Tag: finance

Ever since the Lehman bankruptcy, one of the main reasons given by the perpetual apologists about why i) the so-called “recovery” has been the worst in US history and ii) the Fed has been “forced” to conduct 6 years of wealth transferring policies, boosting the stock market to all time highs and creating a record wealth split in US society between the super rich and everyone else (one that surpasses even that seen during the roaring 20s) is that the US consumer, scarred by the economic crash, has been rushing to deleverage and dump as much debt as possible.

There are two problems with that story:

• First, as we first pointed out in 2012, US households are not deleveraging, they are defaulting, a huge difference which goes to motive and intent, and shows that instead of actively paying down debt households are instead loading up on as much debt as they can, which at some point they simply stop servicing (for a detailed analysis of this disturbing trend, read our series on the student loan bubble).
• Second, when it comes to the poorest quartile of US society, some 14 million people, it is dead wrong. In fact, as the Fed’s triennial Survey of Consumer Finances, released last week showed, America’s poorest have never been more in debt!

As usual, the full story is one of nuances. As Bloomberg reports, as a result of the first point – mass defaults – US household debt has indeed declined on an average basis. Indeed, average debt burden for all families stood at about 105% of pretax income in 2013, down from about 125% in 2010 and the lowest level since the 2001 survey.

Of course, since economists are unable to grasp the difference between default and deleveraging, one look at the chart above gives them reason for hope. As Bloomberg summarizes:

The improved finances, along with more recent signs that consumers are feeling comfortable about borrowing again, has given some economists cause for optimism: The more progress households make in getting out from under their debts, the logic goes, the greater the chances that renewed spending will boost growth.

In reality, the “improved finances”, namely those tens of trillions in financial assets that have been artificially reflated courtesy of the Fed’s monetary policies, have benefited the tiniest sliver of US society – about 1% or less depending on whose calculations one uses. Everyone else, the bulk of US society, was forced to simply stop paying down their credit card and thus “delever.”

But for a good perspective of what the part of society that is at the opposite end of the 1%, namely those 14 million or so Americans who comprise the poorest quartile of households, look no further than the chart below, which shows just what Americans are really doing up until that point where default does equal “deleveraging”, even if it means loss of access to all credit for a period of several years:

 

 

 

From Bloomberg: “The poorest quartile of families is the only group that owes more than it owns. Thanks to declines in the value of assets, the group’s average leverage ratio — debt as a percent of assets — increased to 137.5 percent in 2013, the highest on record since the survey started in 1989.”

And there you have it – not only is America not actively delveraging, on the contrary, it is loading up on as much debt as it possibly can (or banks will allow it judging by the decline in mortgage-type debt, driven mostly by supply constraints and qualification factors) until the band snaps and in a perverse circle of illogic, releveraging becomes default becomes deleveraging.

Bloomberg has some ideas here, including commenting on the one observations we have been making since 2011: the relentless rise in installment debt, i.e., student and car loans:

There are various possible explanations for the poorest families’ financial predicament. Incomes have declined, making debt burdens look worse. Some previously wealthier people probably migrated into the group as the value of their homes fell below what they owed on mortgages. More ominous is a steady increase in installment debt, a category that includes both student and auto loans — areas that have recently seen a lot of questionable lending to lower-income borrowers.

 

 

Bloomberg’s conclusion:

Whatever the drivers, the data suggest that the 2008 crisis and subsequent economic malaise have left a troubling legacy: A group of the poorest families, numbering roughly 14 million, whose precarious finances make them vulnerable to shocks and limit their ability to contribute to future growth. That’s hardly a strong foundation for a healthy recovery.

But mass “deleveraging” is good, they said. It means tons of pent up releveraging and recovery, they said…

While the lying is understandable – after all confidence must be rebuilt at all costs – what is worse is that the Fed believes it can withdraw from QEasing because it is convinced that US society as a whole is able to take on more debt, when in reality a record number of Americans are locked out of the debt market (due to recent or imminent defaults) for years. As a result the Fed’s entire logic for pulling out of the market is based on an epically flawed assumption. Which is why, as we explained back in late 2013, we give the Fed a few months of POMO-ess shock and awe for the S&P500 mixed with fears of what a rate hike will do to the market, pardon economy, before the Untaper and the reZIRP fully enter the financial lexicon.

Finally, while we have shown this chart in the past, here it is again. It really does explain everything.

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

Ever since the Lehman bankruptcy, one of the main reasons given by the perpetual apologists about why i) the so-called “recovery” has been the worst in US history and ii) the Fed has been “forced” to conduct 6 years of wealth transferring policies, boosting the stock market to all time highs and creating a record wealth split in US society between the super rich and everyone else (one that surpasses even that seen during the roaring 20s) is that the US consumer, scarred by the economic crash, has been rushing to deleverage and dump as much debt as possible.

There are two problems with that story:

• First, as we first pointed out in 2012, US households are not deleveraging, they are defaulting, a huge difference which goes to motive and intent, and shows that instead of actively paying down debt households are instead loading up on as much debt as they can, which at some point they simply stop servicing (for a detailed analysis of this disturbing trend, read our series on the student loan bubble).
• Second, when it comes to the poorest quartile of US society, some 14 million people, it is dead wrong. In fact, as the Fed’s triennial Survey of Consumer Finances, released last week showed, America’s poorest have never been more in debt!

As usual, the full story is one of nuances. As Bloomberg reports, as a result of the first point – mass defaults – US household debt has indeed declined on an average basis. Indeed, average debt burden for all families stood at about 105% of pretax income in 2013, down from about 125% in 2010 and the lowest level since the 2001 survey.

Of course, since economists are unable to grasp the difference between default and deleveraging, one look at the chart above gives them reason for hope. As Bloomberg summarizes:

The improved finances, along with more recent signs that consumers are feeling comfortable about borrowing again, has given some economists cause for optimism: The more progress households make in getting out from under their debts, the logic goes, the greater the chances that renewed spending will boost growth.

In reality, the “improved finances”, namely those tens of trillions in financial assets that have been artificially reflated courtesy of the Fed’s monetary policies, have benefited the tiniest sliver of US society – about 1% or less depending on whose calculations one uses. Everyone else, the bulk of US society, was forced to simply stop paying down their credit card and thus “delever.”

But for a good perspective of what the part of society that is at the opposite end of the 1%, namely those 14 million or so Americans who comprise the poorest quartile of households, look no further than the chart below, which shows just what Americans are really doing up until that point where default does equal “deleveraging”, even if it means loss of access to all credit for a period of several years:

 

 

 

From Bloomberg: “The poorest quartile of families is the only group that owes more than it owns. Thanks to declines in the value of assets, the group’s average leverage ratio — debt as a percent of assets — increased to 137.5 percent in 2013, the highest on record since the survey started in 1989.”

And there you have it – not only is America not actively delveraging, on the contrary, it is loading up on as much debt as it possibly can (or banks will allow it judging by the decline in mortgage-type debt, driven mostly by supply constraints and qualification factors) until the band snaps and in a perverse circle of illogic, releveraging becomes default becomes deleveraging.

Bloomberg has some ideas here, including commenting on the one observations we have been making since 2011: the relentless rise in installment debt, i.e., student and car loans:

There are various possible explanations for the poorest families’ financial predicament. Incomes have declined, making debt burdens look worse. Some previously wealthier people probably migrated into the group as the value of their homes fell below what they owed on mortgages. More ominous is a steady increase in installment debt, a category that includes both student and auto loans — areas that have recently seen a lot of questionable lending to lower-income borrowers.

 

 

Bloomberg’s conclusion:

Whatever the drivers, the data suggest that the 2008 crisis and subsequent economic malaise have left a troubling legacy: A group of the poorest families, numbering roughly 14 million, whose precarious finances make them vulnerable to shocks and limit their ability to contribute to future growth. That’s hardly a strong foundation for a healthy recovery.

But mass “deleveraging” is good, they said. It means tons of pent up releveraging and recovery, they said…

While the lying is understandable – after all confidence must be rebuilt at all costs – what is worse is that the Fed believes it can withdraw from QEasing because it is convinced that US society as a whole is able to take on more debt, when in reality a record number of Americans are locked out of the debt market (due to recent or imminent defaults) for years. As a result the Fed’s entire logic for pulling out of the market is based on an epically flawed assumption. Which is why, as we explained back in late 2013, we give the Fed a few months of POMO-ess shock and awe for the S&P500 mixed with fears of what a rate hike will do to the market, pardon economy, before the Untaper and the reZIRP fully enter the financial lexicon.

Finally, while we have shown this chart in the past, here it is again. It really does explain everything.

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

Courtesy of Finanz und Wirtschaft, interview by Christoph Gisiger

Wall Street veteran Art Cashin does not fully trust the record levels at the stock market and draws worrisome parallels between the geopolitical tensions over Ukraine and the Cuban missile crisis.   

From the assassination of President Kennedy via the stock market crash of 1987 and the Fall of the Berlin Wall through to the burst of the dotcom bubble, the terror attacks of 9/11 and the collapse of Lehman Brothers: Art Cashin has experienced all the major world events of the last half century at the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Currently, the highly respected Wall Street veteran keeps a close eye on the geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and on the situation in Ukraine which reminds him of the Cuban missile crisis «The markets are edgy and nervous», says the Director of Floor Operations for UBS Financial Services while constantly checking the quotation board. Like many traders here, he is somewhat skeptical of the huge stock market rally that started in March 2009. «I think it is a question of the extraordinarily low interest rates», he explains.

Mr. Cashin, September is historically the most difficult month of the year for equities. What is your take on September 2014 so far?

It is strange that September still lingers as a particularly weak month. It goes back to when America was more of an agrarian society and we depended on what would happen with the crop cycles. If a cooking factory for example had to buy wheat from the farmers it would send a check out drawn on an account at a city bank and the country bank would then cash it and put the money in the farmer’s account. Before the Federal Reserve was created, there was a wide spread between the time that money was asked for and when it was replaced. For centuries, this caused bank panics around this time of the year, most notably the panic of 1907. You would think that now that we are no longer an agrarian society, those changes would ease up on the financial pressures. But the market has kind of an echo.

So what are traders talking about at the present time here at the New York Stock Exchange?

We are concerned about two questions. First, how will the Fed do in keeping money reasonably easy without causing inflation? Second, where do we stand with the current geopolitical challenges? For now, these challenges seem to be short term concerns. But should we begin to see a financial contagion and pressure building on banks in Europe, perhaps out of the Ukraine situation, things could theoretically turn into what I call a «Lehman moment». That is when markets come under pressure but seem to be under control, and then things change suddenly.

How do you handle these concerns in your daily business as stock market operator?

Having done this over half a century now, the market tends to have recurring cycles of some type or other. For example, at the beginning of the Cuban missile crisis no one thought that it would turn into a major event. Yet, as time went on and neither side relented, it began to look like we might be on the verge of a nuclear war. That had great reverberations in the financial markets. Then, finally the Russian convoy that was going to resupply the Cuban missiles turned and headed back. Immediately, the stock market began to rally on that sense of relief and that rally continued for months. So you can have these theoretical events – whether they are geopolitical or not – and you get two sweeping changes: First, you can get further and further pressure on prices. And then suddenly, when it releases, you can get almost a rocket shot to the upside.

What are the signals you are looking for to stay on top in such a market?

Over the years, we on the floor have taken to look at what we call the risk monitors. For instance, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note is usually an indicator for the flight to safety. People are looking to get over to the United States protected by the two large oceans. You also look at the gold market where people invest who are concerned that things are changing radically and who think they need some currency protection. And then, particularly in situations like this, you look at things like oil because that is inextricably involved with Russia and with the Middle East and what is going on with the Islamic terror organization ISIS.

And what are the risks monitors signaling?

Right now, it almost looks like peace is breaking out. The price of oil is sharply lower, both Texas West Intermediate and Brent. That indicates a lot less stress there. Although traders can be believers in conspiracies too. There is some wonder if perhaps Saudi Arabia and the United States are encouraging downward pressure on oil prices which would in turn put pressure on Russia and limit the availability to finance what they are doing. So there may be either market forces or government forces behind this.

And how stable is the situation on the stock market? Equities have stalled somewhat lately. Nevertheless, at the End of August the S&P 500 closed over 2000 for the first time and so far equities have performed quite well this year again.

I think it is a question of the extraordinarily low level of interest rates. There are very few places that investors can go to and get some return. So some people are using historic yard sticks and they are saying: «If rates are this low and the economy is this okay then the value of stocks should go higher.» But some of us question that since rates are artificially low.

So what is your take on those super low rates?

I think it means that there are still deflationary pressures out there and that the central banks all around the world are fighting off that deflation risk by keeping rates low. Rates are incredibly low in Europe, they are incredibly low in Japan, they are incredibly low in England and in the United States. That drives people to look at some other avenue to get a return and they have been driven into the stock market.

With the looming end of the QE3 program, the stock market soon will have to pass an important test. But surprisingly, in contrast to the end of QE1 and QE2 investors do not seem to be so nervous this time.

But we are seeing a rather similar reaction in the bond market. Perversely, when they ended the earlier QEs, treasury yields went down instead of going up. So we are seeing a little of that. I think the reaction of the stock market has to do with something that is referred to as the Greenspan put, and later as the Bernanke put. Investors believe that the Fed is concerned about its own independence and therefore it cannot let anything drastic happen. Our government has not been able to do anything on a fiscal basis. So the Fed has gone out and developed tons and tons of access free reserves. If that fails the central bankers know that it will be quite convenient for all the politicians to point the finger at the Fed. Hence, not only is the Fed interested in maintaining the economy but also in its own independence.

During your career on Wall Street, you have seen the coming and going of several Fed chiefs. How would you grade Janet Yellen so far?

I think it is a little too early to tell because she has not been fully able to implement her policies. We have not been done with the taper and she has not clearly defined what yardsticks or mileposts she is using. She is a scholarly woman and has done a great deal of studying, like Mr. Bernanke. Also, I have a new person to look at in th
e Fed and that would be Stanley Fischer. He brings a lot of experience in as vice chairman. As we begin to look at his speeches and comments, we will see that he is going to have an enormous influence and we may be begin to see him helping Ms. Yellen. He is not going to confront her but helping her to, perhaps, understand why things have to change a little.

With the end of QE3 and the return to a somewhat more traditional monetary policy, investors will likely put their focus more on the fundamentals like revenues, profit margins and earnings. In what shape is Corporate America?

That is one of the great debates here. It really breaks down to on what do you view the stock market is based on. On one side, there are the skeptics. They look at macroeconomics like the GDP numbers, the unemployment rate and a variety of other things. Those people tend to have been skeptical all the way through this rally. On the other side, there are the believers in the stock market and the recovery. They have seen the earnings go up and have been spot on so far. But there is a couple of asterisks that you have to put in. Thanks to the low interest rates, companies are finding that they can improve their balance sheets and they are buying back their own shares. So even when you are earning a little less money, if there are fewer shares around, than the price earnings ratio looks pretty good. That is why the critics of the stock market say that it is all part of financial engineering. Nevertheless, the supporters will respond: «Well, here is the earnings and we are at seventeen times earnings and that is very good for us.»

On what side of this debate are the traders here on the floor at?

The view of the traders is a slight degree of skepticism. As I say, having done this over fifty years, traders are always making sure they know the way out. When I go into a room, the first thing I look for is the exit sign. So when things turn bad I know which way to go.

Also, some skeptics argue that you cannot trust this really since it is based on unusually low trading volumes. Especially at the end of August we have seen some of the lowest volume days over the past seven years.

Over the years, I was always thought that volume equals validity. Just as you would not want to elect a president with only ten or twelve people voting. You want to see a broad consensus. Likewise, you would like to see a broad consensus on what is going on at the stock market. But these days, some of that lack of volume is structural. We have new products like Exchange Traded Funds. So you can with one purchase buy the five hundred stocks in the S&P 500 instead of the five hundred transactions that would have taken place in the past. That contributes to a lower volume, too.

How did the trading business change over the last few years in general?

We are going through a transition into automated electronic trading and we are still adapting to that. The new owners of the New York Stock Exchange, the Intercontinental Exchange, said that they would like to revamp what is going on, change some of the rules and perhaps produce a little more visible activity. I for one miss some of the old trading, especially the simple things. When there was a big crowd, noise would tell me things. When the noise level picked up I would know the activity is picking up. And if you are doing it as long as I am, you could almost tell by the pitch of the noise whether they were buyers or sellers: The buyers sound a little more like a Russian chorus. The sellers, on the other hand – I guess because they were nervous – would have a higher pitch when they shout «Sell! Sell! Sell!»

Today, the silent machines of high frequency traders do most of the trading. How do you cope with those superfast computers and highly sophisticated algorithms?

They may be faster but they are not necessarily smarter. Sometimes an old dog can still learn variations of new tricks and get things done. They might get the first step out of the building but you have to think on behalf of your clients what other impact will that have. If they are doing something in General Motors, what does it mean to Ford or someone else? So in this business, your clients expect you to be able to relate something that is happening in a particular stock with something in the rest of the market.

In May of 2010, the Flash Crash made the world suddenly aware of what can happen when robots are in charge in the trading arenas. How vulnerable is the US stock market today to a similar threat?

I am, of course, prejudiced. I prefer the trading system that we have had through the years. Here on the floor, not one stock traded at a penny during the Flash Crash. That was only in the electronic markets. And that was because here were humans who looked at each other and said: «That does not make any sense. There is no news out, there is no event. Let’s slow down and see where things are going.» As a consequence, the prices here on the floor tended not to be distorted in a manner that they were in other places. So as far as market structure is concerned, I think it is very helpful to have humans around. I prefer that somebody is watching the market as trades are being executed – just as I would not want to fly in an airplane with no pilot.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/Xe8NRI Tyler Durden

Courtesy of Finanz und Wirtschaft, interview by Christoph Gisiger

Wall Street veteran Art Cashin does not fully trust the record levels at the stock market and draws worrisome parallels between the geopolitical tensions over Ukraine and the Cuban missile crisis.   

From the assassination of President Kennedy via the stock market crash of 1987 and the Fall of the Berlin Wall through to the burst of the dotcom bubble, the terror attacks of 9/11 and the collapse of Lehman Brothers: Art Cashin has experienced all the major world events of the last half century at the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Currently, the highly respected Wall Street veteran keeps a close eye on the geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and on the situation in Ukraine which reminds him of the Cuban missile crisis «The markets are edgy and nervous», says the Director of Floor Operations for UBS Financial Services while constantly checking the quotation board. Like many traders here, he is somewhat skeptical of the huge stock market rally that started in March 2009. «I think it is a question of the extraordinarily low interest rates», he explains.

Mr. Cashin, September is historically the most difficult month of the year for equities. What is your take on September 2014 so far?

It is strange that September still lingers as a particularly weak month. It goes back to when America was more of an agrarian society and we depended on what would happen with the crop cycles. If a cooking factory for example had to buy wheat from the farmers it would send a check out drawn on an account at a city bank and the country bank would then cash it and put the money in the farmer’s account. Before the Federal Reserve was created, there was a wide spread between the time that money was asked for and when it was replaced. For centuries, this caused bank panics around this time of the year, most notably the panic of 1907. You would think that now that we are no longer an agrarian society, those changes would ease up on the financial pressures. But the market has kind of an echo.

So what are traders talking about at the present time here at the New York Stock Exchange?

We are concerned about two questions. First, how will the Fed do in keeping money reasonably easy without causing inflation? Second, where do we stand with the current geopolitical challenges? For now, these challenges seem to be short term concerns. But should we begin to see a financial contagion and pressure building on banks in Europe, perhaps out of the Ukraine situation, things could theoretically turn into what I call a «Lehman moment». That is when markets come under pressure but seem to be under control, and then things change suddenly.

How do you handle these concerns in your daily business as stock market operator?

Having done this over half a century now, the market tends to have recurring cycles of some type or other. For example, at the beginning of the Cuban missile crisis no one thought that it would turn into a major event. Yet, as time went on and neither side relented, it began to look like we might be on the verge of a nuclear war. That had great reverberations in the financial markets. Then, finally the Russian convoy that was going to resupply the Cuban missiles turned and headed back. Immediately, the stock market began to rally on that sense of relief and that rally continued for months. So you can have these theoretical events – whether they are geopolitical or not – and you get two sweeping changes: First, you can get further and further pressure on prices. And then suddenly, when it releases, you can get almost a rocket shot to the upside.

What are the signals you are looking for to stay on top in such a market?

Over the years, we on the floor have taken to look at what we call the risk monitors. For instance, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note is usually an indicator for the flight to safety. People are looking to get over to the United States protected by the two large oceans. You also look at the gold market where people invest who are concerned that things are changing radically and who think they need some currency protection. And then, particularly in situations like this, you look at things like oil because that is inextricably involved with Russia and with the Middle East and what is going on with the Islamic terror organization ISIS.

And what are the risks monitors signaling?

Right now, it almost looks like peace is breaking out. The price of oil is sharply lower, both Texas West Intermediate and Brent. That indicates a lot less stress there. Although traders can be believers in conspiracies too. There is some wonder if perhaps Saudi Arabia and the United States are encouraging downward pressure on oil prices which would in turn put pressure on Russia and limit the availability to finance what they are doing. So there may be either market forces or government forces behind this.

And how stable is the situation on the stock market? Equities have stalled somewhat lately. Nevertheless, at the End of August the S&P 500 closed over 2000 for the first time and so far equities have performed quite well this year again.

I think it is a question of the extraordinarily low level of interest rates. There are very few places that investors can go to and get some return. So some people are using historic yard sticks and they are saying: «If rates are this low and the economy is this okay then the value of stocks should go higher.» But some of us question that since rates are artificially low.

So what is your take on those super low rates?

I think it means that there are still deflationary pressures out there and that the central banks all around the world are fighting off that deflation risk by keeping rates low. Rates are incredibly low in Europe, they are incredibly low in Japan, they are incredibly low in England and in the United States. That drives people to look at some other avenue to get a return and they have been driven into the stock market.

With the looming end of the QE3 program, the stock market soon will have to pass an important test. But surprisingly, in contrast to the end of QE1 and QE2 investors do not seem to be so nervous this time.

But we are seeing a rather similar reaction in the bond market. Perversely, when they ended the earlier QEs, treasury yields went down instead of going up. So we are seeing a little of that. I think the reaction of the stock market has to do with something that is referred to as the Greenspan put, and later as the Bernanke put. Investors believe that the Fed is concerned about its own independence and therefore it cannot let anything drastic happen. Our government has not been able to do anything on a fiscal basis. So the Fed has gone out and developed tons and tons of access free reserves. If that fails the central bankers know that it will be quite convenient for all the politicians to point the finger at the Fed. Hence, not only is the Fed interested in maintaining the economy but also in its own independence.

During your career on Wall Street, you have seen the coming and going of several Fed chiefs. How would you grade Janet Yellen so far?

I think it is a little too early to tell because she has not been fully able to implement her policies. We have not been done with the taper and she has not clearly defined what yardsticks or mileposts she is using. She is a scholarly woman and has done a great deal of studying, like Mr. Bernanke. Also, I have a new person to look at in the Fed and that would be Stanley Fischer. He brings a lot of experience in as vice chairman. As we begin to look at his speeches and comments, we will see that he is going to have an enormous influence and we may be begin to see him helping Ms. Yellen. He is not going to confront her but helping her to, perhaps, understand why things have to change a little.

With the end of QE3 and the return to a somewhat more traditional monetary policy, investors will likely put their focus more on the fundamentals like revenues, profit margins and earnings. In what shape is Corporate America?

That is one of the great debates here. It really breaks down to on what do you view the stock market is based on. On one side, there are the skeptics. They look at macroeconomics like the GDP numbers, the unemployment rate and a variety of other things. Those people tend to have been skeptical all the way through this rally. On the other side, there are the believers in the stock market and the recovery. They have seen the earnings go up and have been spot on so far. But there is a couple of asterisks that you have to put in. Thanks to the low interest rates, companies are finding that they can improve their balance sheets and they are buying back their own shares. So even when you are earning a little less money, if there are fewer shares around, than the price earnings ratio looks pretty good. That is why the critics of the stock market say that it is all part of financial engineering. Nevertheless, the supporters will respond: «Well, here is the earnings and we are at seventeen times earnings and that is very good for us.»

On what side of this debate are the traders here on the floor at?

The view of the traders is a slight degree of skepticism. As I say, having done this over fifty years, traders are always making sure they know the way out. When I go into a room, the first thing I look for is the exit sign. So when things turn bad I know which way to go.

Also, some skeptics argue that you cannot trust this really since it is based on unusually low trading volumes. Especially at the end of August we have seen some of the lowest volume days over the past seven years.

Over the years, I was always thought that volume equals validity. Just as you would not want to elect a president with only ten or twelve people voting. You want to see a broad consensus. Likewise, you would like to see a broad consensus on what is going on at the stock market. But these days, some of that lack of volume is structural. We have new products like Exchange Traded Funds. So you can with one purchase buy the five hundred stocks in the S&P 500 instead of the five hundred transactions that would have taken place in the past. That contributes to a lower volume, too.

How did the trading business change over the last few years in general?

We are going through a transition into automated electronic trading and we are still adapting to that. The new owners of the New York Stock Exchange, the Intercontinental Exchange, said that they would like to revamp what is going on, change some of the rules and perhaps produce a little more visible activity. I for one miss some of the old trading, especially the simple things. When there was a big crowd, noise would tell me things. When the noise level picked up I would know the activity is picking up. And if you are doing it as long as I am, you could almost tell by the pitch of the noise whether they were buyers or sellers: The buyers sound a little more like a Russian chorus. The sellers, on the other hand – I guess because they were nervous – would have a higher pitch when they shout «Sell! Sell! Sell!»

Today, the silent machines of high frequency traders do most of the trading. How do you cope with those superfast computers and highly sophisticated algorithms?

They may be faster but they are not necessarily smarter. Sometimes an old dog can still learn variations of new tricks and get things done. They might get the first step out of the building but you have to think on behalf of your clients what other impact will that have. If they are doing something in General Motors, what does it mean to Ford or someone else? So in this business, your clients expect you to be able to relate something that is happening in a particular stock with something in the rest of the market.

In May of 2010, the Flash Crash made the world suddenly aware of what can happen when robots are in charge in the trading arenas. How vulnerable is the US stock market today to a similar threat?

I am, of course, prejudiced. I prefer the trading system that we have had through the years. Here on the floor, not one stock traded at a penny during the Flash Crash. That was only in the electronic markets. And that was because here were humans who looked at each other and said: «That does not make any sense. There is no news out, there is no event. Let’s slow down and see where things are going.» As a consequence, the prices here on the floor tended not to be distorted in a manner that they were in other places. So as far as market structure is concerned, I think it is very helpful to have humans around. I prefer that somebody is watching the market as trades are being executed – just as I would not want to fly in an airplane with no pilot.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/Xe8NRI Tyler Durden

Just when we thought that the Fed is pulling an Obama and has “no strategy” to deal with what not some fringe blog but Deutsche Bank itself proclaimed was the bubble to end, or rather extend, all bubbles, when it said that “the bubble probably needs to continue in order to sustain the current global financial system” they surprise us once again when they report that, drumroll, the Fed has formed a committee led by the former head of the Bank of Israel – best known for using de novo created fiat money to buy AAPL stock as part of “prudent monetary policy” – Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer, to monitor financial stability, which according to Bloomberg is “reinforcing the Fed’s efforts to avoid the emergence of asset-price bubbles.”

Because contrary to what even five-year-olds know by now, the Fed is supposedly not promoting the emergence of bubbles but is actually “avoiding” them. No, really.

From Bloomberg on the Fed’s committee for the prevention of asset bubbles:

Joining Fischer on the Committee on Financial Stability are Governors Daniel Tarullo and Lael Brainard, according to the central bank’s latest Board Committee list.

 

Fed officials want to ensure that six years of near-zero interest rates don’t lead to a repeat of the excessive risk-taking that fanned the U.S. housing boom and subsequent financial crisis.

 

“They’re putting the varsity team on it, but whether or not they’re going to be able to call bubbles better than anyone else is really is an open question,” Drew Matus, deputy U.S. chief economist at UBS Securities LLC in New York, said in an interview yesterday.

 

Sharpening the issue, measures of volatility across stocks, bonds and currencies worldwide have declined to record or multi-year lows this year, in a potential sign of investor complacency.

 

Fischer’s committee joins the Fed’s Office of Financial Stability Policy and Research, led by Nellie Liang, a senior Board economist, on the lookout for signs of market excess.

 

The creation of the new committee was reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal.

 

One purpose of the committee is to help ensure that staff working on financial stability issues can easily flag their findings at the Fed’s highest level.

Well, that explains it: all Bernanke needed when he infamously said in March 2007 that “subprime was contained”, days after New Century imploded, was a “committee” – clearly then the biggest financial crash in history would have been avoided, and the Fed would have been on top of things.

Which it is now.

On top of things, that is.

Thanks to a committee.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1D4TMT9 Tyler Durden

Just when we thought that the Fed is pulling an Obama and has “no strategy” to deal with what not some fringe blog but Deutsche Bank itself proclaimed was the bubble to end, or rather extend, all bubbles, when it said that “the bubble probably needs to continue in order to sustain the current global financial system” they surprise us once again when they report that, drumroll, the Fed has formed a committee led by the former head of the Bank of Israel – best known for using de novo created fiat money to buy AAPL stock as part of “prudent monetary policy” – Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer, to monitor financial stability, which according to Bloomberg is “reinforcing the Fed’s efforts to avoid the emergence of asset-price bubbles.”

Because contrary to what even five-year-olds know by now, the Fed is supposedly not promoting the emergence of bubbles but is actually “avoiding” them. No, really.

From Bloomberg on the Fed’s committee for the prevention of asset bubbles:

Joining Fischer on the Committee on Financial Stability are Governors Daniel Tarullo and Lael Brainard, according to the central bank’s latest Board Committee list.

 

Fed officials want to ensure that six years of near-zero interest rates don’t lead to a repeat of the excessive risk-taking that fanned the U.S. housing boom and subsequent financial crisis.

 

“They’re putting the varsity team on it, but whether or not they’re going to be able to call bubbles better than anyone else is really is an open question,” Drew Matus, deputy U.S. chief economist at UBS Securities LLC in New York, said in an interview yesterday.

 

Sharpening the issue, measures of volatility across stocks, bonds and currencies worldwide have declined to record or multi-year lows this year, in a potential sign of investor complacency.

 

Fischer’s committee joins the Fed’s Office of Financial Stability Policy and Research, led by Nellie Liang, a senior Board economist, on the lookout for signs of market excess.

 

The creation of the new committee was reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal.

 

One purpose of the committee is to help ensure that staff working on financial stability issues can easily flag their findings at the Fed’s highest level.

Well, that explains it: all Bernanke needed when he infamously said in March 2007 that “subprime was contained”, days after New Century imploded, was a “committee” – clearly then the biggest financial crash in history would have been avoided, and the Fed would have been on top of things.

Which it is now.

On top of things, that is.

Thanks to a committee.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1D4TMT9 Tyler Durden

Courtesy of the SlealthFlation Blog:

Any discerning student of current world affairs can no longer deny the overwhelming and inordinate influence the upper echelons of the global financial hierarchy now has on all aspects of universal political and economic life.  The financial engineers and monetary authorities that construct, orchestrate and determine both the value and the procedures governing a common means of exchange between private citizens, which were meant to facilitate the trustworthy and equitable trade of goods and services between them, has been notably hijacked by an exclusive group of men whom are much more interested in their own personal appropriation and expanded dominion over what should always be a trustworthy and equitable common means of exchange.

The ascendancy of the international financiers and their domineering financial regime is so formidable and their influence so pervasive, that their ultimate authority has even transcended the sovereignty of the nation states themselves which are meant to represent the will and concerns of their own people.  Whether it be in the realm of politics, economics, military considerations, energy-resource planning, news dissemination, educational concerns, healthcare programs, housing development; the preeminent financial sector has managed to infiltrate and assert its dominion over nearly all these societal structures, even down to matters of local civic governance.

Determined dominion of an established authority over the every day man’s rights and economic life is as old as civilization itself.  Whether it be the pharaohs of Egypt past, the emperors of Rome, the Kings of France, the English imperialists, the Fascist fanatics, or the Soviet superstate;  all, without exception, imposed their will and self-serving governance and infrastructure on those beneath them.  Their motivations were always the same, appropriation and hegemony.

The current group which is large and in charge is no different on that score.   In fact, they are perhaps more ominous and even more nocuous, as they are not as easily recognized and have allegiance to nothing.  At least the unelected despots previously mentioned were dignified enough to state their aims front and center for all to see.   Our financial globalist oppressors hide behind the walls of international high finance, economic academia and central banking omnipotence.   They are answerable to no one and yet responsible for all.   Make no mistake my friends, while we are comfortably asleep, they are imposing their self-seeking monetary hegemony on us all.  Their backroom silence like a cancer grows…………….

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/YGAKD3 Bruno de Landevoisin

In 1980, at the depth of the last bear market in bonds, the 10-year was yielding around 16%. This meant that in general, if you borrowed money at that time, you would be paying more than 18% per annum on the loan (anyone who lent you money instead of the lending to the US Government by buying a Treasury, would be expecting a much higher rate of return for the greater risk).

 

So, if you’d borrowed $100,000 in 1980, you’d need to pay at least $18K to finance the loan per year (for simplicity’s sake, I’m not bothering to include principal repayments).

 

Obviously, with interest rates at this level, you’d think twice before taking out that loan.

 

The great bull market in bonds started in 1983. Since that time the yield on the 10-year has fallen almost continuously.

 

 

When looking at this chart it is important to assess two things:

 

1)   The psychological resistance to borrowing money/ investment risk shrank year after year.

2)   The overall timeline and its impact on different generations.

 

For 40 years, with few exceptions, it became increasingly cheaper to borrow money. The flip side of this is that the overall “risk” of the investment world (remember that all investments move in relation to “risk free” 10-year Treasuries) shrank on an almost yearly basis for 40 years.

 

This was a truly tectonic shift in the investment landscape occurring over four decades. During that period we had the Long-Term Capital Crisis, the Asia Crisis, the Ruble Crisis, the Peso Crisis, the Tech Crash AND the 2008 Meltdown.

 

Throughout this period, despite these numerous crises, risk became increasingly cheaper. This is truly astounding and can be largely traced to the Federal Reserve (more on this later).

 

The second item is important because this time period (40 years) encompasses at least 2 if not 3 generations. A 30 year old who shied away from borrowing money at 18% in 1980 was 50 with children in their teens by the year 2000. That individual’s children would grow up in an era in which interest rates were below 10% for their entire lives and below 7% for as long as they could remember.

 

From an investor perspective, this means that any professional investor who was working in the late ‘70s/ early ‘80s would now be retired (e.g. a bond fund manager who was 25 in 1980 would now be 65).  Put another way, there is an entire generation of professional investors aged 22-60 who have never invested during a bear market in bonds (a period in which risk was generally increasing).

 

In the near past, the last time the Fed raised rates was in 2004. And that was the first rate raise in four years. Put another way, the Fed has only raised interest rates once in the last 14 years.

 

So not only are we dealing with an investment landscape in which virtually no working fund manager has experienced a bear market in bonds… we’ve actually got an entire generation of investment professionals who have experienced only one increase in interest rates in 14 years.

 

Moreover, we must recall that throughout 2011-2012, the Fed continually pledged to hold rates at zero until as late as 2016. These repeated statements, made by numerous Fed officials, further inculcated investors with the belief that rates will not be rising anytime soon.

 

The bottomline: higher rates are coming… and an entire generation of investment professionals are unprepared for it.

 

This concludes this article. If you’re looking for the means of protecting your portfolio from the coming collapse, you can pick up a FREE investment report titled Protect Your Portfolio at http://ift.tt/170oFLH.

 

This report outlines a number of strategies you can implement to prepare yourself and your loved ones from the coming market carnage.

 

Best Regards

 

Phoenix Capital Research

 

 

 

 

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1sKQLCP Phoenix Capital Research

While China may have mastered the art of goalseeking GDP, always coming within 0.1% of the consensus estimate, usually to the upside, even if the bogey has seen dramatic declines in the past few years, dropping from double digit annualized growth to just 7.5% currently and the projections hockey stick long gone…

… it may need to expand its goalseek template to include the other far more important measure of Chinese economic activity, such as Industrial production, retail sales, fixed investment, and even more importantly – such key output indicators as Cement, Steel and Electricity, because based on numbers released overnight, the Q2 Chinese recovery is now history (as the credit impulse of the most recent PBOC generosity has faded, something we have discussed in the past), and the economy has ground to the biggest crawl it has experienced since the Lehman crash. What’s worse, and what we predicted would happen when we observed the collapse in Chinese commodity prices ten days ago, capex, i.e. fixed investment, grew at the slowest pace  in the 21st century: the number of 16.5% was the lowest since 2001, and suggests that the commodity deflation problem is only going to get worse from here.

As JPM summarized earlier today, pretty much every economic data release was a disaster, missing consensus significantly, and suggesting GDP is now trending at an unprecedented sub-7%.

“Today China released major indicators of economic activity for August. Industrial production growth slowed to 6.9%oya (consensus: 8.8%), slowest pace since the global financial crisis period of late 2008/early 2009, suggesting that the economy has lost  momentum again following the 2Q recovery. On the domestic front, both fixed investment and retail sales came in weaker than expected. Fixed investment growth decelerated notably to 16.5%oya ytd in August (J.P. Morgan: 16.8%, consensus: 16.9%), the slowest pace of growth since 2001, while retail sales increased 11.9%oya (J.P. Morgan: 12.4%; consensus: 12.1%). Recall that August merchandise exports (released on Monday) still showed solid growth pace at 9.4%oya, while imports disappointed, falling 2.4% y/y”.

It wasn’t just the economic indicators: there was pronounced weakness in the biggest Chinese asset, far more important to the local economy than stocks: the housing market:  Home sale area fell 13.4% Y/Y in August, compared to the fall at 17.9% Y/Y in July. In value term, home sale fell 13.7% Y/Y in August, compared to the fall at 17.9% Y/Y in July. In other words, those predicting the bursting of the Chinese housing bubble better be paying attention as it is currently taking place.

Which also means that with organic cash flow plunging, real estate developers had to resort to the capital markets increasingly more, and raised 7.9 trillion yuan year-to-date by August (up 2.7% ytd), compared to 6.9 trillion yuan year-to-date by July (up 3.2% ytd). Basically, this means that in order to delay the hard landing, China is now pushing its banks into the all-in moment as everyone is mobilized to stop the one event that could result in a global depression: recall – Chinese banks have over $25 trillion in assets, the bulk of which is backed by housing.

Finally, and perhaps most disturbing, was that alongside a slowdown in cement and steel production, Chinese electrical output saw its first Y/Y decline since Lehman, dropping by a “shocking bad” 2.2% (in Bloomberg’s words) by far the best economic indicator of what is going on in the middle kingdom.

 

Putting it all together, here is JPM: “Overall, the August activity points at some downside risks going ahead. Note that trade surplus is strong in recent months, but this is mainly because weaker-than-expected import growth, which is related to the story of weak domestic demand. The weakness in domestic demand is not only reflected in real estate activity, but also in manufacturing and other sectors. To some degree this is good news, as slowdown in manufacturing and real estate investment is a critical part of economic re-balancing. Nonetheless, it remains unclear what other sectors could arise and provide alternative source of growth in the near term.“

Or, as Bloomberg’s Peter Orlik shows, based on these real-time economic indicators, China’s GDP has tumbled to a shocking 6.3% from 7.4%, and far below the 7.5% GDP target set by the premier.

 

And since it is unclear what can drive growth, JPM is happy to provide one solution: more easing of course. Then again, even JPM confirms that this will be an hard uphill climb: “Despite the weak data in August, there is no sign that the Chinese government will ease macro policies in the near term. In a speech earlier this week, Premier Li reiterated that China’s growth is within a reasonable range, and the government will rely more on structural reform, rather than stimulus, to support economic growth.”

But recall that China has used big words before, such as last summer when it swore it would engage in a 1 trillion deleveraging, only to quickly forget all about it when its banking system nearly collapsed after overnight repo rates soared to 25%.

So what are the options? Here, again, is JPM:

What measures could be introduced to stabilize the growth momentum?

 

First, the central bank has adopted unconventional measures to ease the monetary policy since 2Q. These include a target for relatively low market interest rates (e.g. repo rates and SHIBOR); targeted credit easing, such as the PSL, re-lending, targeted RRR and target rate cut; tighter rules on shadow banking activity and improve the credit support to the real sector (via compositional shift from shadow banking to bank loans in total social financing). It is likely that the PBOC will expand the PSL operation in the coming months to support targeted sectors (e.g. environment, water conservation, small business).

 

Second, given the limitations in fiscal policy to support investment in 2H14, the government may introduce measures to encourage the participation of private investment. Such measures include removing government control, opening market access, or the public-private-partnership (PPP) model.

 

In addition, we expect housing policies will be further eased to slow down the adjustment process in the housing market. Many local governments have removed or eased the home restriction policies in recent months, and since July mortgage support for first-home buyers has improved (e.g. lower mortgage rates and improved mortgage availability). In recent weeks some real estate developers were allowed to raise funds from the bond and equity market. A next possible policy option could be the easing in loan-to-value restrictions for second-home buyers, which now is subject to a maximum LTV of 40%.

 

More importantly, this administration has announced some supply-side policy measures. It remains to be seen whether these measures will be implemented in practice. The areas that are worthy of special attention include: (1) administrative reform, i.e. removal of government control and private access to sectors used to be controlled by the state sector; (2) reduction of the tax and fee burden for the corporate sector; (3)
reduction of funding cost for business borrowers especially for small business.

In other words, we are now in a world in which the biggest economy, Europe, is about to enter a triple-dip recession, and the third largest standalone economy, China, is undergoing an economic standstill, and all hopes and prayers are that China will join the ECB in activating monetary easing once again. But yes, the Fed will not only conclude QE but will supposedly begin rising rates in just over two quarters.

Good luck with that.

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

Next week may very well be one of the most important weeks of the year.  There are a number of events that individually and collectively have the potential to spur significant moves across the capital markets.  These events include the Scottish referendum, FOMC meeting, and the launch of the ECB’s TLTRO facility.

 

In addition, the Swiss National Bank meets, and it has indicated that negative rates have not been ruled out to help defend the currency cap. Catalonia’s parliament will decide whether to push forward with a non-binding survey/referendum that has been rejected by the national government.  Some observers have attributed the under-performance of Spanish assets (after a period of out performance) to the idea that the strong showing of the Scottish nationalists has some bearing on Catalonia’s independence.

 

Given the potential for these events to drive the capital markets, and that the volatility of volatility, if you will, has risen, an overview of the technical condition of the capital markets may be particularly helpful now.  At the risk of oversimplifying, the US dollar is in a strong uptrend against the major currencies and most of the emerging market currencies.  Speculative positioning in the future market has been concentrated in amassing significant short euro and yen positions.   The market was net long Australian and Canadian dollars, but the recent price action suggests a substantial position adjustment took place, and more than what is captured in the position report for the week ending September 9.

 

There has also been a sharp reversal in US yields.  The 10-year Treasury yield was near the lows for the year in late August below 2.35%.  It briefly traded poked through 2.60% before the weekend. It has now satisfied a Fibonocci retracement (38.2%) of the yield decline from January through August. The next retracement target is near 2.68%.  Barring a shock, the yield can climb into the 2.75%-2.80% in the coming weeks.

 

Yields around the world have risen with US Treasuries (which is why political scientists rather than investment advisers formalized the hypothesis of a G-zero world). European bond yields have risen less, and several emerging markets and Australia experienced larger increases in yields.   Generally speaking, in rising interest rate environment, one would expect the credit spreads to widen, with lower credit yields rising more.

 

The S&P 500 set record highs on September 4, but the technical tone has deteriorated in recent session.  The development is somewhat reminiscent of the topping pattern carved out in the second half of July, when the S&P 500 also registered record highs.  It is as if investors are happy to take profits on rallies.  Perhaps this reflects a mistrust for the equity gains or belief that the environment that facilitated them will change soon  We note that the five and twenty day moving average are set to cross, and this cross-over has done a good job in recent months of signaling the trends. The poor close before the weekend warns of follow through losses next week.  Initial targets are in 1970 and then 1958,  It takes a break of the 1940 area to signal a test on the August low in front of 1900.

 

Most equity markets also fell last week, but lets looks at the exceptions first.  The weakening of yen may have helped encourage the 1.8% rally in the Nikkei.  Soft Chinese CPI underscores the scope for potential easing of policy, and this may have helped the national markets rise 1-2%.  The MSCI emerging market equity index recorded its 3-year high on September 4, while the S&P was making its record high.  It fell each session last week, and the five and twenty day moving averages have crossed.   All of the Fibonocci retracement objectives have been surpassed, highlighting the risk that the index 1045-50 area (~1.5%-2.0% decline).  

 

Commodity prices have fallen sharply.  The CRB Index is off more than 10% since late June, and 4% this month alone.  The momentum is too much and some signs of consolidation were seen toward the end of the week in which twice the index gapped lower.  Of note, for American drivers gasoline prices at the pump are at six-month lows (average price in US, according to AAA). Oil prices themselves staged a potentially important technical reversal last week.  The move through $96 would indicate a low of some significance was likely in place.   The price of gold is at an eight-month low. Raising interest rates increase the opportunity cost of holding gold, and the rally in the dollar may deter other buyers.  

 

Taking a closer look at the foreign exchange market, we share four points.  First, the euro’s record long losing streak of eight weeks ended with a firm close before the weekend.   The $1.3000 level has psychological significance, while the retracement of the ECB-induced slide is $1.3010.  It may take a move through the $1.3045 area to encourage short covering.  

 

Second, the dollar has made new highs against the yen for eleven consecutive sessions.  The rise in US yields, and the official jawboning, took place after the move was well under way.    The advance in the dollar has met no resistance.  The diversification of Japan’s public funds, the increased portfolio outflow, and speculators are among the featured yen sellers.  With ECB officials talking the euro lower, Japanese officials may sense a greater sense of flux, and have welcomed the yen’s decline, and recognizing the fundamental economic considerations behind it. The dollar finished last week near its highs, and further near-term gains are likely.  The JPY108 level beckons but real target seems to be closer to JPY110.  

 

Third, the gap that was created a the start of last week’s trading, in response to the YouGov poll that showed the Scottish independents with a lead, has not been fully filled.   A small gap still exists between $1.6277-$1.6283.  We think that nearly every one really expects the “no” vote to carry the day and the speculative positioning in the futures market bears this out.    There is a sense that sterling has been oversold, but the risks are great, and the cost of hedging (implied volatility) is high.   It takes a break of $1.60 to signal something important.  It is likely to remain intact until the referendum.  A “yes” victory would wreak havoc.  Sterling would sell-off sharply, and likely drag down short-term rates.  The market would price in a political and economic crisis.  At the same time, a “no” victory would allow the market to focus on favorable UK fundamentals and a pound that has lost 12 cents over he past two months.  On a as-expected “no” vote, our target for sterling is $1.65-$1.66.  

 

Fourth, a negative attitude to the European currencies and yen are not new.  The new thing that has taken place is that the dollar-bloc currencies have also now fallen out of favor.  The Australian and New Zealand dollars were the weakest of the majors last week.  The yen barely eclipsed the Canadian dollar to take third place.   The technical indicators warn of further losses ahead.  In addition, the take-away from the recent price action in the other major currencies, is that this is does not the kind of dollar market that one has been rewarded for fading breakouts.  Both the Australian and Canadian dollar have broken out of their previous ranges.  Technically, there may be scope for another 2% decline in the coming weeks.  

 

Observations based on speculative positioning in the futures market:  

 

1.  There were two significant (10k+ contract change in gross positions) position adjustment in the C
FTC reporting period ending September 9.  First, short-covering reduced the gross short yen position by 14.8k contracts to 118.0k.  The yen has continued to sell-off and new shorts were likely established since the reporting period ended.  Second, the bulls went shopping in sterling.  They extended the gross long position by 13.8k contracts to 81.3k.  It was the most buying in five months. It is also larger than the euro, yen and Swiss franc gross positions combined.   

 

2.   The other twelve gross currency positions we track were adjusted by less than 5k contracts.  Generally speaking, this reflected the position squaring in the sense that most of the currency futures (but the Swiss franc and the Australian dollar) saw a small reduction in gross short positions.  Outside of sterling that we discussed above, there was virtually now buying of the currency futures during the reporting period.  Combined the euro, yen, and Swiss franc saw an increase of 2.5k gross long contracts.  Gross longs were reduced in Canadian and Australian dollars and the Mexican peso.   The out-sized losses in these currencies in recent says suggests were longs have been liquidated.  

 

3.  Speculators in the US 10-year Treasury futures bought into the decline through September 9. During the week they added almost 58k long contracts for a gross position of 440.2k contracts.  The gross shorts edged a little higher.  The 8.4k contract increase brings the gross short position to 473.5k contracts.  The net short position fell to 33.3k contracts from 82.7k.   An important question is when will the longs capitulate?   We think that the yields are a little more than  half way to what may be a new equilibrium (~2.75%).

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/Xd6yOp Marc To Market