Ben Bernanke speaks today, and the markets are aquiver. Will the Fed taper? Will it not taper? If it does taper how much will it taper?
Stocks have entered a blow off top from the wedge triangle we’ve been following for the last few years. If the Fed does not taper today, we’ll likely see a blow off top begin. Traders are hungry for a reason to push the market higher into year-end (thereby ending the year with the highest possible returns).
Alternatively, we could see a small taper today. We now know that Janet Yellen will be the next Fed Chairman. The question remains who will be the Vice Chair. The frontrunner is Stanley Fisher, the former Central Banker for Israel.
Fisher is urging a small taper begin immediately. He then suggests gradually increasing it.
But then again, Janet Yellen, who will be the next Fed President is a raging dove and believes that QE should be done forever. So it’s a toss up.
All I can say with certainty is that stocks are in a dangerous position. They’ve been in one for a while now and the higher they go the more dangerous it becomes.
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Last Friday we reported of a freak near-incident in the South China Sea, when a US warship nearly collided with a Chinese navy vessel, operating in close proximity to China’s only aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, although details were scarce. Today, with the usual several day delay, China reported what was already widely know, admitting that “an incident between a Chinese naval vessel and a U.S. warship in the South China Sea, after Washington said a U.S. guided missile cruiser had avoided a collision with a Chinese warship maneuvering nearby.” According to experts this was the most significant U.S.-China maritime incident in the disputed South China Sea since 2009. Which naturally warranted the question: whose actions nearly provoked a potential military escalation between the world’s two superpowers. Not surprisingly, China’s version is that it was all the US’ fault.
China’s Defense Ministry said the Chinese naval vessel was conducting “normal patrols” when the two vessels “met”.
“During the encounter, the Chinese naval vessel properly handled it in accordance with strict protocol,” the ministry said on its website (www.mod.gov.cn).
“The two Defense departments were kept informed of the relevant situation through normal working channels and carried out effective communication.”
But China’s official news agency Xinhua, in an English language commentary, accused the U.S. ship of deliberately provocative behavior.
“On December 5, U.S. missile cruiser Cowpens, despite warnings from China’s aircraft carrier task group, broke into the Chinese navy’s drilling waters in the South China Sea, and almost collided with a Chinese warship nearby,” it said.
“Even before the navy training, Chinese maritime authorities have posted a navigation notice on their website, and the U.S. warship, which should have had knowledge of what the Chinese were doing there, intentionally carried on with its surveillance of China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier and triggered the confrontation.”
On the other hand, and just as logically, the US said it was China’s fault as the US ship had to take evasive action:
Washington said last week its ship was forced to take evasive action to avoid a collision.
Then again, one wonders just what a lone US warship was doing in such close proximity to China’s aircraft carrier on its maiden voyage: “The Liaoning aircraft carrier, which has yet to be fully armed and is being used as a training vessel, was flanked by escort ships, including two destroyers and two frigates, during its first deployment into the South China Sea.”
The United States had raised the incident at a “high level” with China, according to a State Department official quoted by the U.S. military’s Stars and Stripes newspaper.
China deployed the Liaoning to the South China Sea just days after announcing its air Defense zone, which covers air space over a group of tiny uninhabited islands in the East China Sea that are administered by Japan but claimed by Beijing as well.
Leaving aside the question of what the US’ response would be if a Chinese warship was circling just outside of the San Diego Naval Base, even if in “international waters”, assuming China’s account of the story is correct, and if indeed the US chain of command did tongue-in-cheekly suggest the creation of a modest incident (with or without escalation), then one should pay very careful attention to the development in the South China Sea, which the US apparently has picked as the next hotzone of geopolitical risk flaring.
via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/RAiAyTwT6Fc/story01.htm Tyler Durden
Last Friday we reported of a freak near-incident in the South China Sea, when a US warship nearly collided with a Chinese navy vessel, operating in close proximity to China’s only aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, although details were scarce. Today, with the usual several day delay, China reported what was already widely know, admitting that “an incident between a Chinese naval vessel and a U.S. warship in the South China Sea, after Washington said a U.S. guided missile cruiser had avoided a collision with a Chinese warship maneuvering nearby.” According to experts this was the most significant U.S.-China maritime incident in the disputed South China Sea since 2009. Which naturally warranted the question: whose actions nearly provoked a potential military escalation between the world’s two superpowers. Not surprisingly, China’s version is that it was all the US’ fault.
China’s Defense Ministry said the Chinese naval vessel was conducting “normal patrols” when the two vessels “met”.
“During the encounter, the Chinese naval vessel properly handled it in accordance with strict protocol,” the ministry said on its website (www.mod.gov.cn).
“The two Defense departments were kept informed of the relevant situation through normal working channels and carried out effective communication.”
But China’s official news agency Xinhua, in an English language commentary, accused the U.S. ship of deliberately provocative behavior.
“On December 5, U.S. missile cruiser Cowpens, despite warnings from China’s aircraft carrier task group, broke into the Chinese navy’s drilling waters in the South China Sea, and almost collided with a Chinese warship nearby,” it said.
“Even before the navy training, Chinese maritime authorities have posted a navigation notice on their website, and the U.S. warship, which should have had knowledge of what the Chinese were doing there, intentionally carried on with its surveillance of China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier and triggered the confrontation.”
On the other hand, and just as logically, the US said it was China’s fault as the US ship had to take evasive action:
Washington said last week its ship was forced to take evasive action to avoid a collision.
Then again, one wonders just what a lone US warship was doing in such close proximity to China’s aircraft carrier on its maiden voyage: “The Liaoning aircraft carrier, which has yet to be fully armed and is being used as a training vessel, was flanked by escort ships, including two destroyers and two frigates, during its first deployment into the South China Sea.”
The United States had raised the incident at a “high level” with China, according to a State Department official quoted by the U.S. military’s Stars and Stripes newspaper.
China deployed the Liaoning to the South China Sea just days after announcing its air Defense zone, which covers air space over a group of tiny uninhabited islands in the East China Sea that are administered by Japan but claimed by Beijing as well.
Leaving aside the question of what the US’ response would be if a Chinese warship was circling just outside of the San Diego Naval Base, even if in “international waters”, assuming China’s account of the story is correct, and if indeed the US chain of command did tongue-in-cheekly suggest the creation of a modest incident (with or without escalation), then one should pay very careful attention to the development in the South China Sea, which the US apparently has picked as the next hotzone of geopolitical risk flaring.
via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/RAiAyTwT6Fc/story01.htm Tyler Durden
Today is the big day. Investors are on the edges of their seats, waiting to find out what the Fed will do. Taper? No taper? Or maybe it will taper on the tapering off?
Our guess is the Fed will not commit to a serious program of reducing its support to the bond, equity and housing markets. It's too dangerous. Ben Bernanke – the man who didn't see the housing crash coming – won't want to see the stock market collapse just before he leaves office. He'll want to go out on a high note…
…and that means guaranteeing more liquidity.
Investors don't seem worried. On Monday, the Dow rose 130 points. Gold was up $10 an ounce. Most of the reports we read tell us the economy is improving. Unemployment is going down. Meanwhile, manufacturing levels are rising. Compared to Europe, the US is a powerhouse of growth and innovation, they say. Compared to emerging markets, it is a paragon of stability and confidence.
How much do investors love the US? Let us count the ways:
1. GDP per capita is running 7% – ahead of where it was in 2007. Among the world's major developed economies only Germany can boast of anything close. All the rest are falling behind.
2. The budget deficit – which was running at about 10% of GDP – is now down to just 4% of GDP.
3. Unemployment is going down, too. Heck, just 7 out of 100 Americans are officially jobless. Didn't Bernanke say he would tighten up when it hit that level?
4. And look at prices. Consumer price inflation is running at just 1% over the last 12 months. No threat from inflation, either.
Statistical Folderol
But wait …
What if all these things were delusions… statistical folderol… or outright lies? What if the true measures of the economy were feeble and disappointing? What if the US economy was only barely stumbling and staggering along?
Well, dear reader, you surely expect us to tell that the US economy is a hidden disaster… and we won't disappoint you. GDP? Carmen Reinhart studied the performance of rich economies following a financial crisis. Her paper, "After the Fall," showed that, six years after a crisis, per capita GDP was typically 1.5 percentage points lower than in the years before the crisis. But in the US, per capita GDP growth is running 2.1% lower than its pre-crisis level – significantly worse than average.
Deficits? Super-low interest rates have helped debtors everywhere. "Never have American companies brought a greater share of their sales to the bottom line," writes Bill Gross. How did they do that? Largely by taking advantage of the Fed's interest rate suppression program. But hey, the US government is the world's biggest debtor. It is the primary beneficiary of the Fed's miniscule rates.
That's part of the reason why deficits are low. Let the yield on the 10-year T-bond return to a "normal" 5%, and we'll see deficits soar again. (Interest payments, under this scenario, would add an additional $360 billion a year to the deficit.) Besides, it's not only the deficit that counts. It's also the total level of debt… and particularly the debt financed with funny money from the Fed.
Only twice in US history has the ratio of US Treasurys held at the Fed gone over 10% – once in 1944 and again today. The first time, it was a national emergency: World War II. Now, the Fed is merely fighting to protect a credit bubble.
Inflation? Yes, consumer price inflation is low. But what that shows is that real demand is still in a deleveraging trough. The money multiplier – the ratio of money supply to the monetary base – collapsed in 2008. It has not come back. Neither has the economy.
Unemployment? The rate has been doctored by removing people from the labor pool. The workforce is now smaller – as a percentage of the eligible pool – than at any time since 1978.
Besides, what is important is not the rate, but what people get from employment. On that score, it is a catastrophe. According to a Brookings Institution study, the average man of working age earns 19% less in real (inflation adjusted) terms today than he did during the Carter administration!
A Strange Kind of Recovery
What kind of economy is it that reduces a man's wages over a 43-year period? We don't know. But it's not likely to win any prizes. But why, with so many strikes against it, does the US economy still have the bat in its hands?
It's partly because the Fed has pumped up stock, bond and house prices – not to mention net corporate profit margins (by reducing the interest expenses on corporate debt) and consumer spending (through entitlement programs funded through the Treasury with ultra-low interest rates). So, the averages look pretty good… and they mask the ugliness beneath them.
The rich got richer on the Fed's EZ money. But the average "capita" is actually poorer. The bottom 90% of the population – people in 9 houses out of 10 – have 10% less income than they had 10 years ago.
This is not a success story. It's a disaster. And not one that tempts us into an overvalued US stock market.
On CNBC and all the channels that cover business, we have person after person after person, buy side, sell side, upside, downside:
How is the economy? Economy is great.
What about stocks? You got to buy them.
What if they break? You have to buy the dips.
What's wrong with the economy? I don't hear these people saying anything is wrong with the economy.
So what's wrong, Ben? Why can't we get out of crisis management mode?
There's always going to be something.
…
Why don't these people kick the tires?
They take a press release from the Federal Reserve and they think it was written by God.
Santelli demands we ask Bernanke – "what are you scared of," that keeps you pumping this much money into the system for this long?
Simply put, Santelli's epic rant is the filter that every investor (or member of the public) should be viewing financial media and the Fed today (or in fact every day).
via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/eZAWT_dnhko/story01.htm Tyler Durden
Today is the big day. Investors are on the edges of their seats, waiting to find out what the Fed will do. Taper? No taper? Or maybe it will taper on the tapering off?
Our guess is the Fed will not commit to a serious program of reducing its support to the bond, equity and housing markets. It's too dangerous. Ben Bernanke – the man who didn't see the housing crash coming – won't want to see the stock market collapse just before he leaves office. He'll want to go out on a high note…
…and that means guaranteeing more liquidity.
Investors don't seem worried. On Monday, the Dow rose 130 points. Gold was up $10 an ounce. Most of the reports we read tell us the economy is improving. Unemployment is going down. Meanwhile, manufacturing levels are rising. Compared to Europe, the US is a powerhouse of growth and innovation, they say. Compared to emerging markets, it is a paragon of stability and confidence.
How much do investors love the US? Let us count the ways:
1. GDP per capita is running 7% – ahead of where it was in 2007. Among the world's major developed economies only Germany can boast of anything close. All the rest are falling behind.
2. The budget deficit – which was running at about 10% of GDP – is now down to just 4% of GDP.
3. Unemployment is going down, too. Heck, just 7 out of 100 Americans are officially jobless. Didn't Bernanke say he would tighten up when it hit that level?
4. And look at prices. Consumer price inflation is running at just 1% over the last 12 months. No threat from inflation, either.
Statistical Folderol
But wait …
What if all these things were delusions… statistical folderol… or outright lies? What if the true measures of the economy were feeble and disappointing? What if the US economy was only barely stumbling and staggering along?
Well, dear reader, you surely expect us to tell that the US economy is a hidden disaster… and we won't disappoint you. GDP? Carmen Reinhart studied the performance of rich economies following a financial crisis. Her paper, "After the Fall," showed that, six years after a crisis, per capita GDP was typically 1.5 percentage points lower than in the years before the crisis. But in the US, per capita GDP growth is running 2.1% lower than its pre-crisis level – significantly worse than average.
Deficits? Super-low interest rates have helped debtors everywhere. "Never have American companies brought a greater share of their sales to the bottom line," writes Bill Gross. How did they do that? Largely by taking advantage of the Fed's interest rate suppression program. But hey, the US government is the world's biggest debtor. It is the primary beneficiary of the Fed's miniscule rates.
That's part of the reason why deficits are low. Let the yield on the 10-year T-bond return to a "normal" 5%, and we'll see deficits soar again. (Interest payments, under this scenario, would add an additional $360 billion a year to the deficit.) Besides, it's not only the deficit that counts. It's also the total level of debt… and particularly the debt financed with funny money from the Fed.
Only twice in US history has the ratio of US Treasurys held at the Fed gone over 10% – once in 1944 and again today. The first time, it was a national emergency: World War II. Now, the Fed is merely fighting to protect a credit bubble.
Inflation? Yes, consumer price inflation is low. But what that shows is that real demand is still in a deleveraging trough. The money multiplier – the ratio of money supply to the monetary base – collapsed in 2008. It has not come back. Neither has the economy.
Unemployment? The rate has been doctored by removing people from the labor pool. The workforce is now smaller – as a percentage of the eligible pool – than at any time since 1978.
Besides, what is important is not the rate, but what people get from employment. On that score, it is a catastrophe. According to a Brookings Institution study, the average man of working age earns 19% less in real (inflation adjusted) terms today than he did during the Carter administration!
A Strange Kind of Recovery
What kind of economy is it that reduces a man's wages over a 43-year period? We don't know. But it's not likely to win any prizes. But why, with so many strikes against it, does the US economy still have the bat in its hands?
It's partly because the Fed has pumped up stock, bond and house prices – not to mention net corporate profit margins (by reducing the interest expenses on corporate debt) and consumer spending (through entitlement programs funded through the Treasury with ultra-low interest rates). So, the averages look pretty good… and they mask the ugliness beneath them.
The rich got richer on the Fed's EZ money. But the average "capita" is actually poorer. The bottom 90% of the population – people in 9 houses out of 10 – have 10% less income than they had 10 years ago.
This is not a success story. It's a disaster. And not one that tempts us into an overvalued US stock market.
On CNBC and all the channels that cover business, we have person after person after person, buy side, sell side, upside, downside:
How is the economy? Economy is great.
What about stocks? You got to buy them.
What if they break? You have to buy the dips.
What's wrong with the economy? I don't hear these people saying anything is wrong with the economy.
So what's wrong, Ben? Why can't we get out of crisis management mode?
There's always going to be something.
…
Why don't these people kick the tires?
They take a press release from the Federal Reserve and they think it was written by God.
Santelli demands we ask Bernanke – "what are you scared of," that keeps you pumping this much money into the system for this long?
Simply put, Santelli's epic rant is the filter that every investor (or member of the public) should be viewing financial media and the Fed today (or in fact every day).
via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/eZAWT_dnhko/story01.htm Tyler Durden
Today’s key economic data point, aside from the FOMC announcement of course, was the monthly Housing Starts and Permits data. And with November starts printing at 1091K, a massive 202K unit surge compared to the 889K in October, this was the highest monthly print since early 2008 and biggest monthly jump since… 1990! Supposedly builders just can’t get enough. Well, maybe. Until one again looks below the headlines, where one finds that a substantial portion of the jump is once again due to the builders’ bet that rental housing demand will continue growing, as multi-family unit starts soared from 281K to 354K – just shy of the highest print since 2008 as well.
However, there was more: because if one assumes a major surge in seasonally adjusted data, there should be a matched surge in NSA data too. There wasn’t, and in fact the NSA print rose by a very modest 5.5K to 82.8K actual houses started in November. Additionally, the single-family print barely rose from 49.2 to just 51.9, well below the highs seen in the summer of 2013, when unadjusted single-family starts were higher than the November print from March until August! In fact, at 51.9K, single unit homes are back to mid-2011 levels. Thank you seasonal adjustments.
But nowhere was the seasonal adjustment in today’s data more evident than in the Housing Permits number. Yes, the headline number was great: it dipped modestly from an upward revised 1039K to 1007K but beat expectations of 990K handily. So what happens when one looks at the non-seasonally adjusted number? It cratered from 90.3 to 70.9K – this was the lowest print since February and the biggest absolute monthly drop in 5 years since November 2008!
Some seasonally-adjusted housing recovery…. in rental properties.
via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/NwrRTNnalLc/story01.htm Tyler Durden
It’s like a futuristic film with hoards of evil masses of people, poverty-stricken, living off the land, while the rich and wealthy continue to lord it, served to their hearts content and just raking it in, while the others hardly get enough to eat and drink. Yes, the resources of the planet are finite for the moment. Yes, those resources belong to the same people and yes the lands are worked for the benefit of the dollar-hungry few, while the money-poor subsist on what scraps get thrown to them. But, it might look like the future, but the present certainly resembles very much the long-forgotten past. We haven’t come very far since the days of feudalism, have we? There is still a power-crazed lord of the manor there that is just a business tycoon under another name. There are still the poor vassals that eke out their existence and wait in expectant eagerness for the bones to get tossed to them as the lord and his ladies walk off into the ramparts of the castle. This time it’s the water and the agricultural lands that are the much-sought after means of wealth. They bring down governments these days and oust leaders.
Water and Agriculture are already the cause of many a dispute in the world and even more so in the Middle East, in the Near East and in Africa. Take the example of ex-President Mohamed Morsi and his fall from power. The Ethiopians decided to spend $3 billion on the building of a hydraulic damn to siphon off the Nile. In May 2013, Morsi convened a meeting to discuss the project and it quickly turned into a fiasco with the media as it was transmitted live (by mistake or on purpose) on national television. The meeting went from decision-making discussions to threats of declaring war and to bribery of senior Ethiopian officials, via the destruction of the dam itself by Egyptian forces. Just a few weeks later, Morsi had fallen from power.
Water is everything from economic survival to territorial appropriation. It’s the cause of the downfall of governments and the revolt of the masses in countries that saw the ousting of their leaders during the Arab Springs. No country in the region was in a position to assume agricultural independence and each country has suffered from the increased dependence on water. There were food crises that hit those nations in 2007 as the Western world was being hit by their own financial crisis. The governments of countries in the regions massively invested in agriculture to keep the barking dogs at bay. But, that did nothing but increase the financial pressure on the economy and brought about hyperinflation. The governments were to some extent the cause of their own strife.
Saudi Arabia pays out a billion dollars per month for imported food.
Egypt forked out $3 billion for wheat alone in 2010.
The countries of the Gulf import some 90% of their food today.
Food prices got out of control in the lead up to the Arab Springs when the United Nations published figures showing that price indexes rose from 2009’s level of 157 to over 230 in 2011.
According to the Pierre Blanc from the CIHEAM research laboratory (International Center for Agronomy Studies, France), the future will be worse as agricultural lands are transformed into deserts. Climate change coupled with demographic transitions (increasing numbers of people are huddled together on small pieces of land – in Egypt 95% of the population lives on 5% of the land, for example) in countries in the water-poor regions of the world will lead to increased hydraulic demand that will not be met by available supplies today. While the regions remain politically unstable, the volatility of governments and policies will only mean that it will pave the way for increased disputes over the sharing of resources. Recent discoveries of oil reserves and gas along the Mediterranean coastline between Egypt, Israel Lebanon and Syria as well as Turkey and Cyprus will mean that those countries (as well as other nations in the Western world) will be vying for a place to exploit those reserves to a maximum.
Egypt has until now supplied 50% of Israel’s energy needs.
But that may change in the future with the discovery of Tamar and Leviathan gas reserves.
Tamar (282 billion m3) would allow Israel to ensure its energy needs for the next 25 years.
Leviathan (540 billion m3) would be a surplus that would enable Israel to rake in a great deal of money.
60% of Leviathan will be used for domestic consumption in Israel, while 40% will be exported to other countries.
The other countries along the coastline seem to have equally promising amounts of gas and petrol in areas under their exclusive economic control.
Where there are resources that we want, there is a fight for power; that struggle turns into political upheaval and change. Too much testosterone will be flying around there yet again and everyone will be playing out their role of the alpha male to dominate the others.
Spanish loan delinquencies as a percentage of the total have risen for the 8th straight month to a new record high of 13.00% (even as sovereign bond spreads continue to plunge to multi-year lows signaling all is well). With unemployment rates stuck stubbornly high, however, reality is starting to dawn in the Spanish banking system as mortgage defaults are rising following the Bank of Spain’s order for lenders to review their portfolios. As Bloomberg reports, the default rate for Banco Santander alone jumped to 7% (from 3.1%) following its “reclassification” of loans that it had refinanced (never expecting to be repaid) and with home prices still falling, “there is an urgency to come clean” as regulators see the need for banks to cover a further EUR5 billion shortfall in provisions.
The slow-and-steady rise in deliquencies smacks of an industry that is dripping out there problems – hiding facts from reality and the spike for Banco Santander is merely highlighting the mis-statement…
With Spain’s persistently high unemployment rate now at 26 percent, the couple is among the 350,000 homeowners who may be foreclosed upon by lenders in the next two years as the housing crisis worsens, according to AFES, a Madrid-based association that advises on restructuring debt. Since 2008, about 150,000 families have been hit with a foreclosure.
“We refinanced three years ago, but now the noose is around our necks,” Males, 42, said. “Not only do we still owe more than the original loan. We’re losing our home as well.”
…
As mortgage defaults rise, lenders will have to set aside money to cover losses, hurting profits, according to Juan Villen, head of mortgages at Spanish property web site Idealista.com. Spanish banks absorbed 87 billion euros ($120 billion) of impairment charges last year after Economy Minister Luis de Guindos forced them to record more defaults on loans to developers. The government took 41 billion euros in European assistance to shore up its failing lenders.
…
Defaults are rising partly because of changes required by the Bank of Spain that force lenders to book more soured mortgages.
“When the real estate bubble burst in 2008, banks used refinancing en masse to cover up non-performing residential mortgage loans,”
Which led to a broad loan review…
In April, the Bank of Spain ordered lenders to review their portfolios of refinanced loans, including mortgages, to make sure they’re classified in a uniform way. Lenders had 208 billion euros of loans on their books that they’d restructured or refinanced as of the end of 2012, according to the regulator.
The review led the regulator to the preliminary conclusion that classifying all refinanced loans correctly would cause a 21 billion-euro increase in defaults. Lenders would need to generate a further 5 billion euros of provisions to cover the losses.
The default rate for Banco Santander SA (SAN)’s Spanish mortgages jumped to 7 percent in September from 3.1 percent in June as it reclassified loans that it had refinanced.
“As a bank this will be the main focus area, whether you are properly recording your non-performing loans, especially the refinanced ones,” said Alexander Pelteshki, an analyst at ING Financial Markets in Amsterdam. “There is an urgency to come clean.”
But it’s not going to get better any time soon…
“Until Spain starts creating jobs and credit starts flowing again, house prices aren’t going to recover,” Beatriz Toribio, head of research at Fotocasa, said. “We expect further price declines, albeit smaller than in previous years, in 2014.”
via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/9sc9Nmd58qQ/story01.htm Tyler Durden
