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Yes, it will Snow-den after all in time for Xmas perhaps this year and it will be white all around from the fall-out as the bomb hits. Edward Snowden has recently revealed that he has a secret cache of ‘doomsday’ material that will blow the world apart and the US in particular. Oh, please let it Snow on ‘em before Xmas! The National Security Agency and British Intelligence have both made unofficial comments saying that they are indeed worried about the classified material that Snowden has encrypted and stored on a data cloud. Aren’t they able to access it the poor things?

Snowden’s Doomsday

According to the Guardian newspaper that has been the mouthpiece of Edward Snowden from the very beginning, there is information concerning intelligence personnel names in both the USA and in the rest of the world as well as current former US officials. People that were informed have also been listed in the data. Apparently, Snowden has played the boys at the NSA at their own game and has encrypted the information with multiple passwords and a sophisticated form of encryption. So, it is possible to protect something so well that nobody (not even the NSA) can get their peeping-Tom eyes on it? Why didn’t they do it before? The question hardly needs answering as we all know that everybody was in on the act.

It’ll be Doomsday for Christmas from Snowden this year, but it’s not certain that Santa got that on his list when the NSA sent in their letter to the North Pole, via Russia. The passwords are in the hands of three different people and they change regularly, while remaining open for a very short time-slot each day. All very secretive and sounds like either a sect or a religion, or the Coca-Cola story. Maybe Snowden has the perfect recipe for make things go pop. If he gets arrested, caught or worse, then those three have the task of making the information available to the public.

Whether or not the cache actually exists, the NSA has declined to comment and so has British Intelligence (Government Communications Headquarters or GCHQ). Whatever happens, it is most certainly Snowden’s insurance of protection from being bumped off. Remember the men in black can do whatever they like apparently. According to Obama administration officials, Snowden has enough material to keep the papers going for another two years. He has somewhere between 50 and 200 thousand documents that have been downloaded in his possession. According to estimates, there have been only some 500 documents that have actually been made public to date.

Just the tip of the iceberg.

The NSA and GCHQ had better listen up if they don’t want that top-secret information being revealed. Maybe if the names of spies are on the documents as Snowden has stated, then they will start to become more open to discussion. Snowden just got bargaining power.

Forgotten Snowden

Edward Snowden may be forgotten by the start of 2014 as other things take over our minds and the mainstream media starts to drop him from their pages.

Snowden shouldn’t be dropped and we should make sure that we still care about what the NSA and British Intelligence forces did to our rights as citizens in countries that were supposed to leave us with a minimum of privacy instead of violating that and selling it on to others. We should still care, but how many will still believe that Snowden was a traitor to his country because he told the truth? How many would have preferred not to know? How many will say ‘I knew it all along’?

There are few out there in the world that will actually stand up and shout that yes Snowden admitted what we should have been told long ago. Stop violating our rights. But by January he’ll be just a voice from the past. We will have moved on to greater, more interesting things like the post-festive season sales and how many people are spending the money they don’t actually have (including the US government). That’s far more riveting for some than knowing that our rights have been violated. It’s surprising the number of people that actually believe Snowden to be a traitor.

Those very same people condemn the sheeple for not waking up to reality, but they are so fast asleep that they have done exactly what the US state told them to do: condemn Snowden for revealing the truth. It’s the latter that are even worse than the sheeple, it might seem. The sheeple honestly don’t know they are asleep, at least. There are still 49%(October 2013) of US citizens that believe that Snowden was a traitor to their country and to hell with being monitored by their state. If Snowden does reveal the names of spies and therefore puts those people in danger, then he may just become the traitor he wasn’t meant to be, however. But, he hasn’t done it yet.

You can’t distrust the Obama administration and consider that Obama is dishonestand at the same time believe that Snowden was a traitor. Time to wake up!

Originally posted: It’ll Snow-den in Time for Xmas

 The Stooges are Running the Show, Obama |  Banks: The Right Thing to Do | Bitcoin Bonanza | The Super Rich Deprive Us of Fundamental Rights |  Whining for Wine |Cost of Living Not High Enough in EU | Record Levels of Currency Reserves Will Hit Hard | Internet or Splinternet | World Ready to Jump into Bed with China

 Indian Inflation: Out of Control? | Greenspan Maps a Territory | Gold Rush or Just a Streak? | Obama’s Obamacare: Double Jinx | Financial Markets: Negating the Laws of Gravity  |Blatant Housing-Bubble: Stating the Obvious | Let’s Downgrade S&P, Moody’s and Fitch For Once | US Still Living on Borrowed Time | (In)Direct Slavery: We’re All Guilty |

Technical Analysis: Bear Expanding Triangle | Bull Expanding Triangle | Bull Falling Wedge | Bear Rising Wedge | High & Tight Flag

 

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/xO7lgfgv9OI/story01.htm Pivotfarm

Submitted by Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Nor, of course, is that the end of their contribution to the wider good. These types of people are always the first target of the charity fund-raisers, whether they are looking for a new church roof or a children’s cancer ward. These are the people who put bread on the tables of families who – if the rich didn’t invest in supercars and employ eau de cologne-dabbers – might otherwise find themselves without a breadwinner. And yet they are brow-beaten and bullied and threatened with new taxes, by everyone from the Archbishop of Canterbury to Nick Clegg.

So according to Boris, we couldn’t survive with oligarchs. Why not just bring back royalty? Oh wait…

The rich are resented, not so much for being rich, but for getting ever richer than the middle classes – and the trouble is that the gap is growing the whole time, and especially has done over the past 20 years. It is hard to say exactly why this is, but I will hazard a guess. Of all the self-made super-rich tycoons I have met, most belong to the following three fairly exclusive categories of human being:

It’s not hard to say exactly why the gap has widened. I’ve basically been writing about it for years. His conclusion; however, exposes his embarrassing bias.

(1) They tend to be well above average, if not outstanding, in their powers of mathematical, scientific or at least logical reasoning. (2) They have a great deal of energy, confidence, risk-taking instinct and a desire to make money. (3) They have had the good fortune – by luck or birth – to be able to exploit these talents.

I know a lot of people that demonstrate the above qualities. Many, many people, and none of them are oligarchs. So please give it a rest.

We should be helping all those who can to join the ranks of the super-rich, and we should stop any bashing or moaning or preaching or bitching and simply give thanks for the prodigious sums of money that they are contributing to the tax revenues of this country, and that enable us to look after our sick and our elderly and to build roads, railways and schools.

Now he’s totally off the deep end. I hear the Onion is looking for writers…

Indeed, it is possible, as the American economist Art Laffer pointed out, that they might contribute even more if we cut their rates of tax; but it is time we recognised the heroic contribution they already make. In fact, we should stop publishing rich lists in favour of an annual list of the top 100 Tax Heroes, with automatic knighthoods for the top 10.

Knighthoods. Makes a lot of sense actually since there generally seems to be a strong negative correlation between folks being knighted and being decent human beings.

If this was your attempt at continuing to inflate a oligarch housing bubble in London, congrats Mr. Johnson. Well done. Perhaps some day, you’ll receive your precious knighthood.

Full article here.

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

Submitted by Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Nor, of course, is that the end of their contribution to the wider good. These types of people are always the first target of the charity fund-raisers, whether they are looking for a new church roof or a children’s cancer ward. These are the people who put bread on the tables of families who – if the rich didn’t invest in supercars and employ eau de cologne-dabbers – might otherwise find themselves without a breadwinner. And yet they are brow-beaten and bullied and threatened with new taxes, by everyone from the Archbishop of Canterbury to Nick Clegg.

So according to Boris, we couldn’t survive with oligarchs. Why not just bring back royalty? Oh wait…

The rich are resented, not so much for being rich, but for getting ever richer than the middle classes – and the trouble is that the gap is growing the whole time, and especially has done over the past 20 years. It is hard to say exactly why this is, but I will hazard a guess. Of all the self-made super-rich tycoons I have met, most belong to the following three fairly exclusive categories of human being:

It’s not hard to say exactly why the gap has widened. I’ve basically been writing about it for years. His conclusion; however, exposes his embarrassing bias.

(1) They tend to be well above average, if not outstanding, in their powers of mathematical, scientific or at least logical reasoning. (2) They have a great deal of energy, confidence, risk-taking instinct and a desire to make money. (3) They have had the good fortune – by luck or birth – to be able to exploit these talents.

I know a lot of people that demonstrate the above qualities. Many, many people, and none of them are oligarchs. So please give it a rest.

We should be helping all those who can to join the ranks of the super-rich, and we should stop any bashing or moaning or preaching or bitching and simply give thanks for the prodigious sums of money that they are contributing to the tax revenues of this country, and that enable us to look after our sick and our elderly and to build roads, railways and schools.

Now he’s totally off the deep end. I hear the Onion is looking for writers…

Indeed, it is possible, as the American economist Art Laffer pointed out, that they might contribute even more if we cut their rates of tax; but it is time we recognised the heroic contribution they already make. In fact, we should stop publishing rich lists in favour of an annual list o
f the top 100 Tax Heroes, with automatic knighthoods for the top 10.

Knighthoods. Makes a lot of sense actually since there generally seems to be a strong negative correlation between folks being knighted and being decent human beings.

If this was your attempt at continuing to inflate a oligarch housing bubble in London, congrats Mr. Johnson. Well done. Perhaps some day, you’ll receive your precious knighthood.

Full article here.

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

Lately, the CNBC management team and show producers, and certainly the Comcast C-suite, have been engaged in a flurry of activity: from the departure of the iconic money honey Maria Bartiromo, to the retention of virtually every nubile (and not so nubile) Bloomberg TV anchor, it seems the station that was once known for breaking and analyzing financial news is more focused on the perfect mix of TV anchors. Supposedly in lieu of relevant, actionable content, this will offset the boost viewership. Or so the thinking goes. Sadly this is the same sort of thinking that has made slideshows, kittens, and all-caps headlines an ubiqutous click bait fixture of web media. Unfortunately for CNBC (and perhaps explaining Bartiromo’s decision to jump ship after decades of loyalty) it is not working. According to the latest Nielsen Research data, in November, CNBC’s core 25-54 demographic saw its fourth consecutive month of declines, and dropped to just 31,000 – a declined of over 40% from a year earlier, and the lowest since February 1993: a fresh 13 year low.

 

Some other highlights. CNBC has seen a constant decline in its viewership starting with 2008 when it attracted a total of 274,000 viewers, and 88,000 in its demo, for its full day audience. Subsequently viewership dropped as follows:

• 2009: P2: 226,000; 25-54: 75,000
• 2010: P2: 208,000; 25-54: 65,000
• 2011: P2: 199,000; 25-54: 60,000
• 2012: P2: 171,000; 25-54: 52,000

And the full 2013 breakdown: P2: 147,000; 25-54: 42,000.

In short – total viewership has plunged by 46% in the total audiences, and by 52% in the demographic over the past five years. Which incidentally follows the volume of the “stock market” nearly tick for tick.

What this means is that Bartiromo may have been the latest high profile departure from the station, but she certainly won’t be the last one – the writing on the wall is very clear.

The “good” news is that one can expect progressively more eye candy to grace the mute ticker, as instead of focusing on the only thing that matters to viewers – content – the station follows virtually all other dying legacy (and social) media in pursuing the lowest common denominator, which usually comes in high heels and a mini skirt.

Finally, if interest in CNBC is indeed comparable to overall retail (and institutional) participation in the market as many believe, then not only is the retail investor not coming back, ever, contrary to what the doctored propaganda from assorted funds would like to represent (because strength is always in herds, pardon, numbers) but Bernanke better hope that the “BT(F)D mentality” so eloquently popularized by the abovementioned now ex-CNBC anchor, never departs or else there will be nobody to pick up the pieces on the way down when the selling begins.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/E20vX9dygdA/story01.htm Tyler Durden

The Economist found, rather sadly, despite all the glad-handing and happy-talk, that 53% of financial services executives believed that strict adherence to ethical conduct would make career progression difficult. As this former Wall Street trader told The Guardian, “a precedent needs to be set, to slow down Wall Street’s wild behavior. A reminder that rules are there to be followed, not exploited.” The reason, among others, is summed up by the following, “if a customer wants a red suit, you sell them a red suit. If that customer is Japanese, you charge him twice what it costs.”

 

Via The Guardian,

My first year on Wall Street, 1993, I was paid 14 times more than I earned the prior year and three times more than my father’s best year. For that money, I helped my company create financial products that were disguised to look simple, but which required complex math to properly understand. That first year I was roundly applauded by my bosses, who told me I was clever, and to my surprise they gave me $20,000 bonus beyond my salary.

 

The products were sold to many investors, many who didn’t fully understand what they were buying, most of them what we called “clueless Japanese.” The profits to my company were huge – hundreds of millions of dollars huge. The main product that made my firm great money for close to five years was was called, in typically dense finance jargon, a YIF, or a Yield Indexed Forward.

 

Eventually, investors got wise, realizing what they had bought was complex, loaded with hidden leverage, and became most dangerous during moments of distress.

 

I never did meet the buyers; that was someone else’s job. I stayed behind the spreadsheets. My job was to try to extract as much value as possible through math and clever trading. Japan would send us faxes of documents from our competitors. Many were selling far weirder products and doing it in far larger volume than we were. The conversation with our Japanese customers would end with them urging us on: “We can’t fall behind.”

 

When I did ask, rather naively, if this was all kosher, I would be assured multiple times that multiple lawyers and multiple managers had approved the sales.

 

One senior trader, consoling me late at night, reminded me, “You are playing in the big leagues now. If a customer wants a red suit, you sell them a red suit. If that customer is Japanese, you charge him twice what it costs.”

 

I rationalized that our group was careful by Wall Street standards, trying to stay close to the letter of the law. We tried to abide by an unwritten “five-point rule”: never intentionally make more than five percentage points of profit from a customer.

 

Some competitors didn’t care about the rule. They were making 7% or 10% profit per trade from clients, selling exotic products loaded with hidden traps. I assumed they would eventually face legal charges, or at least public embarrassment, for pushing so clearly away from the spirit of the law.

 

They didn’t. Rather, they got paid better, were lauded as true risk takers, and offered big pay packages to manage similar businesses.

 

Being paid very well also helped ease any of my concerns. Feeling guilty, kid? Here take a big check. I was, for the first time in my life, feeling valued for my math skills – the ones I had to hide throughout my childhood, so as not be labeled a nerd or egghead. Ego and money are nice salves for any potential feeling of guilt.

 

After a few years on Wall Street it was clear to me: you could make money by gaming anyone and everything. The more clever you were, the more ingenious your ability to exploit a flaw in a law or regulation, the more lauded and celebrated you became.

 

Nobody seemed to be getting called out. No move was too audacious. It was like driving past the speed limit at 79 MPH, and watching others pass by at 100, or 110, and never seeing anyone pulled over.

 

Wall Street did nod and wave politely to regulators’ attempts to slow things down. Every employee had to complete a yearly compliance training, where he was updated on things like money laundering, collusion, insider trading, and selling our customers only financial products that were suitable to them.

 

By the early 2000s that compliance training had descended into a once-a-year farce, designed to literally just check a box. It became a one-hour lecture held in a massive hall. Everyone had to go once, listen to the rushed presentation, and then sign a form. You could look down at the audience and see row after row of blue buttoned shirts playing on their Blackberries. I reached new highs on Brick Breaker one year during compliance training. My compliance education that year was still complete.

 

By 2007 the idea of ethics education fell even further. You didn’t even need to show up to a lecture hall; you just had to log on to an online course. It was one hour of slides that you worked through, blindly pushing the “forward” button while your attention was somewhere else. Some managers, too busy for such nonsense, even paid younger employees to sit at their computers and do it for them.

 

As Wall Street grew, fueled by that unchecked culture of risk taking, traders got more and more audacious, and corruption became more and more diffused through the system. By 2006 you could open up almost any major business, look at its inside workings, and find some wrongdoing.

 

After the crash of 2008, regulators finally did exactly that. What has resulted is a wave of scandals with odd names; LIBOR fixing, FX collusion, ISDA Fix.

 

To outsiders they sound like complex acronyms that occupy the darkest corners of Wall Street, easily dismissed as anomalies. They are not. LIBOR, FX, ISDA Fix are at the very center of finance, part of the daily flow of trillions of dollars. The scandals are scarily close to what some on Wall Street believe is standard business practice, a matter of shades of grey.

 

I imagine the people who are named in the scandals are genuinely confused as to why they are being singled out. They were just doing what almost everyone else was, maybe just more aggressive, more reckless. They were doing what they had been trained to do: bending the rules, pushing as far as they could to beat competitors. They had been applauded in the past for their aggressive risk taking, no doubt. Now they are just whipping boys.

 

That’s the paradox at the core of the settlements we’re seeing: where is the real responsibility? Others were doing it, yes. Banks should be fined, yes. But somebody should be charged. Yet the people who really should be held accountable have not. They are the bosses, the managers and CEOs of the businesses. They set the standard, they shaped the culture. The Chuck Princes, Dick Fulds, and Fred Goodwins of the world. They happily shepherded and profited from a Wall Street that spun out of control.

 

A precedent needs to be set, to slow down Wall Street’s wild behavior. A reminder that rules are there to be followed, not exploited. The managers knew what was going on. Ask anyone who works at a bank and they will tell you that.

 

The excuse we have long accepted is ignorance: that these leaders couldn’t have known what was happening. That doesn’t suffice. If they didn’t know, it’s an even larger sin.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/zUFHLr0gHUY/story01.htm Tyler Durden

The Economist found, rather sadly, despite all the glad-handing and happy-talk, that 53% of financial services executives believed that strict adherence to ethical conduct would make career progression difficult. As this former Wall Street trader told The Guardian, “a precedent needs to be set, to slow down Wall Street’s wild behavior. A reminder that rules are there to be followed, not exploited.” The reason, among others, is summed up by the following, “if a customer wants a red suit, you sell them a red suit. If that customer is Japanese, you charge him twice what it costs.”

 

Via The Guardian,

My first year on Wall Street, 1993, I was paid 14 times more than I earned the prior year and three times more than my father’s best year. For that money, I helped my company create financial products that were disguised to look simple, but which required complex math to properly understand. That first year I was roundly applauded by my bosses, who told me I was clever, and to my surprise they gave me $20,000 bonus beyond my salary.

 

The products were sold to many investors, many who didn’t fully understand what they were buying, most of them what we called “clueless Japanese.” The profits to my company were huge – hundreds of millions of dollars huge. The main product that made my firm great money for close to five years was was called, in typically dense finance jargon, a YIF, or a Yield Indexed Forward.

 

Eventually, investors got wise, realizing what they had bought was complex, loaded with hidden leverage, and became most dangerous during moments of distress.

 

I never did meet the buyers; that was someone else’s job. I stayed behind the spreadsheets. My job was to try to extract as much value as possible through math and clever trading. Japan would send us faxes of documents from our competitors. Many were selling far weirder products and doing it in far larger volume than we were. The conversation with our Japanese customers would end with them urging us on: “We can’t fall behind.”

 

When I did ask, rather naively, if this was all kosher, I would be assured multiple times that multiple lawyers and multiple managers had approved the sales.

 

One senior trader, consoling me late at night, reminded me, “You are playing in the big leagues now. If a customer wants a red suit, you sell them a red suit. If that customer is Japanese, you charge him twice what it costs.”

 

I rationalized that our group was careful by Wall Street standards, trying to stay close to the letter of the law. We tried to abide by an unwritten “five-point rule”: never intentionally make more than five percentage points of profit from a customer.

 

Some competitors didn’t care about the rule. They were making 7% or 10% profit per trade from clients, selling exotic products loaded with hidden traps. I assumed they would eventually face legal charges, or at least public embarrassment, for pushing so clearly away from the spirit of the law.

 

They didn’t. Rather, they got paid better, were lauded as true risk takers, and offered big pay packages to manage similar businesses.

 

Being paid very well also helped ease any of my concerns. Feeling guilty, kid? Here take a big check. I was, for the first time in my life, feeling valued for my math skills – the ones I had to hide throughout my childhood, so as not be labeled a nerd or egghead. Ego and money are nice salves for any potential feeling of guilt.

 

After a few years on Wall Street it was clear to me: you could make money by gaming anyone and everything. The more clever you were, the more ingenious your ability to exploit a flaw in a law or regulation, the more lauded and celebrated you became.

 

Nobody seemed to be getting called out. No move was too audacious. It was like driving past the speed limit at 79 MPH, and watching others pass by at 100, or 110, and never seeing anyone pulled over.

 

Wall Street did nod and wave politely to regulators’ attempts to slow things down. Every employee had to complete a yearly compliance training, where he was updated on things like money laundering, collusion, insider trading, and selling our customers only financial products that were suitable to them.

 

By the early 2000s that compliance training had descended into a once-a-year farce, designed to literally just check a box. It became a one-hour lecture held in a massive hall. Everyone had to go once, listen to the rushed presentation, and then sign a form. You could look down at the audience and see row after row of blue buttoned shirts playing on their Blackberries. I reached new highs on Brick Breaker one year during compliance training. My compliance education that year was still complete.

 

By 2007 the idea of ethics education fell even further. You didn’t even need to show up to a lecture hall; you just had to log on to an online course. It was one hour of slides that you worked through, blindly pushing the “forward” button while your attention was somewhere else. Some managers, too busy for such nonsense, even paid younger employees to sit at their computers and do it for them.

 

As Wall Street grew, fueled by that unchecked culture of risk taking, traders got more and more audacious, and corruption became more and more diffused through the system. By 2006 you could open up almost any major business, look at its inside workings, and find some wrongdoing.

 

After the crash of 2008, regulators finally did exactly that. What has resulted is a wave of scandals with odd names; LIBOR fixing, FX collusion, ISDA Fix.

 

To outsiders they sound like complex acronyms that occupy the darkest corners of Wall Street, easily dismissed as anomalies. They are not. LIBOR, FX, ISDA Fix are at the very center of finance, part of the daily flow of trillions of dollars. The scandals are scarily close to what some on Wall Street believe is standard business practice, a matter of shades of grey.

 

I imagine the people who are named in the scandals are genuinely confused as to why they are being singled out. They were just doing what almost everyone else was, maybe just more aggressive, more reckless. They were doing what they had been trained to do: bending the rules, pushing as far as they could to beat competitors. They had been applauded in the past for their aggressive risk taking, no doubt. Now they are just whipping boys.

 

That’s the paradox at the core of the settlements we’re seeing: where is the real responsibility? Others were doing it, yes. Banks should be fined, yes. But somebody should be charged. Yet the people who really should be held accountable have not. They are the bosses, the managers and CEOs of the businesses. They set the standard, they shaped the culture. The Chuck Princes, Dick Fulds, and Fred Goodwins of the world. They happily shepherded and profited from a Wall Street that spun out of control.

 

A precedent needs to be set, to slow down Wall Street’s wild behavior. A reminder that rules are there to be followed, not exploited.
The managers knew what was going on. Ask anyone who works at a bank and they will tell you that.

 

The excuse we have long accepted is ignorance: that these leaders couldn’t have known what was happening. That doesn’t suffice. If they didn’t know, it’s an even larger sin.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/zUFHLr0gHUY/story01.htm Tyler Durden

From Abe Gulkowitz’ The Punch Line

Meager Growth but the Market Roars…

An interim deal on Iran’s nuclear program pushed oil prices lower and sent global equities higher as investors’ risk appetite rose on an easing of some Middle East tensions. As we close in to year-end and the start of a new year, one finds little evidence of serious inflationary concerns. Indeed, the opposite is feared.

Major economies face debilitating deflation pressures. In Europe, for example, the latest annual inflation statistics fell in twenty-three Member States, remained stable in one and rose in only four. The HSBC/Markit Flash China PMI came in at 50.4 in November, marking a two-month low and missing expectations. The survey still indicated that the Chinese economy is expanding but it also raised fears that growth may be tailing off in the fourth quarter. China will be lucky if it manages to hit its official target of 7.5% growth in 2013, a far cry from the double-digit rates that the country had come to expect in the 2000s.

Growth in India (around 5%), Brazil and Russia (around 2.5%) is barely half what it was at the height of the boom. In Europe, the Markit Flash Eurozone PMI fell from 51.9 to 51.5, the lowest reading for three months. The French index was particularly weak – the PMI was at its lowest level since June. Germany continued to improve but the rest of the eurozone seems to be languishing. Questions abound whether the EU risks following the path carved by the sluggish Japan in the 1990s. Yet financial assets point to a worrisome asset inflation environment. Many have written off the likelihood that the Federal Reserve would begin QE tapering this year.

As stocks hit new records and small investors—finally—return to the market, some analysts are getting worried. Risk assets have rallied to previous bubble conditions. Powered by unprecedented refinancing and recap activity, 2013 is now the most productive year ever for new-issue leveraged loans, for example. This has been great for corporations as financing and refinancing has put them on a stronger footing. Where M&A activity still lags the highs of the last boom, issuers have jumped into the opportunistic pool with both feet. And why not? Secondary prices are high and new-issue clearing yields remain low. Yet very inadequate movement has been evidenced on the hiring front.

And after all the improvement in ebitda, where do we go from here? Forward guidance will clearly be harder. One might argue that we are back in a Goldilocks fantasy world, where the economy is not so strong (as to cause inflation and trigger serious monetary tightening) or so weak (as to cause recession and a collapse in profits) but “just right”. Yet, it seems unlikely that issuers with weaker credit quality could find it so easy to sell debt without the excess liquidity created by the Fed and other central banks.

Weaning everyone off the “liquidity fix” may be tough!

The full Punchline including 17 pages of off the charts that’s fit to print below (pdf)

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