iftttwall

Presented with little comment aside to note that Google is now up 13% on the day… (at $1006.58)

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/GVQwm4dJoWI/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Presented with little comment aside to note that Google is now up 13% on the day… (at $1006.58)

 

Presented with little comment aside to note that Google is now up 13% on the day… (at $1006.58)

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/GVQwm4dJoWI/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Presented with little comment aside to note that Google is now up 13% on the day… (at $1006.58)

 

The Dow has been the laggard in all the recent exuberance and opened down this morning once again (as IBM slips a little lower). It seems the 15,380 (“Summers is Out”) level is key resistance for now…

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/OWeo_eiw7Fs/story01.htm Tyler Durden

The Dow has been the laggard in all the recent exuberance and opened down this morning once again (as IBM slips a little lower). It seems the 15,380 (“Summers is Out”) level is key resistance for now…

 

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Analytic systems share system limits with financial markets.

Correspondent Lew G. recently sent me a thought-provoking commentary on the limits of "total information awareness" in terms of any information system's intrinsic rate of generating false positives.

In essence, the rate of false positives limits the effectiveness of any predictive system. The process of attempting to eliminate false positives is inherently one of diminishing return: even with no expense spared, the effort to eliminate false positives runs into boundaries of signal noise and generation of false positives.

To the degree that financial markets are ultimately predictive systems, this suggests a systemic cause of "unexpected" market crashes: signal noise and the intrinsic generation of false positives lead to a false sense of confidence in the system's stability and its ability to predict continued stability.

Here are Lew's comments: 

Resources to deal with reality are inherently limited by that reality.

Information, to the contrary, is inherently infinite, because of the fractal nature of reality.

 

A property of that information reality is that 'meaning' is relative to other items of info, and that any single item can change the interpretation of a big set of facts. E.g., "Muslim, bought pipes, bought gun powder, visits jihadi sites, attends the Mosque weekly, tithes …" can be completely changed in meaning by a fact such as 'belongs to the Libertarian Party', even 'is a plumber, 'is a target shooting enthusiast'".

 

This will continue to be true no matter how much info the NSA gathers: it will be a small subset of the information needed to answer the question 'possible terrorist?'.

 

Thus NSA's tradeoff of privacy vs security is inconsistent with reality: no matter how much info they gather, no matter how sophisticated their filters, they can never detect terrorists without a false positive rate so high that there will be insufficient resources to follow up on them.

In other words, if the system's lower boundary is one false positive per million, no additional amount of information gathering or predictive analysis will lower that rate of false positive generation to zero.

Why does this matter? It matters because it reveals that large-scale analytic systems are limited by their very nature. It isn't a matter of a lack of political will or funding; there are limits to the practical effectiveness of information gathering and predictive analysis.

Though Lew applied this to the NSA's "total information awareness" program, couldn't it also be applied to other large-scale information gathering and analysis projects such as analyzing financial markets?

This was the conclusion drawn by the father of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot, in his book The (Mis)Behavior of Markets. As Mandelbrot observed: "When the weather changes, nobody believes the laws of physics have changed. Similarly, I don't believe that when the stock market goes into terrible gyrations its rules have changed."

All this should arouse a sense of humility about our ability to predict events, risks and crashes of one kind or another. In other words, risk cannot be entirely eliminated. Beyond a certain point, we're sacrificing treasure, civil liberties and energy for not just zero gain but negative return, as the treasure squandered on the quixotic quest for zero risk carries a steep opportunity cost: what else could we have accomplished with that treasure, effort and energy?

This entry was drawn from the Musings Reports, which are sent weekly to subscribers and major contributors.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/BqrLr9ZtK9U/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Analytic systems share system limits with financial markets.

Correspondent Lew G. recently sent me a thought-provoking commentary on the limits of "total information awareness" in terms of any information system's intrinsic rate of generating false positives.

In essence, the rate of false positives limits the effectiveness of any predictive system. The process of attempting to eliminate false positives is inherently one of diminishing return: even with no expense spared, the effort to eliminate false positives runs into boundaries of signal noise and generation of false positives.

To the degree that financial markets are ultimately predictive systems, this suggests a systemic cause of "unexpected" market crashes: signal noise and the intrinsic generation of false positives lead to a false sense of confidence in the system's stability and its ability to predict continued stability.

Here are Lew's comments: 

Resources to deal with reality are inherently limited by that reality.

Information, to the contrary, is inherently infinite, because of the fractal nature of reality.

 

A property of that information reality is that 'meaning' is relative to other items of info, and that any single item can change the interpretation of a big set of facts. E.g., "Muslim, bought pipes, bought gun powder, visits jihadi sites, attends the Mosque weekly, tithes …" can be completely changed in meaning by a fact such as 'belongs to the Libertarian Party', even 'is a plumber, 'is a target shooting enthusiast'".

 

This will continue to be true no matter how much info the NSA gathers: it will be a small subset of the information needed to answer the question 'possible terrorist?'.

 

Thus NSA's tradeoff of privacy vs security is inconsistent with reality: no matter how much info they gather, no matter how sophisticated their filters, they can never detect terrorists without a false positive rate so high that there will be insufficient resources to follow up on them.

In other words, if the system's lower boundary is one false positive per million, no additional amount of information gathering or predictive analysis will lower that rate of false positive generation to zero.

Why does this matter? It matters because it reveals that large-scale analytic systems are limited by their very nature. It isn't a matter of a lack of political will or funding; there are limits to the practical effectiveness of information gathering and predictive analysis.

Though Lew applied this to the NSA's "total information awareness" program, couldn't it also be applied to other large-scale information gathering and analysis projects such as analyzing financial markets?

This was the conclusion drawn by the father of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot, in his book The (Mis)Behavior of Markets. As Mandelbrot observed: "When the weather changes, nobody believes the laws of physics have changed. Similarly, I don't believe that when the stock market goes into terrible gyrations its rules have changed."

All this should arouse a sense of humility about our ability to predict events, risks and crashes of one kind or another. In other words, risk cannot be entirely eliminated. Beyond a certain point, we're sacrificing treasure, civil liberties and energy for not just zero gain but negative return, as the treasure squandered on the quixotic quest for zero risk carries a steep opportunity cost: what else could we have accomplished with that treasure, effort and energy?

This entry was drawn from the Musings Reports, which are sent weekly to subscribers and major contributors.

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Analytic systems share system limits with financial markets.

Correspondent Lew G. recently sent me a thought-provoking commentary on the limits of "total information awareness" in terms of any information system's intrinsic rate of generating false positives.

In essence, the rate of false positives limits the effectiveness of any predictive system. The process of attempting to eliminate false positives is inherently one of diminishing return: even with no expense spared, the effort to eliminate false positives runs into boundaries of signal noise and generation of false positives.

To the degree that financial markets are ultimately predictive systems, this suggests a systemic cause of "unexpected" market crashes: signal noise and the intrinsic generation of false positives lead to a false sense of confidence in the system's stability and its ability to predict continued stability.

Here are Lew's comments: 

Resources to deal with reality are inherently limited by that reality.

Information, to the contrary, is inherently infinite, because of the fractal nature of reality.

 

A property of that information reality is that 'meaning' is relative to other items of info, and that any single item can change the interpretation of a big set of facts. E.g., "Muslim, bought pipes, bought gun powder, visits jihadi sites, attends the Mosque weekly, tithes …" can be completely changed in meaning by a fact such as 'belongs to the Libertarian Party', even 'is a plumber, 'is a target shooting enthusiast'".

 

This will continue to be true no matter how much info the NSA gathers: it will be a small subset of the information needed to answer the question 'possible terrorist?'.

 

Thus NSA's tradeoff of privacy vs security is inconsistent with reality: no matter how much info they gather, no matter how sophisticated their filters, they can never detect terrorists without a false positive rate so high that there will be insufficient resources to follow up on them.

In other words, if the system's lower boundary is one false positive per million, no additional amount of information gathering or predictive analysis will lower that rate of false positive generation to zero.

Why does this matter? It matters because it reveals that large-scale analytic systems are limited by their very nature. It isn't a matter of a lack of political will or funding; there are limits to the practical effectiveness of information gathering and predictive analysis.

Though Lew applied this to the NSA's "total information awareness" program, couldn't it also be applied to other large-scale information gathering and analysis projects such as analyzing financial markets?

This was the conclusion drawn by the father of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot, in his book The (Mis)Behavior of Markets. As Mandelbrot observed: "When the weather changes, nobody believes the laws of physics have changed. Similarly, I don't believe that when the stock market goes into terrible gyrations its rules have changed."

All this should arouse a sense of humility about our ability to predict events, risks and crashes of one kind or another. In other words, risk cannot be entirely eliminated. Beyond a certain point, we're sacrificing treasure, civil liberties and energy for not just zero gain but negative return, as the treasure squandered on the quixotic quest for zero risk carries a steep opportunity cost: what else could we have accomplished with that treasure, effort and energy?

This entry was drawn from the Musings Reports, which are sent weekly to subscribers and major contributors.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/BqrLr9ZtK9U/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Analytic systems share system limits with financial markets.

Correspondent Lew G. recently sent me a thought-provoking commentary on the limits of "total information awareness" in terms of any information system's intrinsic rate of generating false positives.

In essence, the rate of false positives limits the effectiveness of any predictive system. The process of attempting to eliminate false positives is inherently one of diminishing return: even with no expense spared, the effort to eliminate false positives runs into boundaries of signal noise and generation of false positives.

To the degree that financial markets are ultimately predictive systems, this suggests a systemic cause of "unexpected" market crashes: signal noise and the intrinsic generation of false positives lead to a false sense of confidence in the system's stability and its ability to predict continued stability.

Here are Lew's comments: 

Resources to deal with reality are inherently limited by that reality.

Information, to the contrary, is inherently infinite, because of the fractal nature of reality.

 

A property of that information reality is that 'meaning' is relative to other items of info, and that any single item can change the interpretation of a big set of facts. E.g., "Muslim, bought pipes, bought gun powder, visits jihadi sites, attends the Mosque weekly, tithes …" can be completely changed in meaning by a fact such as 'belongs to the Libertarian Party', even 'is a plumber, 'is a target shooting enthusiast'".

 

This will continue to be true no matter how much info the NSA gathers: it will be a small subset of the information needed to answer the question 'possible terrorist?'.

 

Thus NSA's tradeoff of privacy vs security is inconsistent with reality: no matter how much info they gather, no matter how sophisticated their filters, they can never detect terrorists without a false positive rate so high that there will be insufficient resources to follow up on them.

In other words, if the system's lower boundary is one false positive per million, no additional amount of information gathering or predictive analysis will lower that rate of false positive generation to zero.

Why does this matter? It matters because it reveals that large-scale analytic systems are limited by their very nature. It isn't a matter of a lack of political will or funding; there are limits to the practical effectiveness of information gathering and predictive analysis.

Though Lew applied this to the NSA's "total information awareness" program, couldn't it also be applied to other large-scale information gathering and analysis projects such as analyzing financial markets?

This was the conclusion drawn by the father of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot, in his book The (Mis)Behavior of Markets. As Mandelbrot observed: "When the weather changes, nobody believes the laws of physics have changed. Similarly, I don't believe that when the stock market goes into terrible gyrations its rules have changed."

All this should arouse a sense of humility about our ability to predict events, risks and crashes of one kind or another. In other words, risk cannot be entirely eliminated. Beyond a certain point, we're sacrificing treasure, civil liberties and energy for not just zero gain but negative return, as the treasure squandered on the quixotic quest for zero risk carries a steep opportunity cost: what else could we have accomplished with that treasure, effort and energy?

This entry was drawn from the Musings Reports, which are sent weekly to subscribers and major contributors.

In what is a staggering example of not only state meddling in the affairs of the “free press”, but worse, sheer state idiocy, yesterday the WSJ posted an article on its website revealing that as many as 24 co-conspirators would be exposed shortly in the ongoing Libor manipulation scandal and divulging the names of various individuals on this list. What promptly followed was truly bizarre. As the WSJ reports shortly after posting the article, “a British judge ordered the Journal and David Enrich, the newspaper’s European banking editor, to comply with a request by the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office prohibiting the newspaper from publishing names of individuals not yet made public in the government’s ongoing investigation into alleged manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor.” This happened at 7:18 pm London time, after the original WSJ article had already hit the Internet.

The WSJ added that “The order, which applies to publication in England and Wales, also demanded that the Journal remove “any existing Internet publication” divulging the details. It threatened Mr. Enrich and “any third party” with penalties including a fine, imprisonment and asset seizure.”

As a result, the media organization decided to comply with this gross example state censorship, and now in the place of the article, one could find the following note:

… but not before protesting vocally.

The article said the government was preparing to name roughly two dozen traders and brokers, adding that prosecutors were still finalizing their plans and that the list could change, citing people familiar with the process. Inclusion on the list doesn’t represent a formal accusation of wrongdoing and doesn’t mean the individuals will be charged with crimes.

 

“This injunction is a serious affront to press freedom,” said Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Journal. “We have been left with no choice but to remove the previously published story from WSJ.com and to withhold publication from the print edition of The Wall Street Journal Europe. However, we will continue to vigorously fight the injunction in the coming days.”

Yet it is not the censorship that is most shocking here, but the way the UK’s SFO went about scrubbing the trail. Because while the European version of the newspaper may have retracted the article from today’s print edition, the piece was still in the US version. Furthermore, since the original WSJ article hit the net before it was pulled, it was promptly picked up and reforwarded by either robotic or manned resyndicators of the WSJ. One such example was ValueWalk which took down the salient details that the SFO is so concerned about:

Among those who could be name are several of Hayes’ former coworkers at both Citigroup Inc and UBS AG. Michael Pieri, who was Hayes’ boss while he worked at UBS, was fired by the bank and moved to Australia. Hayes’ former assistant at UBS, Mirhat Alykulov, could also be on the list. Sources said he has been cooperating with investigators from the U.S.

 

Another name which could be on the SFO’s list is Christopher Cecere, who was Hayes’ boss while he worked in Citigroup’s Tokyo operations. Cecere resigned from his position at Citigroup around the same time Hayes was fired. Other people who could be on the list are ex HSBC Holdings plc trader Luke Madden, former JPMorgan Chase & Co. employee Paul Glands, and former Rabobank employee Paul Robson.

And, of course, the full list is in today’s US print edition of the WSJ. Which begs the question: aside from matter of state censorship and free press intervention, what exactly did the UK hope to achieve here? After all, a cursory one minute search would reveal all the names hidden, but now the extra buzz generated by UK’s attempt to quash the story, merely made it that much more interesting to all, and whereas some may have skipped it – after all who really cares about Libor manipulation anymore considering the entire market is openly manipulated by the Fed now – now everyone will focus on the names that were purposefully withheld.

Sheer statist stupidity.

The letter sent to the WSJ is below:

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/6jeTzE41y5s/story01.htm Tyler Durden

In what is a staggering example of not only state meddling in the affairs of the “free press”, but worse, sheer state idiocy, yesterday the WSJ posted an article on its website revealing that as many as 24 co-conspirators would be exposed shortly in the ongoing Libor manipulation scandal and divulging the names of various individuals on this list. What promptly followed was truly bizarre. As the WSJ reports shortly after posting the article, “a British judge ordered the Journal and David Enrich, the newspaper’s European banking editor, to comply with a request by the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office prohibiting the newspaper from publishing names of individuals not yet made public in the government’s ongoing investigation into alleged manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor.” This happened at 7:18 pm London time, after the original WSJ article had already hit the Internet.

The WSJ added that “The order, which applies to publication in England and Wales, also demanded that the Journal remove “any existing Internet publication” divulging the details. It threatened Mr. Enrich and “any third party” with penalties including a fine, imprisonment and asset seizure.”

As a result, the media organization decided to comply with this gross example state censorship, and now in the place of the article, one could find the following note:

… but not before protesting vocally.

The article said the government was preparing to name roughly two dozen traders and brokers, adding that prosecutors were still finalizing their plans and that the list could change, citing people familiar with the process. Inclusion on the list doesn’t represent a formal accusation of wrongdoing and doesn’t mean the individuals will be charged with crimes.

 

“This injunction is a serious affront to press freedom,” said Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Journal. “We have been left with no choice but to remove the previously published story from WSJ.com and to withhold publication from the print edition of The Wall Street Journal Europe. However, we will continue to vigorously fight the injunction in the coming days.”

Yet it is not the censorship that is most shocking here, but the way the UK’s SFO went about scrubbing the trail. Because while the European version of the newspaper may have retracted the article from today’s print edition, the piece was still in the US version. Furthermore, since the original WSJ article hit the net before it was pulled, it was promptly picked up and reforwarded by either robotic or manned resyndicators of the WSJ. One such example was ValueWalk which took down the salient details that the SFO is so concerned about:

Among those who could be name are several of Hayes’ former coworkers at both Citigroup Inc and UBS AG. Michael Pieri, who was Hayes’ boss while he worked at UBS, was fired by the bank and moved to Australia. Hayes’ former assistant at UBS, Mirhat Alykulov, could also be on the list. Sources said he has been cooperating with investigators from the U.S.

 

Another name which could be on the SFO’s list is Christopher Cecere, who was Hayes’ boss while he worked in Citigroup’s Tokyo operations. Cecere resigned from his position at Citigroup around the same time Hayes was fired. Other people who could be on the list are ex HSBC Holdings plc trader Luke Madden, former JPMorgan Chase & Co. employee Paul Glands, and former Rabobank employee Paul Robson.

And, of course, the full list is in today’s US print edition of the WSJ. Which begs the question: aside from matter of state censorship and free press intervention, what exactly did the UK hope to achieve here? After all, a cursory one minute search would reveal all the names hidden, but now the extra buzz generated by UK’s attempt to quash the story, merely made it that much more interesting to all, and whereas some may have skipped it – after all who really cares about Libor manipulation anymore considering the entire market is openly manipulated by the Fed now – now everyone will focus on the names that were purposefully withheld.

Sheer statist stupidity.

The letter sent to the WSJ is below:

As the excitement of another US equity day session approaches, the BTFATHers can’t help themselves and have lifted the S&P 500 futures to another new all-time record high. Sure, why not, when the Fed has the path illuminated… It would seem the dips that are bought have now been reduced to 3-4 points though what is perhaps more worrisome is that EURJPY has ‘decoupled’ from the exuberance in the last hour.

 

 

but carry is fading…

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/ug6aTGn1PuQ/story01.htm Tyler Durden

As the excitement of another US equity day session approaches, the BTFATHers can’t help themselves and have lifted the S&P 500 futures to another new all-time record high. Sure, why not, when the Fed has the path illuminated… It would seem the dips that are bought have now been reduced to 3-4 points though what is perhaps more worrisome is that EURJPY has ‘decoupled’ from the exuberance in the last hour.

 

 

but carry is fading…

As the excitement of another US equity day session approaches, the BTFATHers can’t help themselves and have lifted the S&P 500 futures to another new all-time record high. Sure, why not, when the Fed has the path illuminated… It would seem the dips that are bought have now been reduced to 3-4 points though what is perhaps more worrisome is that EURJPY has ‘decoupled’ from the exuberance in the last hour.

 

 

but carry is fading…

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/ug6aTGn1PuQ/story01.htm Tyler Durden

As the excitement of another US equity day session approaches, the BTFATHers can’t help themselves and have lifted the S&P 500 futures to another new all-time record high. Sure, why not, when the Fed has the path illuminated… It would seem the dips that are bought have now been reduced to 3-4 points though what is perhaps more worrisome is that EURJPY has ‘decoupled’ from the exuberance in the last hour.

 

 

but carry is fading…

Despite the onslaught of confidence-inspiring flim-flam from leadership in Europe and a Spanish Prime Minister (and finance minister) desperate to distract with “soft” survey based data, the hard numbers keep coming in and keep getting worse and worse. The latest, seemingly confirming the IMF’s fearsome forecast that European banks face massive loan losses in the coming years, is Spain’s loan delinquency rate. Bad loans across Spanish banks amounted to $247 billion in August – a new record-breaking 12.12% of all loans outstanding (now 30% higher than any previous crisis in the history of Spain). Credit creation continues to implode with a 12.3% plunge in total loans outstanding but of course, none of that matters (for now), as Spanish bond spreads (and yields) press back towards pre-crisis lows…

 

 

Charts: Bloomberg

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

Despite the onslaught of confidence-inspiring flim-flam from leadership in Europe and a Spanish Prime Minister (and finance minister) desperate to distract with “soft” survey based data, the hard numbers keep coming in and keep getting worse and worse. The latest, seemingly confirming the IMF’s fearsome forecast that European banks face massive loan losses in the coming years, is Spain’s loan delinquency rate. Bad loans across Spanish banks amounted to $247 billion in August – a new record-breaking 12.12% of all loans outstanding (now 30% higher than any previous crisis in the history of Spain). Credit creation continues to implode with a 12.3% plunge in total loans outstanding but of course, none of that matters (for now), as Spanish bond spreads (and yields) press back towards pre-crisis lows…

 

 

Charts: Bloomberg

While the downward Q4 GDP revisions were inevitable courtesy of the government shutdown scapegoat (making a joke out of the sellside exuberance in late 2012 which had seen 3% growth some time around now,) starting first at Goldman, and shortly after at JPM both of which cut their Q4 GDP forecasts by 0.5% to 2.0%, we had yet to see the persistent bullish bias spill over into 2014. That just changed following an overnight cut by Bank of America of Q1 2014 growth estimates from 3.3% to 2.8%. Certainly, this is the first of many as once again optimism proves unjustified. But who can blame it: after all there will have been “only” 5 years of QE, and the Fed’s balance sheet will be only $4 trillion at December 31, 2013, implying a S&P of 1800.

From Bank of America:

This week’s budget agreement was good news for the economy and confirms our baseline forecast. We had expected an agreement right before the October 17 deadline with no new fiscal austerity in the package, and that is exactly what we got. We have made a minor change in our GDP forecast: we continue to see just 2% 4Q GDP growth, but we have cut 1Q back from 3.3% to 2.8%. This reflects offsetting factors: government spending will bounce back in 1Q, but with new budget deadlines we expect mild confidence headwinds to persist into the quarter. Our Fed call remains the same, with a $10 bn tapering in January and with a later move more likely than a sooner move.

 

Looking ahead, the broad story remains the same. Growth in the last several years has been held back by three factors: structural healing in the private sector, fiscal austerity and confidence shocks. Looking ahead, confidence remains at risk but the structural healing is well advanced and fiscal drag drops significantly. At the same time, we think inflation is likely to remain below the Fed’s forecast, with abundant spare capacity in the US and globally, soft commodity prices and a strong dollar. This implies a super-slow Fed exit. We don’t expect QE to end until next November and we don’t expect rate hikes until the end of 2015.

 

The budget agreement sets three new deadlines. First, another bi-partisan Committee will be formed and is supposed to come up with a “grand bargain” by December 13. Second, the new continuing resolution will expire on January 15 and there will need to be a new agreement to avoid another shutdown. Finally, the new debt ceiling is on February 7. Let’s look at the likely outcome from these three deadlines.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/XhKGeYkD0Qs/story01.htm Tyler Durden

While the downward Q4 GDP revisions were inevitable courtesy of the government shutdown scapegoat (making a joke out of the sellside exuberance in late 2012 which had seen 3% growth some time around now,) starting first at Goldman, and shortly after at JPM both of which cut their Q4 GDP forecasts by 0.5% to 2.0%, we had yet to see the persistent bullish bias spill over into 2014. That just changed following an overnight cut by Bank of America of Q1 2014 growth estimates from 3.3% to 2.8%. Certainly, this is the first of many as once again optimism proves unjustified. But who can blame it: after all there will have been “only” 5 years of QE, and the Fed’s balance sheet will be only $4 trillion at December 31, 2013, implying a S&P of 1800.

From Bank of America:

This week’s budget agreement was good news for the economy and confirms our baseline forecast. We had expected an agreement right before the October 17 deadline with no new fiscal austerity in the package, and that is exactly what we got. We have made a minor change in our GDP forecast: we continue to see just 2% 4Q GDP growth, but we have cut 1Q back from 3.3% to 2.8%. This reflects offsetting factors: government spending will bounce back in 1Q, but with new budget deadlines we expect mild confidence headwinds to persist into the quarter. Our Fed call remains the same, with a $10 bn tapering in January and with a later move more likely than a sooner move.

 

Looking ahead, the broad story remains the same. Growth in the last several years has been held back by three factors: structural healing in the private sector, fiscal austerity and confidence shocks. Looking ahead, confidence remains at risk but the structural healing is well advanced and fiscal drag drops significantly. At the same time, we think inflation is likely to remain below the Fed’s forecast, with abundant spare capacity in the US and globally, soft commodity prices and a strong dollar. This implies a super-slow Fed exit. We don’t expect QE to end until next November and we don’t expect rate hikes until the end of 2015.

 

The budget agreement sets three new deadlines. First, another bi-partisan Committee will be formed and is supposed to come up with a “grand bargain” by December 13. Second, the new continuing resolution will expire on January 15 and there will need to be a new agreement to avoid another shutdown. Finally, the new debt ceiling is on February 7. Let’s look at the likely outcome from these three deadlines.