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While hardly as attention grabbing as the events in Congress today, moments ago the newsworld was shaken following news that the Editor in Chief of Bloomberg news, Matt Winkler, would step down and continue as editor-in-chief emeritus, working directly with Mike Bloomberg, to be replaced with the Editor in Chief of The Economist, John Micklethwait.

Needless to say, this is big news in the media:

Matt Winkler leaving Bloomberg could trigger big shake up in financial media. Will they spin-off the news business and buy FT as bolt on?

— Andrew Critchlow (@baldersdale) December 9, 2014

For those who are unfamiliar with Micklethwait, here is a quick bio:

Micklethwait was born in 1962, in London, England, and educated at the independent school Ampleforth College and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied history. He worked for Chase Manhattan Bank for two years and joined The Economist in 1987. Prior to becoming editor-in-chief, he was United States editor of the publication and ran the New York Bureau for two years. Before that, he edited the Business Section of the newspaper for four years. His other roles have included setting up an office in Los Angeles for The Economist, where he worked from 1990 to 1993. He has covered business and politics from the United States, Latin America, Continental Europe, Southern Africa and most of Asia.

Appointed as editor-in-chief on 23 March 2006, the first issue of The Economist published under his editorship was released on 7 April 2006. He was named Editors’ Editor by the British Society of Magazine Editors in 2010. A frequent broadcaster, Micklethwait has appeared on CNN, ABC News, BBC, C-SPAN, PBS and NPR.

He is a trustee of the British Museum.

He was also a delegate, along with two colleagues, at the 2010 Bilderberg Conference held in Spain. This group consists of an assembly of notable politicians, industrialists and financiers who meet annually to discuss issues on a non-disclosure basis.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1Gf2xsh Tyler Durden

10Y yields are back below 2.20% and 30Y below 2.85% – awkwardly close to the Bullard lows – and stocks appear to be waking up to the massive squeeze-driven decoupling in the last 6 weeks (as USDJPY tests below 118.00). Small Cap Russell 2000 has plunged back into the red year-to-date, and the rest of the equity complex is not “off the lows”. Remember, it’s all about the fun-durr-mentals.

 

Russell 200 back in the red year-to-date but the collapse in Trannies is significant as low oil prices are suddenly not great news…

 

As bonds test low yields of the year…

 

And Treasury shorts remain massively high…

 

Charts:Bloomberg

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

China’s overnight destruction of $80 billion of eligible collateral from the great global carry trade has had destructive consequences on the massively crowded short JPY (long USDJPY) trade. Haviung already lost ground following the dismal downward revisions in GDP, USDJPY is down 350 pips from yesterday morning’s highs (This is the biggest 2-day drop in USDJPY in 18 months.) and the Nikkei 225 is down over 700 points in the same period… Abe approval ratings are plunging-er.

 

USDJPY -350 pips below 118.50 – the biggest 2-day drop in 18 months (since GDP was revised lower)

 

as Nikkei collapses from over 18,200 to 17,500 in 2 days…

 

As the great BoJ/Fed handover begins to fade…

 

The Nikkei is +12% YTD now (in JPY) and USDJPY is up 12.5% – leaving USD-based NKY investors underwater still.

*  *  *

Did the downward revision to Japanese GDP straw finally break the back of the Central Bank Omnipotence camel?

 

Charts: Bloomberg

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1w9yxgo Tyler Durden

Moments after Bank of America reported at today’s Goldman financial conference that its Q4 trading revenues would be down both Q/Q and Y/Y, it was Citi’s turn to warn that the current quarter will be the latest disaster in a long series of revenue disasters, with Q4 revenue said to drop 5% from a year ago, however, despite the drop, Citi would still see a “marginally profitable” quarter. Supposedly this means that a few hundred million shares of stock will have to be repurchased to give the optics that EPS is rising even as revenues continue to drop.

That was to be expected in a financially-engineered, centrally-planned world in which there is no institutional volume left, and all the rigged market levitation takes place on the back of negligible volumes by HFT algos, as well as stock buyback VWAP orders.

What, however, was a surprise, is that alongside the revenue warnings, Citi’s CEO Corbat also announced yet another $2.7 billion in legal, related charges in 4Q, as well as another $800 million in repositioning expenses.

This simply means that for yet another quarter Citi will be charged with billions in recurring, non-one time “one-time, non-recurring” charges which will be dutifully added back to non-GAAP EPS by analysts at all the other banks (whose criminal employers are now engaged in the same racket with the US government).

But what it really means is that it cost Citi some $3.5 billion to keep its employees out of jail for yet another 3 months.

Confused? Then please re-read “$178 Billion In Government Kickbacks: Meet The World’s Biggest Organized Crime Syndicate” where we explained a few very simple things:

Who, in simple numeric terms, is the world’s biggest organized crime syndicate?

 

The answer, courtesy of a new report by the Boston Consulting Group,
which shows the transfer of some $178 billion in litigation costs into
the pockets of  government appartchiks in the past 6 years, is clear.

 

Banks.

 

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1ug9u60 Tyler Durden

Bond prices in Venezuela have totally collapsed this morning – at 45c on the dollar, they are the lowest since 1998 – as the realization of the "abyss" they are staring into sparks an exodus from all credit positions in the country. VENZ 5Y CDS rallied 130bps which signals hedgers unwinding and the simultaneous sale of the underlying bonds implies broad-based capital flight (and profit taking) as 1Y CDS surges to record highs at 4830bps.

 

VENZ Bond prices collapse to 1998 lows…

 

• VENEZUELA 2027 DOLLAR BONDS FALL TO LOWEST SINCE 1998

Venezuela's 1Y CDS has smashed to record highs implying imminent devaluation or default…

 

If you didn't think this was serious, think again. (as Bloomberg reports)

The scores of money managers and analysts who crowded into Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP’s panel discussion on Venezuela last week are a testament to the deepening concern over whether President Nicolas Maduro can make good on the nation’s debt obligations.

 

During the two-hour event on the 39th floor of the law firm’s downtown Manhattan office, some 150 attendees pressed the lawyers on an array of potential scenarios if Venezuela defaulted, according to interviews with six attendees who asked not to be identified because the meeting was private. Among the topics debated were whether the state oil company’s U.S. gasoline stations could be seized as collateral and whether it was legally possible for Venezuela to restructure the producer as an empty shell to avoid bondholder claims, they said.

 

For a country that hasn’t missed a foreign bond payment in decades, the questions reflect growing speculation the socialist revolution that transformed Venezuela over the past 15 years under Hugo Chavez and now Maduro has finally pushed the nation to the brink of economic collapse. After this year’s plummet in oil, which accounts for almost all of Venezuela’s exports, investors are now clamoring for insights from the law firm that represented Argentina in two defaults on how the government might defend itself when the money runs out.

Of course, Maduro is vehemnt that it's not his fault…

Maduro said in a televised speech last night that ratings companies had imposed a “financial blockade” on Venezuela to prevent it from borrowing abroad, and that opposition politicians were to blame for the country’s economic woes.

 

“We have a financial blockade impeding us from getting financing we need to confront the fall in oil prices,” he said in Caracas. Venezuela has lower credit ratings “than countries at war or with Ebola. This has political causes.”

And it appears by the bond price plunge and modest CDS rally in 5Y suggests these various hedged VENZ bond holders did not like what they heard and unwound all their positions.

Which makes sense, as we concluded previously (read more here),

The punchline: "We are thus skeptical that the economic team's plan to tap international lenders, including China, over coming weeks will yield any tangible results."

 

What this means in simple terms is that Venezuela is now desperate for any cash. As CNBC's Silvana Ordonez reports, citing Diego Moya-Ocampos, a senior political risk analyst at IHS, "Clearly the government is trying to send signs to the market that they are working on necessary adjustments that the economy needs in order to honor international commitments and keep up with social policies, which are essential for political stability. However, these policy adjustments are not enough. This reflects simply that the government is desperately looking for funds to compensate for the lost revenues from declining oil prices."

*  *  *

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1ug9u5V Tyler Durden

Less than two weeks after penning his “gold-is-a-6000-year-old bubble” propaganda, which understandably did not include the following chart…

 

… Citigroup’s Willem Buiter was just made an honorary member of the Council of Foreign Relations.

Distinguished Economist Willem Buiter Joins CFR as Senior Fellow

 

December 9, 2014—Willem H. Buiter, a renowned macroeconomist and global chief economist at Citigroup, has joined the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) as an adjunct senior fellow. His work will focus on geoeconomics, deglobalization, international financial institutions, and global economic governance.

 

“We are thrilled to have someone of Willem Buiter’s experience and reputation joining CFR,” said CFR President Richard N. Haass. “His presence will make an already strong economics program that much stronger.”

 

Buiter is the newest addition to CFR’s Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies, which provides analysis on how economic and geopolitical forces interact to influence world affairs.

 

Prior to joining Citigroup, Buiter spent six years as a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, teaching political economy.

 

From 2000 to 2005, he was chief economist and special counsel to the president at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and from 1997 to 2000 was an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England.

 

Additionally, Buiter has been a consultant to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, as well as to other multilateral institutions, national governments, and central banks. He was also a senior advisor at Goldman Sachs International and a member of the Academic Advisory Board of APG Investments.

 

Buiter was a full-time teacher and academic researcher for nearly three decades. He holds a BA in economics from Cambridge University, and an MA, MPhil, and PhD in economics from Yale University.

We can only hope this is an honorary title for his anti-gold crusade. It surely isn’t for the accuracy of his “90% probability of a Grexit” made in 2012.

In summary:

1. Write rambling anti-gold missive
2. Become “senior fellow” at the CFR
3. Profit

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1GeJUF5 Tyler Durden

High-yield energy bond spreads are crashing-er. Up 15bps to 880bps today, these are record wides and massively impact the economics of these firms – no matter how much investors want to ignore it. This is contagiously spreading across the broad high yield and even investment grade credit markets as high yield bond prices crash below the mid-October Bullard lows…

 

HY Energy risk is exploding…

 

And that is contagiously infecting the entire credit complex…

 

Now we will see what BlackRock’s liquidty fears really amount to.

 

Charts: Bloomberg

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1635lxO Tyler Durden