ARK’s Innovation ETF Posts $137 Million Outflow On Tuesday, Its Largest On Record

ARK’s Innovation ETF Posts $137 Million Outflow On Tuesday, Its Largest On Record

One day after we speculated the top in ARK Funds could be in, based on what appeared to be a technical trend in inflows breaking down, ARK’s Innovation ETF posted its largest outflow on record.

The ETF saw $137 million in outflows on Tuesday of this week, according to Bloomberg, marking a stark break from the trend of inflows that the fund has seen over the last 18 months. Prior to Tuesday, the fund had not had a daily withdrawal dating back to November. It also hadn’t seen a weekly withdrawal dating back to February, the report says. 

Todd Rosenbluth, director of ETF research for CFRA Research told Bloomberg: “Given the strong demand in the fourth quarter for ARKK and its hard-to-duplicate returns in 2020, it was inevitable that some investors would want to take profits.”

The fund sunk 4.2% on Tuesday, but as of this writing is up about 2.4% on Wednesday. 

Recall, on Tuesday of this week we wrote that the most recent data on ARKK fund flows heading into the last few trading days of 2020 appeared to show a meaningful reversal in flows. ARKK inflows made a lower low on Monday, we pointed out:

This suggested the obvious to us: that we may have witnessed a blowoff top of cash pouring into the ETF this month.

Tuesday’s data seems to confirm our suspicions and could be a bellwether for a less-than-stellar start to 2021 for ARKK holders. 

Recall, last week we published a report highlighting Bloomberg’s ETF expert Eric Balchunas’ take on how ARK Funds could wind up becoming victims of their own success. 

Many of Balchunas’ assumptions pointed out sustained massive inflows into the ARK family of ETFs – notably its ARKK ETF – which we noted last week was seeing inflows of about $400 million per day. In fact, ARK’s haul has been so massive that Balchunas noted that it has a chance of taking in more cash than Blackrock in December. The funds are on pace to bring in $11 billion, he said last week.

“This one ETF has more in assets than the other 240 actively managed equity ETFs combined,” he pointed out.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/30/2020 – 16:40

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Are We Really Going To ‘Build Back Better’ After A “Dark Winter”? Part 3

Are We Really Going To ‘Build Back Better’ After A “Dark Winter”? Part 3

Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

In Part 1 of this article I laid out the case the “dark winter” narrative and how an experimental vaccine marketed like a tech product by Big Pharma and their cronies are part of a globalist scheme to reset the world and force us into subservience.

In Part 2 of the article I revealed how the “build back better” narrative is part of Klaus Schwab’s Great Reset plan to implement a one world command and control dystopia, managed by billionaire oligarchs and their dark forces.

Their “new normal” tripe is built on a foundation of falsity. The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 killed 50 million people when the population of earth was 1.8 billion, or 2.8% of the world population. This China flu has contributed to the deaths of 1.8 million people with a worldwide population of 7.8 billion, or .023%. The world was not locked down by totalitarians, no vaccine was created, the flu dissipated over time (probably due to natural herd immunity), people continued to live their lives, and the world returned to normal without global elites dictating how we had to live.

There is no such thing as a new normal. There is normal and abnormal. What we are experiencing today is a warped stage-managed abnormality being jammed down our throats by men who will benefit greatly if we let them take over the world, with no downside risk for themselves when their hair brained ideas tragically fail.

Allowing all businesses to open, allowing all workers to work, ending the masking farce, opening schools, guaranteeing freedom of speech on social media platforms, restoring the freedoms and liberties of citizens, not forcing a DNA changing vaccine upon those who do not want it, protecting the old and infirm, and letting the virus run its course, will allow us to go back to normal. These wealthy powerful tyrants will not allow this to happen without a fight to the finish.

“In this hour, I do not believe that any darkness will endure.”  ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“You can only come to the morning through the shadows.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien

I find the words of Tolkien inspiring and hopeful in this time of danger and deceit. To those of us who still believe the founding principles of our country, as documented in the Constitution, need to be upheld and honored by those we have chosen to represent us, a darkness has descended upon our world endangering our way of life and threatening to turn the world into a communist nightmare of impoverishment, retribution and one world government run by billionaire oligarchs and their worthless bureaucratic state cronies.

The carefree bright days of the shire are long gone, and the eye of Sauron has set its glaze upon the deplorable hobbits trying to regain their way of life by embarking on a journey to confront the forces of evil arrayed against them. The primary themes of Tolkien’s masterpiece are the corrupting influence of power and the inevitability of decline in all civilizations.

A dark winter will entomb the nation if basement Biden assumes power on January 20, 2021. This will mean the corrupt powerful forces of tyranny will have successfully pulled off their election coup. The corrupting influence of power is clearly seen in the likes of Gates, Bezos, Bloomberg, Zuckerberg and Dorsey, as their success in creating businesses and reaping massive riches makes them believe their political beliefs should hold sway over the masses, while they use their extreme wealth to influence elections and control the administration of the world.

This corruption of power turns these men into perverted arrogant creatures, seeking further wealth, power, and control. Soros represents the wretched, demented Gollum-like creature in our current day battle for middle earth, consumed by desire for the power of the ring (new world order). Biden, Schwab, Soros and their ANTIFA and BLM Orcs are already at war, and it is time for us to defend what is dear.

“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“The treacherous are ever distrustful.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

The inevitability of decline is true for humans, as well as civilizations, empires, and ages. The Great Reset/Davos crowd wants to transform our world into a green utopia, ruled by those who fervently believe they are more intelligent than those they rule, because they equate ill-gotten wealth with intellectual superiority. The truth is, these narcissistic psychopath lords are going to die, just like the serfs they want to entrap in servitude to their one world government.

Gates, Soros, Bloomberg, Bezos, Zuckerberg and the rest of Great Reset mob do not deserve our admiration, but our scorn and contempt. They are consumed by their self-importance and avarice for complete control over those they see as nothing more than cattle. Coercion, impoverishment, and fear are their tools, and domination is their goal. They appear to have the upper hand, as people around the globe cower in fear as the Eye of Sauron (Covid-19) is turned in their direction. Despair fills the air.

“It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

It isn’t a coincidence Tolkien wrote his epic battle between good and evil during the last Fourth Turning. The existing order is always swept away during a Fourth Turning and replaced by something – better or worse. That is why I find its themes so prevalent, as we confront our own epic battle with the forces of evil.

Many are praying their Grey Champion – Trump – will arrive with the forces of good at the climactic battle of the DC Swamp before January 20, just as Gandalf the Grey arrived, just in time, at the Battle of Helm’s Deep to turn the tide and defeat the forces of evil. I’m not counting on such a glorious outcome, as there will be many battles to be fought on many fronts before victory can be secured, with future generations honoring glorious heroes long deceased. But it is also not time to be forlorn.

“Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

Waiting to be saved from the Great Reset by a white hat brigade is not a feasible strategy for victory. Every person whose eyes have been opened to the plans of these tyrants has a part to play. The key ingredients to defeating these malevolent forces are courage and truth. You may consider yourself an insignificant cog in the machine, without the capacity to fight billionaire despots and autocratic government officials. But you are not insignificant.

This war may ultimately require those three hundred million firearms be put to use, but direct confrontation against a heavily armed government force is a losing proposition. Winning will require guile, guerrilla tactics, turning their technology into a liability, and the courage to say no to their mandates and un-Constitutional decrees. Frodo and his fellowship of the ring did not directly confront the powerful forces of Sauron. They outsmarted him. Each of us can do our part, based upon our talents, resources, judgement, daring, and cleverness.

“Courage is found in unlikely places.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien

There are numerous ways to fight this dehumanization campaign being waged by these godless opportunists. Choose not to participate in their masking charade. Do not let them jab you with their DNA altering poison. Use facts and reason to convince others masks are worthless and the vaccine is nothing but an enrichment scheme for Gates, Fauci and Big Pharma. Support small businesses and restaurants that flaunt tyrannical lockdown mandates. Reduce your tax footprint by opting out of this materialistic paradigm. Get healthier by exercising, eating unprocessed food, and taking supplements (Vitamin B, D, C).

Barter with local farmers or pay in cash to deny Caesar his cut. Plant as big a garden as possible based on your circumstances. Make sure you have guns, ammo, and training. Join protests against this oppression. Build resiliency into your daily life. Think for yourself. Never watch or read anything in the mainstream media. Do not believe anything the government tells you, without verifying the facts. If the social media titans ban someone, seek out their writings because they must be telling the truth. If Google takes down a youtube video, seek it out on bitchute or other platform.

For those with a particular talent in IT, electrical, or mechanical, be prepared to utilize those skills in confronting the oligarchy. If possible, use encryption messaging to defeat the surveillance state. Protect your loved ones. Make sure you know who you can trust. Find neighbors of like mind. Make yourself anti-fragile by having alternative means of power and alternative medicines in supply. Attempt to open the eyes of those blinded by decades of propaganda exposure. Remove any funds from Wall Street banks. Diversify your financial holdings (land, cash, metals, crypto?).

Stay as far away from urban ghettos as possible. Speak truth to power. Don’t lose faith. The truth is on our side. We can win this war for the soul of our country. We have a limited amount of time on this earth. We must use what time is left to protect the world from these degenerates and provide future generations with a humanistic world where they have choices, liberty and freedom. I wish we weren’t confronted with such a herculean task, but it has happened in our time.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” – J.R.R. Tolkien

We cannot let the “new normal” or “great reset” take hold. If it is up to Klaus and his crew, you will be permanently masked, mandatorily vaccinated, eternally locked down, perpetually impoverished and forever dependent upon a central authority to provide minimal sustenance and maximum punishment for disobedience.

Even as the dark clouds fill the distant sky and the future appears bleak, our roots are strong and will not wither under the approaching tempest. The fight is before us and the outcome uncertain, but there is some good in this world and it is worth fighting for. The sun will surely come out again when this dark shadow passes.

*  *  *

The corrupt establishment will do anything to suppress sites like the Burning Platform from revealing the truth. The corporate media does this by demonetizing sites like mine by blackballing the site from advertising revenue. If you get value from this site, please keep it running with a donation.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/30/2020 – 16:20

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Dollar Dumps, Bitcoin Jumps, & Stock Short-Interest Slumps

Dollar Dumps, Bitcoin Jumps, & Stock Short-Interest Slumps

The dollar continued its race to the bottom today after a brief pop on Monday…

Source: Bloomberg

Pushing the world’s reserve currency to the brink of critical support against its fiat peers…

Source: Bloomberg

And Bitcoin and Gold already know it…

Source: Bloomberg

As does speculative positioning…

Source: Bloomberg

“You have meddled with the primary forces of nature, Mr Powell, and I won’t have it! Is that clear? It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet…”

As the dollar puked, Bitcoin soared to new record highs near $29,000…

Source: Bloomberg

And Ethereum topped $750…

Source: Bloomberg

And TSLA too…

As it seems that FOMO on MOMO was rife today ahead of year-end.

Small Caps screamed higher at the open, Nasdaq was dumped. Things slipped gently lower before a very last minute dump into the close…

Small Caps/Big-Tech found support after yesterday’s plunge…

Energy and Materials stocks were best today, Consumer Staples was weakest…

Source: Bloomberg

VIX pushed back above 23 – back into the closing range from quad witch…

 

Treasury yields ended the day modestly lower (long-end -1bps). NOTE – once again, bond weakness overnight and bid during US session…

 

Source: Bloomberg

The whole of December has seen a 3bps range around 93bps for the 10Y as it coils ever more tightly…

Source: Bloomberg

Are bonds getting ready to reflect the plunge in macro data…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices chopped around like a penny stocks today to end the day higher with $48 apparently the line in the sand…

As the dollar dived, gold gained though futures were unable to reach $1900..

Finally, as the year comes to an end, all that short-squeeze ammo that has sent stocks soaring since March…

Source: Bloomberg

Is now evaporated as short-interest is back at pre-COVID levels…

Source: Bloomberg

Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/30/2020 – 16:00

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Charles Wininger: Why We Should Listen To Ecstasy and Other Psychedelics

charley2

Charles Wininger has been a psychotherapist and “psychonaut”—a user of psychoactive substances ranging from LSD to marijuana to psilocybin—for decades. In his new memoir and practical guide, Listening To Ecstasy: The Transformative Power of MDMA, the 71-year-old New Yorker comes out of the “chemical closet” to talk about how MDMA has helped to revitalize his personal and professional life, what important lessons today’s “psychedelic renaissance” has learned from the 1960s counterculture, and why “serious fun” that leads to both self-actualization and the revitalization of community is within our grasp.

As MDMA-assisted therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder enters Phase 3 trials for FDA approval and voters around the country legalize or decriminalize the use of psychedelics, Wininger believes that the time has come to have honest discussions of how best to use what the government calls illicit drugs to create a better world. One way we make that happen, he says, “is for those who can do so and who dare to do so to come out of the chemical closet and say, ‘I am a user of these compounds, they do me a lot of good, and they help me function in a better way. They help me become more creative, more alive and more useful to society as a whole.'”

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Charles Wininger: Why We Should Listen To Ecstasy and Other Psychedelics

charley2

Charles Wininger has been a psychotherapist and “psychonaut”—a user of psychoactive substances ranging from LSD to marijuana to psilocybin—for decades. In his new memoir and practical guide, Listening To Ecstasy: The Transformative Power of MDMA, the 71-year-old New Yorker comes out of the “chemical closet” to talk about how MDMA has helped to revitalize his personal and professional life, what important lessons today’s “psychedelic renaissance” has learned from the 1960s counterculture, and why “serious fun” that leads to both self-actualization and the revitalization of community is within our grasp.

As MDMA-assisted therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder enters Phase 3 trials for FDA approval and voters around the country legalize or decriminalize the use of psychedelics, Wininger believes that the time has come to have honest discussions of how best to use what the government calls illicit drugs to create a better world. One way we make that happen, he says, “is for those who can do so and who dare to do so to come out of the chemical closet and say, ‘I am a user of these compounds, they do me a lot of good, and they help me function in a better way. They help me become more creative, more alive and more useful to society as a whole.'”

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McConnell Dooms $2,000 Stimulus Check After Refusing To Split Trump’s Three Demands

McConnell Dooms $2,000 Stimulus Check After Refusing To Split Trump’s Three Demands

In a move that all but doomed Congressional approval for $2,000 stimulus checks (up from $600), top Senate republican Mitch McConnell said he would not separate the plan for $2K checks, from President Donald Trump’s other demands: section 230 repeal and an election fraud commission.

“The Senate is not going to split apart the three issues that President Trump linked together just because Democrats are afraid to address two of them. The Senate is not going to be bullied into rushing out more borrowed money into the hands of Democrats rich friends who don’t need the help,” McConnell said from the Senate floor.

Over the weekend, the Democratic-controlled House approved a stand-alone bill to boost the checks to $2,000 from $600, as 44 Republicans prodded by Trump joined nearly all Democrats in backing the measure. But the Republican-controlled Senate has said it will not pass the checks without attaching other Trump priorities that Democrats consider toxic, and would sink any legislation.

The latest twist in this bizarre saga of Helicopter Money and government handouts came just as the Treasury Department started to send out the payments of up to $600 on Tuesday night. If Congress can overcome the thorny political dynamics to increase the deposits to $2,000, the government would later add on to the cash it already distributed.

On Tuesday, McConnell introduced the bill that would boost the payments to $2,000 but also repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides legal liability protections for internet platforms, and create a commission on voter fraud, something which Trump has pushed for as he continues to challenge the outcome of the November election.

McConnell’s gambit came shortly after he blocked Democrats’ efforts to quickly pass the $2,000 checks as has tried to balance a desire not to immediately add to the price tag of the $900 billion rescue package, while appeasing a GOP president who has fixated on sending more direct payments to struggling Americans, and jeopardizing Republican chances in the Georgia Senate runoff where the topic of $600 vs $2,000 checks has become especially sensitive.

Democrats – who were for the $2,000 check but against repeal of Section 230 and the electrion fraud commission – threw up all over McConnell’s bill as expected. Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer, said Tuesday that tying other proposals to the direct cash measure “would be a blatant attempt to deprive Americans of a $2,000 survival check.” On Wednesday, Schumer said that the House-passed bill to increase stimulus checks was the only option at this point. Making other changes/additions “is way to kill the bill. Make no mistake about it.”

Nancy Pelosi also urged the Senate to approve the stand-alone bill before the new Congress starts at noon ET on Sunday, but this effort was promptly stymied by McConnell.

“I do hope that in the days ahead – we only have a few days left in the session – that they will see the light and understand the suffering that is going on in this country,” the California Democrat said of Republicans.

On the other end of the political divide, Pennsylvania Republican Senator Pat Toomey said he will move to block a potential vote on the $2,000 payments. Delays could blow up any effort to pass legislation during the current session.

“It doesn’t make sense to have these universal payments. Any relief should be targeted,” he told CNBC on Wednesday morning.

Meanwhile, adding to the absurdity of the situation, the Senate also has not yet voted to override Trump’s veto of the annual National Defense Authorization Act, something which the House did on Monday. And while McConnell called lawmakers back this week to do so, and the chamber plans to take procedural steps Wednesday to move toward a vote, it may not override the veto until as late as Saturday.

As reported previously, socialist senator Bernie Sanders, blocked swift consideration of the defense measure Tuesday as he called for a vote on the stand-alone bill to increase the direct payments to $2,000. Later in the day, he told CNN that “I think we have the votes to pass” larger checks if McConnell brings the measure to a vote.

As also reported yesterday, at least four Republican senators – Josh Hawley of Missouri, Marco Rubio of Florida, and Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue of Georgia – have voiced support for the bigger stimulus check (Loeffler and Perdue are campaigning in Jan. 5 runoff elections that will determine which party controls the Senate for the next two years, while Hawley and Rubio are considered potential GOP candidates for president in 2024).

Trump continues to push Congress to approve $2,000 checks after he threatened to veto the relief bill because it included too little direct cash to Americans. And even though he relented and signed the stimulus bill on Sunday, on Wednesday, Trump again tweeted, ”$2000 ASAP!”

Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/30/2020 – 15:46

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The World Is Awash In Negative-Yielding Debt

The World Is Awash In Negative-Yielding Debt

Authored by Michael Maharrey via SchiffGold.com,

So far, the US has escaped negative interest rates as a matter of central bank policy. Back in May, many thought a Fed move to negative rates was a real possibility. Of course, much of the world has operated under negative rates as a matter of policy for years. The European Central Bank (ECB) launched negative rates in June 2014. The Bank of Japan (BOJ) introduced negative rates in January 2016. Both are still maintaining a negative rate policy today.

While the Fed has resisted the temptation of a negative rate policy so far, that doesn’t mean Americans have escaped the reality of below-zero real rates. In fact, the world is awash in negative-yielding debt.

Financial analyst Jim Grant’s newsletter, Almost Daily Grant (ADG), called it “a new benchmark in financial repression” noting that a record $18.4 trillion in global debt is priced to yield less than zero. That’s up from less than $8 trillion (still a huge number) in March.

In an article published by the Mises Wire, economist Doug French noted that interest rate historians Sidney Homer and Richard Sylla put it into perspective, writing, “nominal negative-yielding debt had never been seen in material size in the 4,000 years of interest rate history prior to the current cycle.”

Negative bond yields were once considered to be “economic lunacy.” Now they are economic normalcy.

But so what?

Economist Ludwig von Mises warned what would happen if interest were abolished – and that’s effectively what negative yields do.

There cannot be any question of abolishing interest by any institutions, laws, or devices of bank manipulation. He who wants to ‘abolish’ interest will have to induce people to value an apple available in a hundred years no less than a present apple. What can be abolished by laws and decrees is merely the right of the capitalist to receive interest. But such decrees would bring about capital consumption and would very soon throw mankind back into the original state of natural poverty.”

French said that we can’t be sure what Mises meant by “very soon.”

 But, to read ADG, the march toward ‘the original state of poverty’ will continue.”

French continues:

In Europe, where negative nominal rates have been the norm since 2014 and are currently minus 50 basis points, European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde said that further easing remains ‘part of our toolbox.’”

And it’s not just a problem overseas.

Financial Times writer John Dizard predicts “a train wreck” in the US Treasury market writing that given the level of US government spending over the next several months and the cash it has on hand, “it is possible, even likely, that Treasury bill rates will be negative for a significant period of time. Other key interest rates such as SOFR, the lending benchmark, could well follow T-bill into negative territory.”

In other words, the Fed’s monetary manipulations and the US government’s out of control spending have completely distorted the bond market.

The Fed has to keep interest rates at these artificially low levels to continue the borrowing binge necessary to keep the economy propped up. But what happens when the inevitable inflation gets too hot? As Peter put it, “the dollar’s loss is not America’s win.

French sums things up quoting Murray Rothbard.

The rate of interest is the price of ‘time.’ It’s safe to say the world’s central banks have manipulated and mispriced what time is worth. Instead of Powell and Lagarde setting this price, Rothbard should be heeded, ‘the best interest rate is the free market, or the ‘natural’ interest rate, set by the workings of free man under natural law, i.e., the rate determined by the supply of and demand for money loans at any given time.’”

As French put it, “If interest rates are not set by the free market, there is no freedom.”

It’s interesting to note that there is a strong correlation between the rising level of negatively-yielding debt and the price of gold and silver.

According to the World Gold Council:

As global yields continue to fall, and in some cases turn negative, there appears to be a direct correlation between global net negative yielding debt and the price increase in gold, highlighting that as yields decrease, the opportunity cost of holding gold decreases making it more attractive.”

Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/30/2020 – 15:40

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2020 In 12 Stunning Charts

2020 In 12 Stunning Charts

With just one day left in what has been a dismal year, we decided to look back at the past 12 months and summarize the most notable market events and developments in 12 charts. So without further ado, and courtesy of BoA’s Michael Hartnett, here is…

2020 in 12 charts.

  • 2020 was a year dominated by a virus identified in 2019, which as BofA notes, “spread into a pandemic shattering all 2020 social,political, economic and financial market predictions.”
  • According to Hartnett, “75mn people have contracted COVID-19,and 1.7mn people have died from COVID-19 in 2020; US & Europe (Exhibit 1) harderhit than Asia.”
  • The 1st wave of the virus Mar-May precipitated a financial market crash,lockdowns & recessions; the less deadly autumn 2nd wave did not.

  • In response to the pandemic, there were multiple COVID-19 vaccines in development by the end of 2020, with several approved out with unprecedented speed/
  • 2021 will be a year of the vaccine not thevirus…BofA forecasts 1.1bn people will be vaccinated by year-end ’21, a figure that dwarfs the 75mn that contracted the virus in 2020 (Exhibit 2).

  • The WHO designated COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 10th 2020.
  • Global credit & equity prices had fallen sharply in Feb and early-March in anticipation…credit & equity prices then went into freefall.
  • In less than one month $30tn had been wiped off the value of global stock markets (Exhibit 3), one of the greatest crashes of all time in both speed and magnitude

  • In Q2 global GDP collapsed $10tn, Chinese business confidence slumped to an all-time low, oil prices turned negative, as human “mobility” ceased (US TSA air passengers -96% YoY in April).
  • US unemployment rate soared to 15% as 70mn people filed for unemployment benefits in 2020 (Exhibit 4); US household savings rate jumped to an all-time high of 34%.

  • Investors began the year in a very bullish frame of mind; mood flipped to maximum bearish by mid-March and remained there until mid-June according to the BofA Bull & Bear Indicator (Exhibit 5).
  • Investor sentiment has since recovered, particularly after vaccine announcements in early-Nov; the BofA Bull & Bear Indicator has accelerated to 6.7, and is approaching the Sell zone.

  • The virus, crash, lockdown & recession provoked an unprecedented monetary & fiscal policy panic (Exhibit 6); $22tn of stimulus has been announced in the past 9 months around the world.
  • Central banks spent over $1tn a month on financial assets via QE, crushing yields, volatility, and spreads, successfully inciting asset price inflation on Wall St to short-circuit recession on Main St.

  • And presaging a secular shift from monetary QE to fiscal MMT, $14tn of fiscal stimulus was announced; the quantity of global debt now stands at a record $277tn, the price of debt also at a record 5,000 year low (global negative yielding debt =$18tn).
  • The US government transferred $2 trillion directly to the household sector in 2020 (Exhibit 7), and consumer spending was nothing short of heroic in face of virus and unemployment; but Wall St & Main St addiction to government bailouts now habitual.

  • The policy panic led to an epic rally on Wall St and a dramatic V-shaped economic recovery in H2’2020.
  • The recovery was led by China where industrial production (Exhibit 8) and exports quickly recovered to pre-COVID-19levels, but more remarkable to many, was the rebound in US consumer spending (retail sales are currently $32bn higher than in Jan’20).

  • Global equity market cap has soared by $40tn to over $100tn since the Mar’20lows.
  • The rally off the Mar’20 lows (Exhibit 9) has surpassed all of the 4 greatest rallies off the lows of the past century (1929,1938, 1974, and 2009).

  • Wall St optimism heading into 2021 means the S&P500 trades on a trailing PE of > 25X (Exhibit 10), a level only exceeded in 1921 and 1999.
  • The capitulation of consensus to “don’t fight the Fed”, front-running MMT, secular tech-led productivity…many catalysts exist for more years of big equity gains…but an old-fashioned bubble remains most plausible catalyst.

  • Wall St in 2020 was also marked by significant polarization of returns: in recent months, the top 5 companies in the S&P500 represented a breathtaking 25% of the index (Exhibit 11).
  • The rally broadened by style, sector, size & region as 2020, and the year ended with the majority of equity & credit investors adopting a fashionable “barbell” approach to investing.

  • The bottom line: the Fed, which set off to “fight” inequality has failed tremendously because as even BofA admits, “the pandemic worsened inequality in 2020” – value of financial assets (Wall St) relative to economy (Main St) hit all-time high of 6.3x (Exhibit 12).
  • This won’t improve without a revolution, as the coming years will be marked by bigger government, dollar debasement, policy flip from monetary & QE to fiscal & MMT, all in an attempt to increase price of labor relative to capital yet which will achieve just the opposite; 2020 was year of COVID-19 pandemic; it will, according to Hartnett, “also be remembered as the secular low point for both inflation & interest rates.”

Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/30/2020 – 15:22

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“A Fantastically Unusual Thing Happened”: For The First Time Ever, IB Clients Are Net Short The Market

“A Fantastically Unusual Thing Happened”: For The First Time Ever, IB Clients Are Net Short The Market

Yesterday morning, SocGen’s Albert Edwards asked when referring to a recent MarketWatch article, if he was “the last bear left in the markets” adding that “surely I am not now all alone, howling to myself on the icy Christmas tundra?!”

Our response to Edwards – that he may well in fact be the last bear standing –  was to show a recent Goldman chart we published at the start of the month, which demonstrated the record drop in S&P short interest “as any remaining bears have been ritualistically slaughtered in the last few months”, something we first discussed last month in “Hedge Funds Go “All-In” As Bears Go Extinct: Shorts Drop To Record Lows.

Not that the extinction of bears is in itself bearish: quite the contrary – as JPMorgan explained (see “Crowded Trades And Euphoric Consensus Are The Biggest Threats For Markets“), it is one of the oldest contrarian signals in the “book”, although to be fair there has never before been a book when the Fed would step in any time there is even a modest market correction to bail out 12-year-old trading veterans and various straight to CNBC money managers whose only “strategy” is to buy and hold everything, confident the Fed will always bail them out.

So in the context of this unprecedented bullish euphoria which has now surpassed the mania of the dot com bubble, there has been yet another unprecedented response by market professionals whose returns this year have been crushed by teenagers…

… and various other new market entrants to whom Powell and his money firehose now directly caters.

On Tuesday, Interactive Brokers chairman Thomas Peterffy appeared on CNBC to discuss the “explosion” in options trading, largely driven by retail investors…

… who have been snapping up record amount of out of the money calls on names like Tesla, and the FAAMGs, in the process creating a positive gamma feedback loops, and sending the price of stocks higher, leading to even more OTM call purchases and so on.

What Peterffy said was remarkable: “A fantastically unusual thing happened among our customers about a week ago” the Hungarian head of Interactive Brokers said.

“Our customers are traditionally long the market. A week ago it has changed: our customers tend to be on the selling side of options and there is such demand for out of the money options that our customers became sellers so they overwrite their long position in stocks, and it’s usually about Tesla, Amazon and Apple – that’s where most of the action seems to be.”

“So the Robinhood folks are long these options, and IB customers are short these options. It’s a very interesting situation, it has never happened in our history that our customers as a whole were net short the market. But as of yesterday. that is the case.”

In short, we are now witnessing a historic clash where the relentlessly euphoric Robinhood bullwagon has forced an entire brokerage catering to high net worth individuals and professionals – Interactive Brokers – to turn net short, in revulsion to the idiocy unleashed by the Fed and teenager traders.

Unfortunately, whereas any other time the outcome of this clash of generations and wealth buckets would have been all too obvious, the fact that the Fed now explicitly caters to idiots, CNBC talking heads and clueless BTFDers, means that it is completely unclear who the winner of this clash will be. To be sure, judging by the 14x outperformance of retail traders vs hedge funds, one can argue that the Robinhood juggernaut can continue indefinitely until such time as the Fed realizes the catastrophic consequences of what it has unleashed… which may well be never.

Peterffy’s full interview is below.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 12/30/2020 – 15:00

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2WVsuz1 Tyler Durden

District Court Reverses Own Right-to-Be-Forgotten-Like Decision

From Monday’s order in Allen v. Chanel, Inc., by Judge Loretta A. Preska:

Before the Court are submissions … regarding the Court’s Order, dated August 21, 2020, that directed search engines and websites to remove materials discussing the above-captioned action following the Court’s sealing of the docket in this case. Also before the Court is a motion to intervene filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Inc. and Professor Eugene Volokh of UCLA School of Law.

Having reviewed these comments from non-parties and from Ms. Allen, the Court has reconsidered the August 21, 2020 Order as well as the March 10, 2020 Order that originally sealed this case’s docket….

In 2012, following termination of her employment, Plaintiff Anu Allen filed suit against her former employer, Chanel, Inc. (“Chanel”), asserting claims for, inter alia, employment discrimination. The Court later granted Chanel’s motion for summary judgment as to each of Ms. Allen’s claims and ruled in favor of Chanel on its counterclaim for unjust enrichment.

As the Court recounted in its summary judgment opinion, in anticipation of making a severance payment to Ms. Allen, Chanel sent Ms. Allen an agreement that contained a provision by which Ms. Allen would waive her right to bring certain lawsuits against Chanel, “including” employment discrimination and harassment claims, in exchange for that payment. When Ms. Allen returned the signed agreement to Chanel, the word “including” was revised to “excluding.” With respect to Chanel’s counterclaim, the Court found that, because a material term was modified, the parties never achieved a meeting of the minds, and Ms. Allen was thus required to return her severance payment to Chanel. The Parties ultimately stipulated to dismissal of the case’s remaining claims.

On January 10, 2020, Ms. Allen filed a motion to seal her case. Ms. Allen explained that at the time of her separation from Chanel, having no legal background, she had relied on her attorney’s advice when she returned the revised separation agreement to Chanel with a Post-It note on the revised page. She also stated that her attorney had insisted that she submit an affidavit stating that she, rather than her attorney, had modified the agreement. She also stated that the public availability of her case’s docket through online search engines, and commentary on her case in online media, rendered difficult her attempts to gain new employment.

After considering Ms. Allen’s submission, the Court granted Ms. Allen’s request to seal the docket in light of her difficulty finding employment. On August 21, 2020, the Court also directed websites hosting filings from the now-sealed docket, and materials discussing those sealed filings, to remove those materials.

After receiving inquiries from non-parties following the August 21, 2020 Takedown Order, the Court invited comment from the non-parties who had submitted inquiries, as well as from Chanel.

Duck Duck Go, Inc., which operates the fourth-largest search engine in the United States, submitted a comment on October 21, 2020. (Letter from Daniel L. Schmutter, Megan E. Gray & Eugene Volokh (“DuckDuckGo Letter”).) In its submission, DuckDuckGo argued that the Court’s August 21 Takedown Order should be vacated on the basis that: (1) DuckDuckGo could not be bound by the order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65; (2) DuckDuckGo did not have an opportunity to be heard; and (3) the First Amendment protected (i) DuckDuckGo’s right to publish the information disclosed by the government, i.e., the docket entries in this case and (ii) the rights of websites to which DuckDuckGo would point its users.

Free Law Project, which provides free, public, and permanent access to primary legal materials on the Internet for educational, charitable, and scientific purposes, also submitted comment (Letter from Catherine Crump & Megan Graham, dated Oct. 21, 2020.) Free Law Project submitted that it should not be bound by the Court’s August 21, 2020 Order under F.R.C.P. 65 because it was a non-party that obtained the case materials independently and had no opportunity to be heard, and because the First Amendment protects Free Law Project’s right to publish the information it lawfully obtained. Moreover, Free Law Project advocated that the submissions in response to the Court’s September 30 Order should be docketed and that the entire docket in this case should be unsealed.

Ms. Allen submitted by email responses to the non-parties’ comments. She reiterated her struggle finding employment because of the public access to the docket of her cases, which had been compounded by additional recent personal hardship. DuckDuckGo submitted a response letter acknowledging Ms. Allen’s professional and personal difficulties but maintained that these interests were insufficient to overcome the due process and First Amendment rights of DuckDuckGo and those similarly situated and the Rule 65 limitations on the scope of injunctions

Additionally, on October 28, 2020, counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Professor Eugene Volokh of UCLA School of Law filed a motion to intervene (see Letter from Daniel L. Schmutter, dated Oct. 28, 2020), which Ms. Allen opposed (Letter from Marshall Bellovin, dated Oct. 30, 2020)….

“The First Amendment accords a strong presumption of public access to pleadings and other judicial documents that ‘have historically been open to the press and general public’ and ‘play a significant positive role in the functioning of the judicial process.'” It is well-settled that “documents submitted to a court for its consideration in a summary judgment motion are—as a matter of law—judicial documents to which a strong presumption of access attaches, under both the common law and the First Amendment.” Although this presumption applies most strongly to materials such as those produced at trial or filed in support of dispositive motions, such as the summary judgment motion here, it extends to “pretrial motions and written documents submitted in connection with them, and docket sheets.”

Although this presumption in favor of public access is fundamental, private litigants can in some cases overcome it and shield docketed materials from the public eye…. For sealing to be justified on any basis, however, a court must make “specific, on-the-record findings that sealing is necessary to preserve higher values.” Moreover, the nature and extent of the sealing must be narrowly tailored to serve these interests.

Upon reconsideration, the Court finds that Ms. Allen’s interest in sealing her case cannot defeat the presumption of public access that attaches to this case’s docket and its filings. Ms. Allen proffers her reasons in support of sealing the docket in both her original sealing request and in response to comments from the non-parties. She articulates that the public availability of the docket continued to create enormous challenges in her employment search and has affected her livelihood and wellbeing. She also notes for the Court that the modification of the contract with Chanel recounted in the Court’s motion for summary judgment, actions which some online commentators have attributed to her, was done on account of the advice of her attorney and led her to file a formal grievance against him.

Ms. Allen’s concerns are evident and undoubtedly significant. As the prospective interveners point out, however, a private litigant’s general concerns about reputational harm or negative impact to her employment prospects are not sufficient to counteract the public’s First Amendment right to these court filings.

Moreover, the fact that the docket sheet in this case and its filings have been public for years prior to the unsealing request is further dispositive of this issue. Although the Court sympathizes with Ms. Allen’s plight, in light of the recognized First Amendment rights of the press and the public, it cannot make the requisite, on the record finding that sealing is proper here. {Sealing the case’s docket also would not be a sufficiently narrowly tailored solution under these circumstances.}

As the prospective intervenors point out, however, Ms. Allen may not be completely without recourse…. “The normal remedy for alleged attorney misbehavior is a malpractice lawsuit or a sanctions award …[.”]  Although the First Amendment prohibits Ms. Allen from sealing the public record, it gives her the opportunity to correct it.

Accordingly, the Court must vacate the March 10, 2020 Order that originally sealed this case’s docket. Moreover, because the Court’s August 21, 2020 Takedown Order was issued on the basis of the March 10, 2020 sealing order, the Court also vacates the August 21, 2020 order….

Just as “‘[r]epresentatives of the press … must be given an opportunity to be heard on the question of their exclusion’ from a court proceeding,” the Court of Appeals has “recognized a similar right of news media to intervene in this Court to seek unsealing of documents filed in a court proceeding.” Here, the Court has afforded non-parties an opportunity to comment without formal intervention, however, and has vacated its March 10, 2020 order sealing the docket in this case (and thus there are no materials left to be unsealed) and the August 21, 2020 Takedown Order. Accordingly, the Court denies as moot the prospective intervenors’ motion to intervene….

Ms. Allen shall transmit a copy of this order to any search engine, news outlet, or other domain to which she sent a copy of this Court’s March 10, 2020 Order or August 21, 2020 Takedown Order.

For more, see Free Law Project’s Twitter thread on the case.

Many thanks to Dan Schmutter of Hartman & Winnicki for his pro bono help in the case, to UCLA School of Law student Leeza Arbatman for her work on the filings, and to Scott & Cyan Banister for their generous support of our UCLA First Amendment Clinic. Note that some of the recent filings remain sealed, but I think that’s just because there’s a brief delay with the unsealing.

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