Category: zerohedge

Just days ahead of the most-anticipated IPO of the year, and despite the constant calming language from the mainstream media, as the WSJ notes, investors are stampeding into initial public offerings at the fastest clip since the financial crisis, fueling a frenzy in the shares of newly listed companies that echoes the technology-stock craze of the late 1990s. October was the busiest month for U.S.-listed IPOs since 2007, and while ‘everyone’ is convinced that the Twitter IPO will be different from Facebook, the early exuberant demand suggests otherwise:

• *TWITTER SEES IPO PRICE $23-$25, HAD SEEN $17-$20

So a 25% rise in the offering price perhas best contextualizes the comments of one broker: “When I hear intelligent investors asking me not which companies are good to invest in, but which IPOs can I get into, it scares the heck of me.”

 

But it’s not all rainbows and unicorns:

• TWITTER INC UPDATES RISK FACTOR IN IPO FILING; TWITTER RECENTLY GOT LETTER FROM IBM ALLEGING THAT CO INFRINGE ON AT LEAST 3 US PATENTS HELD BY IBM
• TWITTER INC – PATENTS SPECIFICALLY IDENTIFIED BY IBM INCLUDED PATENT ON ‘METHOD FOR PRESENTING ADVERTISING IN AN INTERACTIVE SERVICE’ – SEC FILING

 

But of course, none of that matters – as the flow has to go somwehere, and the VC has to get paid…

 

Via WSJ,

October was the busiest month for U.S.-listed IPOs since 2007, with 33 companies raising more than $12 billion.

 

…

 

The rush to buy shares of newly public companies is the latest sign of investors’ thirst for assets with potential upside, at a time when relatively safe investments are generating scant income due to tepid economic growth and Federal Reserve policies that have kept a lid on U.S. interest rates.

 

Many of these companies aren’t profitable. But investors increasingly are willing to roll the dice, particularly on technology firms that they say have the potential to “disrupt” the industry.

 

…

 

So far this year, 61% of companies selling U.S.-listed IPOs have lost money in the 12 months preceding their debuts, according to Jay Ritter, professor of finance at the University of Florida. That is the highest percentage since 2000, the year the Nasdaq Composite Index roared to its all-time high of 5048.62.

 

…

 

Many IPOs this year have raised funds to pay back debt to private-equity owners rather than to invest in corporate expansion,

 

…

 

“These are good companies,” said John Bichelmeyer, co-manager of the $450 million Buffalo Emerging Opportunities Fund, the top small-cap growth mutual fund by three-year performance, according to Morningstar. “It’s just, you’re pricing in all the growth on day one.”

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/QlruZHz9REI/story01.htm Tyler Durden

 

America’s tax system and the major social programs (Medicaid and Obamacare) are driven by income. The Social Security Administration has put out a report on income in America. The data covers all wage earners (153.6 million workers and the $6.5 Trillion they earned). The Following is a pic of the report (link), if you’re working, you’re somewhere on this page:

 

 

Let’s start at the top of the pile, those that are making the really big bucks. For example, consider the number of people who made $50m in 2012 (the 0.0001%). There are 166 people in this group. Who are these folks? Basketballer Lebron James made the list, so did actors/performers Robert Downey Junior, Beyonce, Cameron Diaz and Christian Bale. From the corporate side we have Disney’s Robert Iger and Apple’s Tim Cooke.

 

 

Who are the wealthy in America? Anyone making over a million bucks a year is certainly on the list. The plus $1M set totaled 119,400 people (0.08%). These lucky few earned a total of $170b (3% of all income). How much should these folks be paying in taxes? Let’s go hog wild and nail them with a tax of 90%. The incremental revenue (they already are taxed at 39.6%) would be $85b, but sadly, that only covers five weeks of Social Security benefits.

 

The IRS defines ‘rich’ as an individual with annual income of $200k ($250k per couple). This income level marks the 1%:

 

 

1.6m workers (1% of total) earned $900b (14% of all income). This is the measure of US income inequality. The 1% earn 14% of the pie. If the federal tax rate were increased to 75% (double current), it would increase revenue for Uncle Sam by about $150B. That does not fill a $1 trillion bucket, and it would be an economic disaster to set tax levels at French rates. Bottom line – the notion that taxing the rich is a solution is all wet.

 

Now consider the bottom. In the case of Medicaid, the cut off for availability is equal to 138% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL). For a single person the number is $16,600, for a couple it’s $22,000, for a family of four it’s $33,000. The average income for all individuals/families that might qualify for Medicaid is about $25,000. If you look that up on the SS chart you see that a whopping 46% of all income earners can qualify for Medicaid.

 

 

And then there is the Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare). To be eligible for Federal subsidies, one must have an income of less than 400% of FPL. Depending on family size, subsides are available up to $90,000 of income, but the average income where the subsidies are significant is closer to $50K. Again, look up that income level on the SS chart. 73% of all workers make less than $50k! 7out of 10 workers are eligible for subsidies? That blows my mind. No wonder the Democrats love ACA so much – freebies have always translated into votes

 

 

So who is left in the middle? There were 41m workers (23% of total) who made more than $50k and less than $250k. This group earned $3.5T (52% of total income). So the middle is where the money is; a quarter of all workers earn half of all income.

 

If Washington needs more revenue, it must come from the folks in the middle. But the reality is that the middle is already taxed from every direction (they also pay state income taxes, Social Security and other payroll taxes, property and sales taxes. So once again, raising taxes as a way of balancing the nation’s ledger seems to be a very difficult task.

 

 

What to make of all these numbers? Something is clearly wrong when 47% of workers earn a poverty level income. Similarly, there is something wrong when 1% of workers earn 14% of all income. The obvious solution is to tax those on the top and transfer it down to the bottom. But that is what we are already doing; more of the same is not going to change the outcome.

 

My conclusion is that America is not the ‘rich’ country that people think it is. And there ain’t a hell of lot that can be done about that.

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/69EjZGP5-J0/story01.htm Bruce Krasting

 

America’s tax system and the major social programs (Medicaid and Obamacare) are driven by income. The Social Security Administration has put out a report on income in America. The data covers all wage earners (153.6 million workers and the $6.5 Trillion they earned). The Following is a pic of the report (link), if you’re working, you’re somewhere on this page:

 

 

Let’s start at the top of the pile, those that are making the really big bucks. For example, consider the number of people who made $50m in 2012 (the 0.0001%). There are 166 people in this group. Who are these folks? Basketballer Lebron James made the list, so did actors/performers Robert Downey Junior, Beyonce, Cameron Diaz and Christian Bale. From the corporate side we have Disney’s Robert Iger and Apple’s Tim Cooke.

 

 

Who are the wealthy in America? Anyone making over a million bucks a year is certainly on the list. The plus $1M set totaled 119,400 people (0.08%). These lucky few earned a total of $170b (3% of all income). How much should these folks be paying in taxes? Let’s go hog wild and nail them with a tax of 90%. The incremental revenue (they already are taxed at 39.6%) would be $85b, but sadly, that only covers five weeks of Social Security benefits.

 

The IRS defines ‘rich’ as an individual with annual income of $200k ($250k per couple). This income level marks the 1%:

 

 

1.6m workers (1% of total) earned $900b (14% of all income). This is the measure of US income inequality. The 1% earn 14% of the pie. If the federal tax rate were increased to 75% (double current), it would increase revenue for Uncle Sam by about $150B. That does not fill a $1 trillion bucket, and it would be an economic disaster to set tax levels at French rates. Bottom line – the notion that taxing the rich is a solution is all wet.

 

Now consider the bottom. In the case of Medicaid, the cut off for availability is equal to 138% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL). For a single person the number is $16,600, for a couple it’s $22,000, for a family of four it’s $33,000. The average income for all individuals/families that might qualify for Medicaid is about $25,000. If you look that up on the SS chart you see that a whopping 46% of all income earners can qualify for Medicaid.

 

 

And then there is the Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare). To be eligible for Federal subsidies, one must have an income of less than 400% of FPL. Depending on family size, subsides are available up to $90,000 of income, but the average income where the subsidies are significant is closer to $50K. Again, look up that income level on the SS chart. 73% of all workers make less than $50k! 7out of 10 workers are eligible for subsidies? That blows my mind. No wonder the Democrats love ACA so much – freebies have always translated into votes

 

 

So who is left in the middle? There were 41m workers (23% of total) who made more than $50k and less than $250k. This group earned $3.5T (52% of total income). So the middle is where the money is; a quarter of all workers earn half of all income.

 

If Washington needs more revenue, it must come from the folks in the middle. But the reality is that the middle is already taxed from every direction (they also pay state income taxes, Social Security and other payroll taxes, property and sales taxes. So once again, raising taxes as a way of balancing the nation’s ledger seems to be a very difficult task.

 

 

What to make of all these numbers? Something is clearly wrong when 47% of workers earn a poverty level income. Similarly, there is something wrong when 1% of workers earn 14% of all income. The obvious solution is to tax those on the top and transfer it down to the bottom. But that is what we are already doing; more of the same is not going to change the outcome.

 

My conclusion is that America is not the ‘rich’ country that people think it is. And there ain’t a hell of lot that can be done about that.

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/69EjZGP5-J0/story01.htm Bruce Krasting

In a stunning series of lies, damned lies, and twisted statistics, the Fed’s Jim Bullard unleashed a torrent of self-agrandizing comfort-speak on CNBC this morning. From his comment that “bubbles, such as housing and dot-com, were blindingly obvious at the time,” despite Bernanke’s (and Greenspan’s) insistence at the time that they were not to his comments about the size of Fed Treasury holdings (and monetization) as being “average” based on some statistic, the Fed president gave himself one more out as he admonished:

• *BULLARD SAYS FED DOESN’T WANT TO SUPPORT ‘FISCAL RECKLESSNESS’

Oh no, you’d never want to do that… With an administration lying to the American people’s face over Obamacare and now the even more powerful Fed incapable of the truth, what hope is there that anyone gets out of this debacle in tact.

 

On the “blindingly obvious” bubbles of the past:

Bullard today (with his hindsight glasses on): “Bubbles, such as housing, were blindlingly obvious at the time…”

 

Bernanke at the time: “U.S. house prices have risen by nearly 25% over the past two years, noted Bernanke, currently chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, in testimony to Congress’s Joint Economic Committee. But these increases, he said, “largely reflect strong economic fundamentals,” such as strong growth in jobs, incomes and the number of new households. “

But perhaps the most important question is about how much of the debt issued by Jack Lew is monetized by the Fed: The Fed president squirms uncomfortably at around the 1 minute mark when CNBC’s Joe Kiernan asks about just how much of the Treasury’s issuance, the Fed holds (and by implication monetizing) what follows is a very disingenuous bristling, namely that it is no more than during prior episodes.

 

Which is simply a lie because Bullard of all people should know full well, the Fed’s holdings are expressed not in notional amounts but in 10 Year equivalents, and as the chart below shows, the line is now very steeply vertical…

And in percentage terms, is now 33% of the entire bond market!

The Fed has never held so much of the US Treasury issuance – ever – in the only terms that matter, namely 10 Year equivalents, despite Bullard’s claims.

Finally on the most meaningless issue of all, the Taper:

• *BULLARD SAYS ECONOMY HAS TO DRIVE FED POLICY
• *BULLARD SAYS `WE DON’T HAVE TO BE IN ANY HURRY’ ON TAPERING
• *FED’S BULLARD SAYS QE HAS BEEN EFFECTIVE
• *FED’S BULLARD SAYS UNEMPLOYMENT IS A GOOD MEASURE
• *FED’S BULLARD SEES `CUMULATIVE PROGRESS’ IN LABOR MARKET
• *BULLARD: NEXT 2 JOBS REPORTS WILL GIVE AN IDEA OF LABOR MARKET

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/qUzn-D0tC2s/story01.htm Tyler Durden

In a stunning series of lies, damned lies, and twisted statistics, the Fed’s Jim Bullard unleashed a torrent of self-agrandizing comfort-speak on CNBC this morning. From his comment that “bubbles, such as housing and dot-com, were blindingly obvious at the time,” despite Bernanke’s (and Greenspan’s) insistence at the time that they were not to his comments about the size of Fed Treasury holdings (and monetization) as being “average” based on some statistic, the Fed president gave himself one more out as he admonished:

• *BULLARD SAYS FED DOESN’T WANT TO SUPPORT ‘FISCAL RECKLESSNESS’

Oh no, you’d never want to do that… With an administration lying to the American people’s face over Obamacare and now the even more powerful Fed incapable of the truth, what hope is there that anyone gets out of this debacle in tact.

 

On the “blindingly obvious” bubbles of the past:

Bullard today (with his hindsight glasses on): “Bubbles, such as housing, were blindlingly obvious at the time…”

 

Bernanke at the time: “U.S. house prices have risen by nearly 25% over the past two years, noted Bernanke, currently chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, in testimony to Congress’s Joint Economic Committee. But these increases, he said, “largely reflect strong economic fundamentals,” such as strong growth in jobs, incomes and the number of new households. “

But perhaps the most important question is about how much of the debt issued by Jack Lew is monetized by the Fed: The Fed president squirms uncomfortably at around the 1 minute mark when CNBC’s Joe Kiernan asks about just how much of the Treasury’s issuance, the Fed holds (and by implication monetizing) what follows is a very disingenuous bristling, namely that it is no more than during prior episodes.

 

Which is simply a lie because Bullard of all people should know full well, the Fed’s holdings are expressed not in notional amounts but in 10 Year equivalents, and as the chart below shows, the line is now very steeply vertical…

And in percentage terms, is now 33% of the entire bond market!

The Fed has never held so much of the US Treasury issuance – ever – in the only terms that matter, namely 10 Year equivalents, despite Bullard’s claims.

Finally on the most meaningless issue of all, the Taper:

• *BULLARD SAYS ECONOMY HAS TO DRIVE FED POLICY
• *BULLARD SAYS `WE DON’T HAVE TO BE IN ANY HURRY’ ON TAPERING
• *FED’S BULLARD SAYS QE HAS BEEN EFFECTIVE
• *FED’S BULLARD SAYS UNEMPLOYMENT IS A GOOD MEASURE
• *FED’S BULLARD SEES `CUMULATIVE PROGRESS’ IN LABOR MARKET
• *BULLARD: NEXT 2 JOBS REPORTS WILL GIVE AN IDEA OF LABOR MARKET

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/qUzn-D0tC2s/story01.htm Tyler Durden

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/FE3igYez4jI/story01.htm williambanzai7

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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/L7SqXO7ZScY/story01.htm williambanzai7

If he liked it at $12 he must love it at $6?

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/vHTOiCEimt8/story01.htm Tyler Durden

If he liked it at $12 he must love it at $6?

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/vHTOiCEimt8/story01.htm Tyler Durden

But this year was supposed to be different… Early-year prospects for a revival in consumer spending quickly faded in the wake of the lagged impact of the $148 billion tax hike that began the year. As Bloomberg’s Joe Brusuelas notes in the following brief interview, combined with a slower pace of hiring and sluggish wage growth, the result will probably be another in a string of disappointing holiday shopping seasons. It is increasingly doubtful that consumers have the wherewithal to meet the ambitious National Retail Federation forecast for a 3.9% increase in holiday spending to $602.1 billion. Brusuelas believes a 2 to 2.5% increases appears closer to the mark given the economic and policy challenges in place this year.

Via Bloomberg Briefs,

First, starting Nov. 1 one-sixth, or about 48 million, of individuals receiving food stamps will see a net loss of almost $16 billion in transfer payments due to cuts in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

 

Those in the lower two quintile of income earners, which receive the bulk of U.S. SNAP payments, will probably transfer outlays on discretionary items like electronics and apparel to inelastic non-discretionary categories such food and utilities. Accordingly, large retail operations such as Krogers, Target and Wal-Mart have reduced their holiday shopping estimates. These reductions, in part, are being attributed to the reduction in SNAP payments, the impact of the government shutdown and overall tepid job and income growth, according to the retailers.

Second, recent fundamental data on manufacturing activity, durable goods orders and hiring slowed noticeably, even before the government shutdown, during the first three weeks of this quarter. With hiring during the past three months barely sufficient to meet demographic needs, and inflation-adjusted personal disposable income up a scant 0.9 percent on a year-ago basis, it is unsurprising that both topline retail sales and sales excluding autos, building materials and gasoline, which feeds into the calculation of GDP, have slowed since June of this year, reflecting a deceleration in overall economic activity.

 

Third, the inventory buildup among retailers is also somewhat troubling given the macroeconomic slowdown and probable fiscal restraint due to policy shifts and standoffs that have characterized the second half of the year. Retailers have increased their inventories by about 6 percent compared to year-ago levels, in contrast with a 5 percent decline in 2012 versus 2011 levels.

Given the well-recognized problems with the JC Penney inventory overhang from earlier in the year, retailers such as the Gap have already begun aggressive discounting. Many have annoucned plans to open stores on Thanksgiving in order to add another shopping day to the season. While that may help bolster sales, the severe discounting will compress margins and add to bottom line woes in the quarter.

Perhaps more troubling is the likelihood that the large inventory build will spill over into the first quarter next year. There is also likely to be a repeat performance of “fiscal follies” in Washington, creating an even greater drag on overall economic growth.

While firms that employ state-of-the-art inventory optimization, such as Wal-Mart, began pulling back on orders in mid-September to mitigate the slowdown in consumer demand, most firms in the supply chain do not have that ability. Carol Lapidus, the National Consumer Products Industry Leader at McGladrey (see the clip above) noted that middle market companies that sell into retail for 2014 are getting smaller. Given where the U.S. is in the business cycle, the opposite should be occurring, which should provide a sober note heading into what will probably be another difficult holiday shopping season.

Finally, an unusual confluence of calendar quirks will result in a net decline of five selling days compared to 2012 in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. In addition, with Hanukkah starting on Nov. 28, a portion of traditional holiday spending will probably be pulled forward into late November and early December, creating a scenario where retailers may be tempted into even greater discounting.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/RBzFKp5igjA/story01.htm Tyler Durden