, Congressional candidate, and Russia conspiracy theorist Evelyn Farkas is desperately trying to salvage her reputation after recently released transcripts from her closed-door 2017 testimony to the House Intelligence Committee revealed she totally lied on national TV.

In March of 2017, Farkas confidently told MSNBC‘s Mika Brzezinski: “The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff dealing with Russians, that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would not longer have access to that intelligence.”

Except, during testimony to the House, Farkas admitted she lied. When pressed by former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) on why she said ‘we’ – referring to the US government, Farkas said she “didn’t know anything.”

In short, she was either illegally discussing US intelligence matters with her “former colleagues,” or she made the whole thing up.

Now, Farkas is in damage control mode – writing in the Washington Post that her testimony demonstrated “that I had not leaked intelligence and that my early intuition about Trump-Kremlin cooperation was valid.’ She also claims that her comments to MSNBC were based on “media reports and statements by Obama administration officials and the intelligence community,” which had “began unearthing connections between Trump’s campaign and Russia.”

Farkas is now blaming a ‘disconcerting nexus between Russia and the reactionary right,’ for making her look bad (apparently Trey Gowdy is part of the “reactionary right” for asking her who she meant by “we”).

Attacks against me came first on Twitter and other social media platforms, from far-right sources. Forensics data I was shown suggested at least one entity had Russian ties. The attacks increased in quantity and ferocity until Fox News and Trump-allied Republicans — higher-profile, and more mainstream, sources — also criticized me.

Trump surrogates, including former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump Jr. and Fox News hosts such as Tucker Carlson have essentially accused me of treason for being one of the “fraudulent originators” of the “Russia hoax.” -Evelyn Farkas

She then parrots the Democratic talking point that the attacks she’s received are part of Trump’s larger “Obamagate” allegations – “a narrative that distracts attention from his administration’s disastrous pandemic response and attempts to defect blame for Russian interference onto the Obama administration” (Obama told Putin to ‘cut it out‘ after all).

Meanwhile, Poor Evelyn’s campaign staff has become “emotionally exhausted” after her Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts have been “overwhelmed with a stream of vile, vulgar and sometimes violent messages” in response to the plethora of conservative outlets which have called her out for Russia malarkey.

There is evidence that Russian actors are contributing to these attacks. The same day that right-wing pundits began pumping accusations, newly created  Russian Twitter accounts picked them up. Within a day, Russian “disinformation clearinghouses” posted versions of the story. Many of the Twitter accounts boosting attacks have posted in unison, a sign of inauthentic social media behavior.

We assume Zero Hedge is included in said ‘disinformation clearinghouses‘ Farkas fails to expound on.

She closes by defiantly claiming “I wasn’t silenced in 2017, and I won’t be silenced now.” 

No Evelyn, nobody is silencing you. You’re being called out for your role in the perhaps the largest, most divisive hoax in US history – which was based on faulty intelligence that includes crowdstrike admitting they had no proof of that Russia exfiltrated DNC emails, and Christopher Steele’s absurd dossier based on his ‘Russian sources.’

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Judge Bob Bacharach Guest-Blogging This Week About Legal Writing

I’m delighted to report that Judge Robert Bacharach of the Tenth Circuit will be joining us this week for five posts based on his new book, Legal Writing—A Judge’s Perspective on the Science and Rhetoric of the Written Word (just released by the ABA Press). Some praise from Dean Erwin Chemerinsky of Berkeley Law School:

A magnificent book on writing. Drawing on the lessons from psycholinguistics and rhetoric, Judge Bacharach has written a remarkably practical book on how to write effectively. Judge Bacharach illustrates his points with very specific suggestions and countless examples from briefs from top lawyers and opinions of judges. I learned so much from this wonderful book.

I very much look forward to Judge Bacharach’s posts!

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Judge Robert Bacharach Guest-Blogging This Week About Legal Writing

I’m delighted to report that Judge Robert Bacharach of the Tenth Circuit will be joining us this week for five posts based on his new book, Legal Writing—A Judge’s Perspective on the Science and Rhetoric of the Written Word (just released by the ABA Press). Some praise from Dean Erwin Chemerinsky of Berkeley Law School:

A magnificent book on writing. Drawing on the lessons from psycholinguistics and rhetoric, Judge Bacharach has written a remarkably practical book on how to write effectively. Judge Bacharach illustrates his points with very specific suggestions and countless examples from briefs from top lawyers and opinions of judges. I learned so much from this wonderful book.

I very much look forward to Judge Bacharach’s posts!

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Wall Street Caught Short Again As “Money Printer Go BRRRRRR To 11”

Wall Street Caught Short Again As “Money Printer Go BRRRRRR To 11”

Tyler Durden

Mon, 05/18/2020 – 10:32

With US equity futures soaring to start the week on the combination of Powell’s 60 Minutes affirmation that the Fed’s money printer go BRRRRR to 11 (as Nomura’s Charlie McElligott poetically puts it) coupled with favorable news of a coronavirus vaccine trial by Moderna (which saw favorable results in a group of 8 “young and healthy” volunteers), the bulk of Wall Street institutions is once again positioned on the wrong side of today’s rally.

As we showed on Friday using the latest Deutsche Bank flow data…

… both consolidated and systematic positioning was just off decade lows, while discretionary positioning – namely hedge funds and various other levered investors – have continued to take down exposure, selling to retail investors all the way on the way up, assuming of course that Robin Hood is up on any given day.

Yet while institutions may yet have the final laugh, for now it is retail investors that are smiling all the way to the bank as they continue to buy everything that the pros are selling.

And, as Nomura’s Charlie McElligott writes this morning, futures are “un-clenching higher”, as the abovementioned institutions scramble to chase the market with “both Asset Managers- (cumulative -$10.5B of US Equities futs sold across the May-to-date numbers so far) and the Leveraged Funds- (sold -$3.4B of US Eq futs in May so far) have continued to sell or be short / very hedged into the Equities move MTD.”

Here’s are the details why Wall Street is once again chasing stocks (and retail) on the way higher, via McElligott:

  • TFF Leveraged Fund data shows that the “net” position in SPX is -$47.1B (short), only a 2.8%ile outcome since 2006, while also net Nasdaq position is short  -$3.5B, similarly prolific at just 6.1%ile since 2006.

CFTC Non-Comm investor-type data shows the net position in SPX futures at just 2.2%ile since 1999 (only occurred 6x’s previously), while the cumulative 3m “sale” by Non-Comms is just 1.5%ile (only been this “net short” 5x’s since ’99)

Not surprisingly then, Long-Short Fund “performance beta to S&P” at just 3.1%ile since ’04

Meanwhile, Asset Manager data shows “the 3 month cumulative selling was massive, a monstrously negative outcome at -$119B, just 3.3%ile since 2006 (only happened 5x’s).”

As McElligott concludes, “this off-side positioning serves as a source of the “Squeeze Pivot” observed over the past 1 week reporting period, when Asset Managers bought +$6.4B of US Equities futures (+$4.0B SPX, +$1.6B NDX, +$800mm RTY), which is a 96th %ile 1w outcome since 2006.”

Taken collectively then and thematically within U.S. Equities today, we should see a very “pro-cyclical” risk-rally, with the “Value / High Beta over Growth / Defensives” ANTI-MOMENTUM trade—especially as this re-risk comes in conjunction with the aforementioned bear-steepening in US Rates

This would of course be a profound reversal of the YTD and MTD trend within US Equities, as my tactically-favored “1Y Price Momentum” factor +13.9% MTD and now +14.5% YTD, which of course is consistent with the very popular “long Secular Growth / Min Vol” vs “short Cyclicals” positioning—meaning that today’s trade will likely drive significant underperformance for many

Bottom line: Wall Street pros continue to fight the Fed – and are getting steamrolled- even as retail is more than happy to go with the money flow (which is now in the trillions), oblivious to the dire fundamental picture and putting all of its faith in the Fed.

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