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Submitted by Clarice Palmer via TheAntiMedia.org,

Julian Assange is one of the most wanted men in the world. After a recent tweet, however, he might also be at the top target of Hillary Clinton’s alleged “hit list.”

On Wednesday, the WikiLeaks founder took to Twitter to urge Americans not to waste their vote on President Barack Obama’s former Secretary of State — unless they want the country to be involved in yet another ongoing military entanglement.

In a post shared by the WIkiLeaks account, Assange began with the statement:

“A vote today for Hillary Clinton is a vote for endless, stupid war.”

He went on to claim Clinton bears responsibility for the Iraq War, but for other failed military campaigns undertaken by the United States.

“Hillary didn’t just vote for Iraq,” he said. “She made her own Iraq. Libya is Hillary’s Iraq and if she becomes president she will make more.”

During his many years of experience scrutinizing official U.S. communications, Assange has had access to “thousands” of her cables. To the Australian truth-seeker, “Hillary lacks judgement and will push the United States into endless wars which spread terrorism.” Despite her current popularity among some of the most established figures of the Democratic party, Assange argues that her “personality combined with her poor policy decisions have directly contributed to the rise of ISIS.”

Clinton has long-reviled WikiLeaks, and last year, her email records revealed that while she served as Secretary of State, her aides coordinated with CBS’s 60 Minutes to craft a narrative against Assange while he was interviewed on the show. Assange had previously leaked cables about her State Department.

Regardless of their direct hostility towards each other, Assange is not the only one who has accused Clinton of playing a major part in the rise of the Islamic State.

During a campaign stop in Biloxi, Mississippi, Republican front-runner and business mogul Donald Trump claimed Clinton helped President Barack Obama to create ISIS.

“I’m pretty good at signals, and I see a lot of things happening,” he told the audience. “They’ve created ISIS. Hillary Clinton created ISIS with Obama—created with Obama,” he repeated.

When questioned about the deadly attack against the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), the then-Secretary of State failed to answer whether the United States was using the Benghazi embassy to smuggle guns to Syrian rebels. While many dismissed Paul’s theory as a “conspiracy theory,” the senator was vindicated when Judicial Watch obtained documents that confirmed U.S. agencies were aware of the gun smuggling operation.

“Pentagon generals objected to destroying the Libyan state,” explained Assange in his long-form tweet.. “They felt Hillary did not have a safe post-war plan.”

But despite the generals’ warnings, “Hillary Clinton went over their heads.”

To Assange, Clinton’s decisions helped create a safe haven for the Islamic State. With the looting of the Libyan national armory and the transference of weapons to jihadists in Syria, Assange argues that “Hillary’s war has increased terrorism, killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians and has set back women’s rights in the Middle East by hundreds of years.”

Assange closes his pledge by saying Clinton shouldn’t even “be let near a gun shop, let alone an army. And she certainly should not become president of the United States.”

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/20sF6pE Tyler Durden

2016 is shaping up to be the year that everyone finally comes to terms with the fact that the monetary emperors truly have no clothes.

To be sure, it’s been a long time coming. For nearly 8 years, market participants and economists convinced themselves that the answer was always “more Keynes.” Global trade still stagnant? Cut rates. Economic growth still stuck in neutral? Buy more assets.

It was almost as if everyone lost sight of the fact that if printing fiat scrip and tinkering with the cost of money were the answers, there would never be any problems. That is, policy makers can always hit ctrl+P and/or move rates around. But in order to resuscitate anemic aggregate demand and revive inflation, you need to tackle the core problems facing the global economy – not paper over them (and we mean “paper over them” in the most literal sense of the term).

Well late last month, central banks officially lost control of the narrative. Kuroda’s move into negative territory reeked of desperation and given the surging JPY and tumbling Japanese stocks, it’s pretty clear that the half-life on central bank easing has fallen dramatically.

And so, as the market wakes up from the punchbowl party with a massive hangover, everyone is suddenly left to contemplate “quantitative failure.” Below, courtesy of BofA’s Michael Hartnett is a bullet point summary of 8 years spent chasing the dragon… and a list of the disappointing results.

*  *  * 

From BofA

Whether the recent tipping point was the Fed hike, negative rates in Europe & Japan, or simply the growing market dislocations and macro misallocation of resources and wealth, the deflationary theme of “Quantitative Failure” is stalking the financial markets. A multi-year period of major policy intervention & “financial repression” is ending with weak economic growth & investors rebelling against QE.

In short, monetary policies of…

• 637 rate cuts since Bear Stearns
• $12.3tn of asset purchases by global central banks in the past 8 years
• $8.3tn of global government debt currently yielding 0% or less
• 489 million people currently living in countries with official negative rates policies (i.e. Japan, Eurozone, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark)
• -0.92%, the most negative yield in the world (2-year Swiss government bond)

…have in 2016 led to a macro environment symbolized by…

• BofAML’s Chief US Economist Ethan Harris cutting potential trend real GDP growth in the US to 1.75%
• inflation expectations in both the US & Europe dropping below 2008 levels & a global profits recession
• one of the most deflationary recoveries of all-time: in the past 26 quarters the nominal GDP of advanced economies has grown 11%

and a significant impact on Wall Street…

• a bear market in equities (median stock in ACWI is down 28% from its highs; 45% of global stocks (1123) are down >30% from highs)
• bear market in commodities (10-year rolling return from commodities is currently -5.1%, the worst since 1938) & credit markets
• $686bn of market cap loss for global banks since Dec 15th – the day before the Fed hiked – and worsening global liquidity conditions, which in-turn will likely cause bank lending standards to tighten further

• and, most conspicuously, falling bank stocks and falling bond yields suggesting that 6 years of QE has failed to arrest deflation.

*  *  *

What comes next is anyone’s guess but with China’s credit bubble about to burst in spectacular fashion, we wonder how central banks plan to combat the ensuing hit to the global economy. After all, their counter-cyclical policy room is not only exhausted, they’ve now taken the easing bias so far into the monetary twilight zone that in Japan’s case, things are starting to backfire and are becoming self referential (see the recently canceled JGB auction). 

Throw in the fact that $12.3 trillion in asset purchases has impaired liquidity across markets and you have the conditions for what could turn into a truly harrowing year not only for Wall Street, but for Main Street as well. The same Main Street that was allegedly saved by a “courageous” Ben Bernanke who started us all down this road 8 long years ago.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1Qc8pNG Tyler Durden

With the S&P down just about 10% YTD, hedge funds especially of the levered-beta variety have not had a good year; that said, it would be fair to say that many have not had a terrible year either. In fact, as the following table of hedge fund performance by some of the most marquee names shows, while there are certain outliers in the YTD column some 6 weeks into 2016, most of the hedge funds have actually done that, and while most are around the flatline, there are some notable outliers, perhaps most notably Boaz Weinstein Saba which late last year many had left for dead.

First, here are the top 20 best and worst hedge funds of 2016 as of February 12 according to HSBC.

 

Next, below is a summary of the performance by some of the marquee hedge fund names for which we have data:

 

Finally, the reason we have bolded the performance of Blackrock’s Obsidian fund, the asset manager’s global credit hedge fund, is because as Bloomberg reports it is off to its worst start in its 19-year history. The Obsidian fund sits within the $4.6 trillion money manager’s $32 billion hedge fund unit, which runs about 30 strategies. The fund started trading in July 1996, making it the unit’s oldest strategy.

More details from Bloomberg:

The flagship $1.9 billion Obsidian fund fell 4 percent in January after failing to anticipate “the extent to which markets would trade in lockstep with commodities,” according to an investor update, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg. The fund lost money from corporate credit and global-rate strategies.

 

Obsidian, led by Stuart Spodek, entered this year betting that investment-grade company debt would benefit from growth in the U.S., a “shallow trajectory for Fed hikes” as well as the European Central Bank’s monetary policy. Instead, fears of a global recession and a further decline in oil prices weighed on markets. A Standard & Poor’s report last month showed the outlook for corporate borrowers globally was the worst since the financial crisis.

 

“While we believe these recessionary fears are inconsistent with current fundamentals and our expectations for forward fundamentals, we underestimated the sharp and broad risk aversion in response to declining oil and weakening data,” the firm told clients.

 

The fund made some money from bets against higher-quality energy issuers and regional banks with significant exposure to energy, according to the update.

We expect many other funds, credit or otherwise, to blame underperformance on recessionary fears despite “declining oil and weakening data”, until either they are shut down, or the snapback in cognitive dissonance is aided and abetted by the NBER which eventually admits that the recession arrived some time ago.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1O6Mtfg Tyler Durden

Another day, another OPEC Production Cut rumor, and another massive swing in WTI Crude oil prices. But having run stops to these levels, we wonder what happens next?

 

This 11.5% ramp is among the biggest single-day moves in oil’s history…

 

Driving realized volatility near record highs…

 

But sadly, stocks are not correlating…

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1Ll1BWz Tyler Durden

The Fed’s Bill Dudley just unleashed the most cognitively dissonant statement of his career. That superlative is highlighted by theses two headlines:

• DUDLEY SAYS U.S. ECONOMY IS IN QUITE GOOD SHAPE
• DUDLEY: DON’T SEE NEGATIVE RATES HAVING ‘BIG CONSEQUENCE’

Try telling The BoJ’s Kuroda that!!

 

 

Nope – no consequence at all…

Yet again his comments confirm The Fed’s utter confusion…

Today:

• DUDLEY: MANY STEPS BEFORE FED WOULD CONSIDER NEGATIVE RATES 

 

Yesterday:

• YELLEN: FED LOOKING AT  NEGATIVE RATES AGAIN

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1PRlGJB Tyler Durden

After starting out strongly this morning, with DB stock trading just shy of $17/share, European banks have seen some weakness in the past hour following a report from Reuters, in which sources were cited as saying that there is “firm support for a deposit rate cut within the European Central Bank’s Governing Council.” While a year ago this would have sent European stocks soaring, this is no longer the case as explained by none other than Deutsche Bank last weekend:

• Declining bond yields have been robustly associated with larger inflows into bonds at the expense of equities. Though a large over allocation to fixed income at the expense of equities already exists as a result of past Fed QEs and a lack of normalization of rates, further easing by the ECB and BOJ that lower bond yields globally will only exacerbate the over allocation to bonds;
• Asynchronous easing by the ECB and BOJ while the Fed is on hold risks speeding up the dollar’s up cycle, pushing oil prices lower and exacerbating credit concerns in the Energy, Metals and Mining sectors. It is notable that the ECB’s adoption of negative rates in mid-2014 which prompted the large move in the dollar and collapse in oil prices, marked the beginning of the now huge outflows from High Yield. These flows out of High Yield rotated into High Grade, ironically moving up not down the risk spectrum. The downside risk to oil prices is tempered somewhat by the fact that they look cheap and look to be already pricing in the next leg of dollar strength;
• Asynchronous easing by the ECB and BOJ that is reflected in the US dollar commensurately raises the trade-weighted RMB and increase the risk of a disorderly devaluation by China. The risk of further declines in the JPY is tempered by the fact that it is already very (-29%) cheap, but there is plenty of valuation room for the euro to fall.

This explicit warning is one additional factor why European banks have plunged by 30% in recent weeks, and as noted earlier, have suffered such an abysmal start to the year it makes 2008 seem tame by comparison.

This perhaps also explains why Reuters adds that while a rate hike is in the works, “appetite for more radical action is still limited, conversations with policymakers indicate a month before the March rate decision.”

Following DB’s line of logic, one can see why Mario Draghi should be concerned: any more unconventional easing could have an increasingly more dramatic impact on bank profitability as yield curves invert ever more.

And yet the ECB has to do something (hence the problem duly noted by DB this morning): “With long-term inflation expectations falling, the ECB will probably have to act and frame the rate cut as part of broader a package, with some measures involving changes to the bank’s flagship asset-purchase program, policymakers told Reuters.

But with no consensus yet about which further measures to take and Europe’s modest economic recovery still broadly on track, some of those spoken to cautioned against radical action. They noted, however, that their view could still change if recent market turmoil proved lasting, posing a risk to the real economy.

Turmoil resulting from the ECB’s radical actions.

More from Reuters:

ECB President Mario Draghi has said the bank would review and possibly recalibrate its stance in March to fight persistently low inflation. Markets now price at least two rate cuts, taking the deposit rate to -0.55 percent by the end of the year from -0.3 percent. 

“Doing nothing in March is very unlikely,” the governor of one of the euro zone’s 19 central banks told Reuters. “Monetary conditions have tightened, long term inflation expectations are falling and credibility is at stake. I think a deposit rate cut is fairly undisputed.”

And herein lies the rub: conditions have tightened in large part due to the ECB’s actions, which means Draghi’s credibility is not only at stake, but will be further reduced no matter what he does.

Finally, if NIRP is off the table, will the ECB do something else? Quite possible:

But based on the current outlook, including the increased market volatility, moving the deposit rate alone does not appear to be enough for some policymakers.

 

“The chance of a rate cut is high,” said another governor, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “It wouldn’t do enough and it would be a mistake to signal that we’re relying on conventional policies when we’re going to be in the unconventional sphere for years to come.”

 

“Quantitative easing is our key policy tool and I think any package needs to have a QE component,” the policymaker added.

So, in short, now that we know that banks have a revulsive reaction to more NIRP, the question is how they will react to news of more QE from a European Central Bank which has for the past year become increasingly collateral constrained. If an announcement of more QE by Draghi leads to further selling, then central banks are truly out of ammo and only monetary paradrops remain.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1oajP8r Tyler Durden

Having already warned of a “deflationary mindset,” today’s University of Michigan Confidence data suggests Americans are falling deeper into dis-inflation territory. Today’s headline tumble in confidence to 4-month lows, with “hope” dropping to 6-month lows is dominated by the plunge in 5-10 year inflation expectations to 2.4% (from 2.7%) – a 36-year record low.

 

 

Whatever you’re doing Janet – It’s not working!

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1O6In6P Tyler Durden

 

 

 

By EconMatters

Always stay calm while others are panicking – especially in financial markets. There is a lot of talking one`s book going on in the markets with incentives to create panic and hysteria in the financial markets with the media the willing accomplice in how the game is played. The world is rarely a worst case scenario – that should never be a baseline position. 

 

 

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via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/20Q7veH EconMatters

After some stabilization into mid-2015, the ratio of business inventories-to-sales has surged as sales have disappointed and mal-investment-driven dreams have over-stocked. Business inventories rose 0.1% MoM in December (retail up 0.4%) and sales tumbled 0.6%.

Year-over-year, Inventories are now up 1.7% (led by retailers up 5.4%) while Sales are down 2.4% (led by Manufacturers down 5.1%)

Recession?

 

At 1.39x, the current ratio is flashing a warning that a deep de-stocking recession looms.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1oadY36 Tyler Durden