Weekend Reading: $7 Trillion To Manipulate Prices

Authoreed by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

As the stock market continues to press new highs, the level of optimism climbs with it. I discussed yesterday Richard Thaler’s, a recent recipient of the Nobel Price in Economics, comments about not understanding the current “irrationality of investors relating to their investing behavior.”

What is interesting is that Thaler’s received his Nobel Prize for his pioneering work in establishing that people are predictably irrational — that they consistently behave in ways that defy economic theory. For example, people will refuse to pay more for an umbrella during a rainstorm; they will use the savings from lower gas prices to buy premium gasoline; they will offer to buy a coffee mug for $3 and refuse to sell it for $6.

The fact that a man who studies the “irrationality of individuals” is stumped by current investor behavior should be alarming at the least.

But as earnings season gets underway we once again return to quarterly Wall Street “beat the estimate game,” in which companies are rewarded by beating continually lowered estimates. Of course, the primary catalyst used to beat those estimates was not a rise in actual revenue, or even reported earnings, but rather ongoing accounting gimmickry and stock buybacks. As shown below, through the second quarter of this year, reported EPS, which includes “all the bad stuff,” actually declined in the latest quarter and has remained virtually unchanged since 2014. (But, even that is an illusion as shares have been aggressively bought back in order to sustain that same level of EPS.)

The difference between reported earnings with and without the benefit of share repurchases is substantial. The chart below shows the net difference between gross reported earnings with and without the buyback impact. Importantly, the net effect of buybacks is having less impact which, as was the case in 2007, was a precursor to the crash. 

Ralph Nader just recently did an in-depth expose on the problems with share repurchases. To wit:

“The monster of economic waste—over $7 trillion of dictated stock buybacks since 2003 by the self-enriching CEOs of large corporations—started with a little-noticed change in 1982 by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under President Ronald Reagan. That was when SEC Chairman John Shad, a former Wall Street CEO, redefined unlawful ‘stock manipulation’ to exclude stock buybacks.”

Yep, stock buybacks used to be considered stock manipulation, yet today, it is widely accepted by investors as “just the right measure to boost earnings in the ongoing “beat the estimate” game.

As Ralph Nader points out – there is a problem.

“The stock buyback mania was unleashed. Its core was not to benefit shareholders (other than perhaps hedge fund speculators) by improving the earnings per share ratio. Its real motivation was to increase CEO pay no matter how badly such burning out of shareholder dollars hurt the company, its workers and the overall pace of economic growth.“

The bottom line is that while companies take trillions of dollars and buyback shares, it only benefits the executives of the company at the expense of both workers and, ultimately, shareholders as companies with excessive stock buybacks experience a declining market value.

The interview is worth watching, and read the article, and think about it.

Here’s your reading list to for the weekend.

Trump, Economy & Fed

Markets

Research / Interesting Reads

“Making it, and keeping it, are two different things.“ – Anonymous

 

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Deregulation Putters Along, States Sue Trump Over Obamacare Subsidies, and Penguins Die By the Truckload: P.M. Links

  • Bloomberg on the trials and tribulations of deregulation.
  • 15 states sue Trump for ending some Obamacare subsidies to insurers.
  • Penguins die in ‘catastrophic’ Antarctic breeding season.
  • Sen. Susan Collings (R – Maine) will remain in the senate, forgoing a possible run for governor of Maine.

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The Pros and Cons of a Heroin Shortage

“Interdiction is critically important to increase the cost and reduce accessibility of opioids,” write former Centers for Disease Control chief Thomas R. Frieden and Brandeis University’s Andrew Kolodny in a new paper for the Journal of the American Medical Association. “As with tobacco and alcohol, if heroin and illicitly produced synthetic opioids such as fentanyl are more expensive and more difficult to obtain, use should decrease.”

But we don’t need to extrapolate from alcohol and tobacco policies to figure out what a heroin shortage would do to consumption. The United Kingdom and Australia both experienced heroin droughts in the last decade and a half. It would be wise to look at what happened in those countries before ramping up interdiction efforts in the U.S.

How Heroin Users in the U.K. Responded to the 2010–2011 Heroin Shortage

From October 2010 to January 2011, heroin purity dropped and prices increased across most of Europe, due to a constellation of factors that ranged from fungal infections in Afghanistan’s poppy fields to interdiction efforts in Europe. As a result of the reduced supply, heroin prices in the U.K. more than doubled, from £17,000 per kilogram in early 2010 to £40,000 per kilo a year later. At the street level, heroin purity plummeted from around 35 percent pre-drought to 13 percent at the end of the shortage. Basically, wholesale heroin buyers were diluting their product with cutting agents—some of them inert, some of them toxic—in an attempt to maintain their profit margins.

What happened to users? Mandatory drug testing revealed a large drop in positive heroin tests, from 45 percent before the drought to 21 percent in January 2011. While less heroin meant less heroin use, it didn’t mean less risky drug consumption. According to surveys conducted by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, many users continued to inject drugs sold as heroin. Several users reported an increase in tissue damage caused by cutting agents, leading to infections and loss of limbs. Others reported severe memory loss lasting several days. Some users realized they weren’t buying heroin and adopted “indigenous harm reduction strategies,” such as alternating injections with smoking in hopes of reducing the odds of infection.

Other users simply switched to crack cocaine, often in conjunction with depressants, such as benzodiazepines and alcohol. The researchers write that one heroin user “drank 20-30 cans of high strength alcohol beer a day for the duration of the shortage—a practice which he was unable to cease post-drought and subsequently describe[s] as more problematic than his heroin use.” The transition to alcohol is particularly noteworthy, considering that intravenous drug users are at higher risk for hepatitis c, which is in turn exacerbated by excessive alcohol consumption.

Many of the heroin users surveyed by the London School researchers were also participating in methadone treatment. As in the U.S., it was not uncommon pre-draught for users to sell their methadone in order to buy heroin. Illicit methadone selling all but disappeared during the drought as users needed the drug to stave off withdrawal symptoms. The U.K.’s experience suggests that reducing heroin and fentanyl importation to the U.S. (a longshot, considering the resources Washington currently expends on such efforts) without an accompanying increase in access to medication-assisted therapy would lead to disastrous unintended consequences. (Frieden and Kolodny, to their credit, call for dramatically expanding access to methadone and buprenorphine for people with opioid use disorders.)

How Heroin Users Reacted to the Australian Heroin Shortage of 2000–2001

Australia’s heroin shortage, which began around Christmas in 2000, is probably the most studied drug drought of the last century. As in the U.K., heroin use dropped, but with a slew of adverse consequences that make it difficult to declare it a win for public health.

According to a 2003 report published by the Australian Institute of Criminology and the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, heroin prices during the shortage increased dramatically for quantities of half a gram and a gram, but only mildly for a quarter gram or less. Users who preferred to purchase quantities of a quarter gram or less told researchers that the drugs were heavily diluted with cutting agents. The Australian government’s drug survey confirmed that purity during the drought decreased from approximately 62 to 51 percent. Meanwhile, the price for a single gram of pure heroin increased 112 percent.

At the user level, researchers looked at trends in New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state. From July 2000 to June 2001, overdoses plummeted 74 percent in Cabramatta, a suburb of Sydney with the highest rate of heroin use, and 53 percent in New South Wales overall. Drug arrests in Cabramatta declined 64 percent during the drought. Among users who purchased heroin by the gram, median weekly expenditures declined from $550 to $350.

That may sound like a success, but as in the U.K. many users simply found other ways to get high. Of the 56 percent of survey respondents who said they began using other drugs during the heroin shortage, 79 percent substituted cocaine, 33 percent substituted cannabis, 30 percent substituted benzodiazepines, and 17 percent substituted amphetamines. Positive urine tests for cocaine also increased dramatically during this period. Intravenous drug users who began using more cocaine said that they had taken the drug on 90 of the previous 100 days. Prior to the drought, the figure had been 12 days out of 100.

Most troublingly, the Australian drought led to an increase in robberies and other property crimes. Forty-nine percent of respondents told researchers that they had committed crime to support their habits. During the drought, 42 percent said, they committed more crimes to compensate for increased prices. Arrest data confirmed that there were upticks in robbery and in breaking and entering at the height of the drought.

That increase didn’t last. The researchers offer several possible explanations for this; the most compelling is that the shift from depressants to stimulants “caused former heroin users to engage in behaviour that brought them to police attention more frequently,” and they were quickly arrested and incarcerated. This might also explain why drug possession arrests dropped over the same period even as many heroin users continued buying and consuming illegal substances.

The Australian researchers concluded that demand for heroin is price-elastic, but that isn’t necessarily true for America in the era of fentanyl, which is easy to import, harder to interdict, and much more potent in small doses. And it’s definitely belied by the number of users who substituted other substances, both in the U.K. and Australia. While substitution may suggest elasticy in heroin prices, the infrequency with which users become completely sober suggests that drug use itself is inelastic. An interdiction strategy that might work for heroin, which comes from only four regions on the planet, won’t work for a synthetic drug that can be shipped in small, undetectable packages. And without a nationwide expansion of evidence-based treatment programs, interdiction will do very little to prevent heroin users from substituting with alcohol, which is uniquituous and cheap.

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War with Iran Was Planned Decades Ago

Last night, as I reflected on my recent three part series filled with bold predictions, I began to question whether or not I was being too negative. Upon hearing Trump’s Iran speech today, I became convinced that everything I wrote had merit.

The speech was downright terrifying, serving to confirm all my worst fears about what he’s up to in the Middle East. There’s no way you can listen to that disingenuous rant and not recognize that he’s already made up his mind about war with Iran. What comes next will be a series of U.S. imposed redlines and demands, which Iran will eventually be said to violate, at which point the U.S. will escalate bigly.

I expect the most wretched cretins in America to rally behind the coming war push, including much of the corporate media. We already saw evidence of this earlier today.

continue reading

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Record High Stocks, Record Low VIX But Bitcoin, Bonds, & Bullion Bid

Buy it all… On the week – Stocks are up, Treasury Bonds are up, Corporate Bonds are up, Gold is up, and WTI Crude is up…

 

Before we get started – consider the following…

 

And perhaps this will help explain last week's action compared to this week's? Everything reversed trend when China got back from holiday…

 

Small Caps ended the week red – the first drop in 6 weeks – as Trannies outperformed (just eedging the Dow on the week), but the rest of the market traded in a very narrow range this week…

 

In fact, it appears Russell 2000 has died. After surging 12% higher in the preior month in a seemingly unstoppable surge, it has gone nowhere for 10 days straight – 1509, 1511, 1508, 1512, 1510, 1504, 1508, 1507, 1505… 1505.

This move in Small Caps looks very similar to the surge of the election which then did nothing for 9 months…

 

With VIX back at record lows, FX and Rates vol remains elevated – though fell this week…

 

And while Russell traders are hedging, so are Nasdaq traders.. as it soars to record highs, the inverse QQQ ETF (QID) has seen options interest soar…

(with more than five calls – bearish Nasdaq – outstanding for each put – bullish Nasdaq)

Despite the record highs in the major indices, Trump tax hope has collapsed back to post-election lows…

 

Bank stocks suffered on the week after 'sell the news' earnings…

 

And traders have rotated back to FANG stocks – sending then to record highs… (up for the 5th week in a row)…

 

Treasury yields tumbled on the week…

 

With a massive flattening in the curve…

 

Bitcoin is perhaps the week's biggest headline-grabber – soaring over 32% – the biggest week since Dec 2013…

 

And Jamie Dimon has had a tough run of it…

 

Gold rose back above $1300 today, having its best week (and first positive week) in the last 5 weeks. Silver jumped over 3% on the week – the most in 6 weeks…

GOLD / SILVER

 

WTI/RBOB rallied on the week amid hope-strewn OPEC chatter…

 

Finally, you are here…

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The ‘Blade Runner 2049’ Future (Not!)

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

I took myself to the new movie Blade Runner 2049 to see what kind of future the Hollywood dream-shop is serving up these days. It was an excellent illustration of the over-investments in technology with diminishing returns that are dragging us into collapse and of the attendant techno-narcissism that afflicts the supposedly thinking class in this society, who absolutely don’t get what this collapse is about. The more computer magic Hollywood drags into the picture, the less coherent their story-telling gets. Hollywood is collapsing, and it’s not just because of Harvey Weinstein’s antics.

Movies of this genre are really always more about the current moment than about the future, and Blade Runner 2049 is full of hilarious retro-anachronisms – things around us now which will probably not be in the future. The signature trope in many sci-fi dystopias of recent times is the assumed ever-presence of automobiles.

The original Mad Max was little more than an extended car chase – though apparently all that people remember about it is the desolate desert landscape and Mel Gibson’s leather jumpsuit. As the series wore on, both the vehicles and the staged chases became more spectacularly grandiose, until, in the latest edition, the movie was solely about Charlize Theron driving a truck. I always wondered where Mel got new air filters and radiator hoses, not to mention where he gassed up. In a world that broken, of course, there would be no supply and manufacturing chains.

So, of course, Blade Runner 2049 opens with a shot of the detective played by Ryan Gosling in his flying car, zooming over a landscape that looks more like a computer motherboard than actual earthly terrain.

As the movie goes on, he gets in and out of his flying car more often than a San Fernando soccer mom on her daily rounds. That actually tells us something more significant than all the grim monotone trappings of the production design, namely, that we can’t imagine any kind of future – or any human society for that matter – that is not centered on cars.

But isn’t that exactly why we’ve invested so much hope and expectation (and public subsidies) in the activities of Elon Musk?

After all, the Master Wish in this culture of wishful thinking is the wish to be able to keep driving to Wal Mart forever. It’s the ultimate fantasy of a shallow “consumer” society. The people who deliver that way of life, and profit from it, are every bit as sincerely wishful about it as the underpaid and overfed schnooks moiling in the discount aisles. In the dark corners of so-called postmodern mythology, there really is no human life, or human future, without cars.

This points to the central fallacy of this Sci-fi genre: that technology can defeat nature and still exist.

This is where our techno-narcissism comes in fast and furious. The Blade Runner movies take place in and around a Los Angeles filled with mega-structures pulsating with holographic advertisements.

Where does the energy come from to construct all this stuff? Supposedly from something Mr. Musk dreams up that we haven’t heard about yet. Frankly, I don’t believe that such a miracle is in the offing.

The denizens of this 2049 Los Angeles are a rabble of ragged scavengers bolting down bowls of ramen in the never-ending drizzle. Apparently they have nothing to do, nothing useful or gainful, that is. So you can’t help wondering how this hypothetical economy supports such population of no-accounts. I mean, we do know how our current economy supports the millions who are out of the work force, bolting their ramen between visits to the tattoo parlor: by giveaways based on pervasive accounting fraud backed by the now dwindling supply of oil that can be profitably extracted from the ground. But that won’t continue much longer. Know why? Because things that can’t go on, don’t.

One thing Blade Runner 2049 gets right in its retro-anachronistic borrowings from the present is the awesome joylessness of the culture. The artistry in this vision of the future is especially vivid in illuminating the absence of real artistry in contemporary “postmodern” American life. Sleek mechanical surfaces are everything, with no substance beneath the surface.

I walked out after two hours, and there was plenty more to go. It was too dreary, and too intellectually insulting to endure. I don’t blame Ryan Gosling, though. His look of doleful skepticism throughout the proceedings was perfect.

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Trump Kicks Iran Deal Decisions Over to Congress

President Donald Trump announced today that he would be “decertifying” the Iran deal.

He did not announce his intention to exit the deal (although he stressed that the deal gave him that authority, which is true), but rather called on Congress and America’s allies to improve it. He highlighted what he sees as deficiencies in its enforcement mechanisms and with its power to restrain Iran’s missile programs. He hinted that he would withdraw from the deal if it wasn’t changed.

“Congress has already begun the work to address these problems,” Trump insisted. “Key House and Senate leaders are drafting legislation that would amend the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act to strengthen enforcement, prevent Iran from developing an…intercontinental ballistic missile, and make all restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activity permanent under U.S. law.”

Trump’s move essentially keeps the Iran deal a domestic issue for now, relying on Congress to act.

The appeal to allies, in spite of Trump’s claim that he had consulted them extensively, is a nonstarter. The leaders of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom released a joint statement reiterating their commitment to the existing deal and expressing concern about Trump’s decision. They did say they shared some of his concerns, opening the door for some minor changes that could placate Trump while keeping the deal intact.

If the U.S. does exit the deal, it would not collapse. The U.S. could reimpose sanctions unilaterally, but they would not be joined by their allies, nor by China and Russia, the other two parties to the Iran talks.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani correctly noted this, describing the U.S. as increasingly “isolated.”

The Daily Beast reported this week that National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster told Democrats he wanted the Iran agreement “out of sight and out of mind.” Today’s decision comports with that.

Much of the uncertainty over the Iran deal could have been avoided had it been treated as a treaty. While it would have been harder to get such a deal through, it would also be far more secure. Trump’s behavior should make clear why treaties are preferable to “executive agreements” that rely on the whimsy and political calculations of whoever happens to be president at the time.

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Fed To Trump: It’s Our Stock Market Bubble, Not Yours

President Trump continues to exuberantly promote the "unprecedented" stock market rally since his election…

But just how 'unprecedented' is it?

The answer is not simple.

For the 'Never-Trump'ers – always looking for a 'lie'… President Trump's post-election stock market gain does not make the Top 5.

As Bloomberg reports, going by the pace of gains, the 19 percent increase in the S&P 500 since Trump’s victory trails Franklin Roosevelt, Bill Clinton, Herbert Hoover, George H. W. Bush and John F. Kennedy.

However.

For the #MAGA crowd – cheering Trump on… Global equity markets have gained over $22.5 trillion since President Trump was elected.

This is by far the greatest absolute gain in equity market value for a President's first 11 months… and even global bonds rallied $750 billion!

And all it took was a $2.1 trillion surge in the value of G3 Central Bank balance sheets, levered into a record speculative short VIX position.

*  *  *

However, a new study by The Fed suggests he may want to thank the U.S. central bank.

As Bloomberg reports, tax cuts were bad news for the stock market in the three-decade era ushered in by then-Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, who took office in 1979. That’s because they tended to raise anticipation that Fed officials would offset them with interest-rate increases, according to the paper.

Its authors concluded that one of the reasons stocks have rallied this time around may be that U.S. central bankers have adopted greater caution toward tightening in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent slow economic recovery.

Fed economist Anthony Diercks and William Waller of Carnegie Mellon University showed that from 1980 to 2008, increases in discount rates associated with news about tax cuts swamped the positive effects of cash flow that tax cuts would have on stock prices. Moreover, the higher interest rates would have had the effect of slowing economic activity, reducing the positive cash flow generated by the tax cuts in the first place.

"The recent experience could be due to a few issues:

 

(1) there are additional factors at play such as changes in regulation, government spending, and repatriation that may be important,

 

(2) because of the proximity to the zero lower bound monetary policy may not be acting as aggressively as it did in previous post-1980 tightening cycles, and

 

(3) investors are unusually optimistic."

In other words – "it's our bubble, not yours Mr. Trump!"

But President Trump was not taking that lying down…

  • *TRUMP SAYS REGULATION CUTS REASON STOCK MARKET AT ALL TIME HIGH

But The Fed had the final word… (for now)…

  • *FISCHER: I WORRY ABOUT DEREGULATION AT THIS STAGE

We have one simple question though – is there a market anymore if these two entities are fighting over who is actually responsible for the gains?

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Weinstein Company Exploring Sale Or Shutdown

Hollywood film studio The Weinstein Company promptly jettisoned disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein following last week’s New York Times bombshell, which documented the mogul's 30-year history of sexual harassment and assault abetted by the silence of his peers and colleagues.  But given the shocking scope of Weinstein’s alleged crimes (more than 30 victims have come forward to accuse him of harassment, groping or rape) and the pervasive speculation that everyone at his company was well-aware of Harvey's transgressions, the Weinstein name has been irreparably tarnished.

Therefore, rather than risk an embarrassing bankruptcy – one where stakeholders can demand discovery and expose even more dirty laundry – Weinstein Co.’s board is reportedly exploring a sale or shutdown, the WSJ reports. In any case, the studio is almost certainly not going to continue as an independent entity.

The board previously had been considering appointing co-chairman Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein’s brother, and President David Glasser to continue operating Weinstein Co. with a new name, but that plan is no longer on the table.

However, the board could face resistence if Harvey Weinstein has his way. TMZ is reporting that Weinstein plans to challenge his firing at the company’s upcoming Oct. 17 board meeting. The topic of his firing is reportedly on the agenda for that meeting, which Weinstein – who is presently staying at a live-in rehab center in Arizona – will attend via call-in. Weinstein’s civil lawyer, Patty Glaser, will be present at the meeting as well to make her client’s case.

Weinstein plans to argue that he did not violate his current contract, which he signed in October 2015. He maintains no sexual harassment complaints were lodged filed after he signed said contract. Glaser will argue Weinstein could only be terminated after mediation and arbitration. The company has argued that it had a right to fire Weinstein immediately and he has a right to challenge the decision in mediation and arbitration

WSJ reports that interested buyers have approached board members and others close to Weinstein Co., but it remains to be seen if a deal can be reached for the studio to be sold in whole and then continue operating under a new owner or owners. The other possibility is that Weinstein Co. would be shut down. Its library of movies and TV shows and other assets would then be sold in pieces.

The news comes as many of the Weinstein Co’s business partners have backed away from the toxic production studio:

  • Apple ended plans for a series about Elvis Presley it was developing with Weinstein Co. as producer.
  • Amazon.com said that it’s “reviewing our options” for two shows it was set to co-produce with Weinstein Co.

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs, which owns a stake in Weinstein Co. valued at less than $1 million, is reportedly seeking to offload its stake in a gesture of condemnation, Reuters reported.

“There is no place for the inexcusable behavior that had been reported, and we strongly condemn it,” Andrew Williams, a spokesman for Goldman, said in an email.

Finally, while Weinstein has repeatedly said that he’s anxious to return to former life “once I’m better”, it appears police on both sides of the Atlantic have other plans. While we imagine Weinstein will forever remain a persona non grata in polite society, there’s a chance he could also face criminal charges as the FBI, NYPD and Scotland Yard are all ramping up their own investigations.

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The Rally’s Relentless Bid Is “Unprecedented”

Via Dana Lyons' Tumblr,

The persistence of the recent stock rally is nearly unprecedented in the past 50 years.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect to the stock market rally over the past several months has been its relentlessness. Much to the bears’ chagrin, it has felt as if the market is on a one-way ticket higher. If you have observed this reluctance on the part of stocks to go down, you are not imagining things. By some quantitative measures, the recent bid is among the most relentless the market has seen in the past half century.

For example, it’s been our recent observation that, no matter how the market opened, it has consistently closed the day strongly. We took a look at that apparent trend more objectively and found some evidence to back up our observation.

Specifically, we looked at the recent intra-day behavior in the S&P 500. We did this by measuring the index’s closing price minus its opening price on a daily basis. Positive readings indicated strong intra-day action while negative readings signaled weakness. We, in turn, tallied all of the negative intra-day readings (e.g., days when the S&P 500 closed below its open) over rolling 25-day periods.

Going back 55 years, the average cumulative intra-day losses over a 25-day period is about 660 basis points, or 6.6%. As of yesterday (October 10), the last 25 days have seen a grand total intra-day loss of just 96 basis points, or 0.96%. If that seems small, it is.

In fact, outside of the period ending November 26, 2014, this is the smallest cumulative 25-day intra-day loss in the past 46 years – and the only one registering less than 100 basis points.

So, what is the message behind this relentless bid? Is the market over-extended and overdue for a pullback? Or is the bid a sign of persistent demand, standing ready to continue to buoy stock prices?

*  *  *

In a premium post at The Lyons Share, we take a quantitative look at similar relentless bids throughout history and the subsequent reactions in the stock market. The results help orient our expectations of the potential aftermath to our present situation. If you’re interested in the “all-access” version of our charts and research, please check out our new site, The Lyons Share. Considering what we believe will be a very difficult investment climate for awhile, there has never been a better time to reap the benefits of our risk-managed approach. Thanks for reading!

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