Lunes 07/09/15 Labor Day - Dia del trabajo

[Fenix]

The Margin Debt Time-Bomb
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/05/2015 - 19:00

We are our own worst enemies...




Guest Post: China’s Worst Nightmare - The US’s Oil Weapon
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/05/2015 - 19:45

China’s islanding building on the four-mile-long and two-mile-wide Subi Reef in the South China Sea has put The US in a tight spot. To protect its ally from China’s aggression, The US will be left with little choice but to constrain China by military means. However, the US won't directly engage China in the war in the foreseeable future, because the US dominates China with its superior naval and air force and the only way for China to level the playing field is to apply nuclear weapons. The nuclear nature of Sino-American warfare will make both the world no.1 and no.2 economy the fallen giants. So there is a possibility that The US might use its oil weapon instead to strike at the core of China’s weakness - it’s huge dependence on oil import.

[Fenix]

Why Hedge Fund Hot Shots Finally Got Hammered
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/05/2015 - 20:30

The destruction of honest financial markets by the Fed and other central banks has created a class of hedge fund hot shots that are truly hard to take. At length, both the epic bond bubble and the monumental stock bubble so recklessly fueled by the Fed and the other central banks after September 2008 will burst in response to the deflationary tidal wave now cresting. Needless to say, that eventuality will be the death knell for the risk parity trade. It will cause the volatility seeking algos to eat their own portfolios alive. Leon Cooperman and his momo chasing compatriots will soon be praying for an event as mild as October 1987.



Look For These Trades To Blow Up As The Rally Ends
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/05/2015 21:45 -0400

What are the most crowded trades currently (and hence where the next round of carnage is coming from)? Long the US Dollar? Short US Treasuries? Long VIX? Think again...

And none of them ended well. Which is why this...


...might be the start of something very ugly.

[Fenix]

The Petrostate Hex: Visualizing How Plunging Oil Prices Affect Currencies
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/05/2015 21:15 -0400

Every day, the world consumes 93 million barrels of oil, which is worth $4.2 billion.

Oil is one of the world’s most basic necessities. At least for now, all modern countries rely on oil and its derivatives as the backbone of their economies. However, the price of oil can have significant swings. These changes in price can have profound implications depending on whether an economy is a net importer or net exporter of crude.

Net exporters, countries that sell more oil abroad than they bring in, feel the sting when prices plunge. Less revenue gets generated, and this can impact everything from balancing the budget to the value of their currency in the world market.

Net importers, on the other hand, benefit from lower prices as it decreases input costs for production. For example, a country like Japan only meets 15% of its energy needs domestically, and must import 3.5 million barrels of oil each day. A lower oil price significantly decreases these costs.

For many major net exporters of oil, changes in oil prices are highly correlated with their currencies. With oil prices crashing over the last year, currencies such as the Canadian dollar and Russian ruble have been highly impacted in terms of USD. But the impact of oil on currency depends on how central banks approach to policy.



Life In A Cashless World: How Cash Became A Policy Tool – An Interview With Dr. Harald Malmgren
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/06/2015 - 08:45

Banks in the US and Europe are trying to develop a cashless transactions system. The concept is to establish a comprehensive ledger for a business or a person that records everything received and spent, and all of the assets held – mortgages, investment portfolios, debts, contractual financial obligations, and anything else of market value. There would be no need for cash because the ledger would tell you and anyone you were considering a transaction with how much is available and would be transactable at any specific moment. This is not a dreamy idea. Blythe Masters is leading a new business effort to develop a universal cashless system. Not only is she gathering significant investor interest, but the Federal Reserve and various US Government agencies have become keenly interested in the potential usefulness and efficiencies of a universal cashless system

[Fenix]

The Concept Of Money And The Money Illusion
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/05/2015 22:00 -0400

Submitted by Koos Jansen
Awareness about the concept of money is making a comeback. Gone are the decades in which the global citizenry was fooled to leave this subject to economists, governments and banks – a setup that has proven to end in disaster. The crisis in 2008 has spawned debate about what money is, where it comes from and where it should come from. These developments inspired me to write a post on the concept of money and the money illusion. (All examples in this post are simplified.)
The Concept Of Money

Money is a collective human invention

First, let us have a look at the fundamentals of money. How did Money evolve? Thousand and thousands of years ago before any trade occurred homo sapiens use to be self-sufficient; families or small communities grew that their own crops, fished the seas, raised cattle and made their own tools.

When barter emerged the necessity to be self-sufficient ceased to exist. A farmer that grew tomatoes and carrots could exchange some of his production output for bananas or oranges if he wished to do so. There was no necessity for the farmer to grow all crops he wished to consume, when there was an option to trade.

Farmers participating in a barter economy were incentivized to specialize in production, because they could escalate their wealth (gain more goods) by producing fewer crops on a greater scale. Through trade increased productivity (efficiency of production) could be converted into wealth, as the more efficient commodities were produced, the higher the exchange value of the labor put in to produce them. Consequently, barter economized production among its participants.

By exchanging, human beings discovered ‘the division of labor’, the specialization of efforts and talents for mutual gain… Exchange is to cultural evolution as sex is to biological evolution.

From Matt Ridley.

Direct exchange (barter) was a severely limited form of trade because it relied on the mutual coincidence of demand. An orange farmer in demand for potatoes had to find a potato farmer in demand for oranges in order to trade. If he could find a potato farmer in demand for oranges and agree on the exchange rate (price) a transaction occurred. But, often there was no mutual coincidence of demand. When all potato farmers were not in demand for oranges the orange farmer could not exchange his product for potatoes. In this case there was no trade, no one could escalate his or her wealth.

This is how money came into existence: the orange farmer decided to exchange his product for a highly marketable commodity. A bag of salt, for example, could be preserved longer than oranges and was divisible in small parts. He could offer it to a potato farmer, who in turn could store the salt for future trade or consumption. If no potato farmer was in demand for oranges, surely one was to accept salt in exchange. Eventually, the orange farmer succeeded via salt to indirectly exchange his product for potatoes. The medium used for indirect exchange is referred to as money.

In the early stages of indirect exchange there were several forms of money. When economies developed the best marketable commodity surfaced as the sole medium of exchange. A single type of money has the advantage that the value of all goods and services in an economy can be measured in one unit, all prices are denominated in one currency - whereas in barter the exchange rate of every commodity is denominated in an array of other commodities. One set of prices makes trade more efficient, transparent and liquid. Often precious metals, like gold or silver, were used as money as precious metals are scarce (great amounts of value can be transported in small weights), indestructible (gold doesn’t tarnish or corrode) and divisible (gold can be split or merged).

Money is supposed to serve three main purposes:

1) a medium of exchange,

2) a store of value,

3) a unit of account.

Indirect exchange is not restricted by mutual coincidence of demand; every participant in the economy offers and accepts the same medium of exchange, which enormously eases trade. The boost money has given to global wealth is beyond comprehension, the concept of money has been an indispensable discovery of civilisation.

We must realize the subject of money is always a matter of trust, because money in itself has no use-value for us humans. An orange, car, shoebox, t-shirt or house does have use-value. Money does not have use-value as it’s not the end goal of a participant in the economy, the end goal is goods and services. Therefor, what we use as money is a social contract to be used in trade and to store value, always based on trust.

Commodity money (like precious metals) does have some use-value, which it derives from its industrial applications. The majority of commodity money’s exchange value is based on its monetary applications, the residual is based on its industrial applications (use-value). If a commodity is abandoned from being used as money, the monetary value leaves and what is left is the use-value. The exchange value of money equals the amount of goods and services it can be traded for at any given moment, popularly called its purchasing power.

After commodity money came fiat money. The nature of the latter is fundamentally different. From Wikipedia:

Fiat money is currency which derives its value from government regulation or law. The term derives from the Latin fiat (“let it be done”, “it shall be”).

Fiat money is what nowadays is used all around the globe. Instead of being picked by all participants in a free market as the best marketable commodity, it’s created by central banks and it can exist in paper, coin or digital form. Out of thin air and without limitation it can be brought into existence by printing paper bills or typing in digits into a computer. When fiat money is created it’s exchanged for assets a central bank puts on its balance sheet, after the first exchange the money can start circulating in the economy. A central bank can buy any asset, but usually it will be government bonds. Whereas commodity money has its value anchored in the free market economy, the value of fiat money is simply determined by the board of governors of a central bank. Throughout history central banks have been able to control the value of fiat money for relatively short periods, over longer periods the value of fiat money is wiped out inevitably.

The value of commodity money is anchored to the value of all goods and services in a free market, because it requires capital and labor to produce commodity money. This is how the anchor mechanism works (in our example gold is the sole medium of exchange: a simplified gold standard). Say, gold mines increase production output in order to literally make more money. The amount of gold circulating in the economy starts to grow faster than the amount of goods and services it can be traded for. The value of gold will decline relative to goods and services, as there is an oversupply of gold. In this price inflationary scenario it would be more profitable for economic agents to produce other goods than gold, as gold’s purchasing power is falling. When gold miners shift to alternate businesses and mines are closed the amount of gold in circulation starts to grow slower than the amount of goods and services it can be traded for, as a result the value of gold will increase relative to goods and services. In this price deflationary scenario gold’s purchasing power increases, which eventually incentivizes entrepreneurs to start mining gold again, until there is an oversupply of gold, etcetera. Gold used as money on a gold standard is not exclusively subjected to this mechanism. Simply put, in any economy entrepreneurs will grow potatoes when they are expensive and stop growing them when they are cheap. A free market economy in theory stabilizes the value of gold. In reality, for several reasons, gold’s exchange value is not exactly constant, but over longer periods gold’s purchasing power is impressive and more constant than any fiat currency.

Jastram

Courtesy Sharelynx.

In the above chart we can see the green line resembling the index price of goods and services in the United Kingdom since the sixteenth century. The blue line resembles the index price of gold. Both are denominated in pounds sterling on a logarithmic scale. When the index price of gold overshoots the index price of goods and services gold’s purchasing power – the red line – will rise and vice versa. If your savings had been in fiat money since 1950, your purchasing power would have declined by 94 % as the index price of goods and services rose from 400 to 7,000. If your savings had been in gold since 1950, your purchasing power would have been fairly constant (actually would have increased). The green line takes off at the same time when the gold standard was abandoned from which point in time the currency was no longer tied to gold and became fiat.
Fractional Reserve Banking And The Money Illusion

Both commodity money and fiat money can be used for fractional reserve banking. The roots of banking go back many centuries to fraudulent practices by blacksmiths. When people used to own gold coins and bring it to a blacksmith for safekeeping they got a receipt that stated a claim on gold in the vault. These receipts began circulating as money substitutes, instead of having to carry gold coins or bars it was more convenient to make payment with lightweight receipts – this is how paper money was born. Blacksmiths noticed few receipts were redeemed for metal. The gold backing those receipts was just lying idle in their vaults or so they thought. Subsequently, they began issuing more receipts than they could back with gold. Covertly lending out money at an attractive interest rate appeared to be profitable. Naturally, the risk was that when customers found out and simultaneously redeemed their receipts, the blacksmiths went bankrupt. More importantly, not all customers holding a receipt got their gold.

Essentially, modern day banking works in a similar fashion although the scheme has been refined. In 1848 a Supreme Court in the United Kingdom ruled:

Money, when paid into a bank, ceases altogether to be the money of the principal; it is then the money of the banker, who is bound to an equivalent by paying a similar sum to that deposited with him when he is asked for it. … The money placed in the custody of a banker is, to all intents and purposes, the money of the banker, to do with it as he pleases; he is guilty of no breach of trust in employing it; he is not answerable to the principal if he puts it into jeopardy, if he engages in a hazardous speculation; he is not bound to keep it or deal with it as the property of his principal; but he is, of course, answerable for the amount, because he has contracted, having received that money, to repay to the principal, when demanded, a sum equivalent to that paid into his hands.

Guess what. Your money at the bank is not your money. A bank deposit is a loan to the bank, which should justify the fact banks only have a fraction of outstanding liabilities (receipts) in reserve. Let us examine this modern day practice of banking and the creation of what I call illusionary money. In our simplified example there is only book entry money, nowadays digital.

The process begins with the European Central Bank (ECB) that creates 10,000 euros, by the stroke of a keyboard, to buy bonds. The seller of these bonds is Paul who receives the 10,000 euros and deposits these funds at bank A. The ECB’s policy is that commercial banks are required to hold 10 % of all deposits in reserve. Meaning, bank A can lend 90 % of Paul’s money to John who needs money to buy a boat. When John borrows these 9,000 euros and receives the funds in his bank account, something remarkable has taken place. John now has 9,000 euros at his disposal, but Paul still owns 10,000 euros. Miraculously 9,000 euros has been created out of thin air! Before bank A had lend 9,000 euros to John there was only 10,000 euros in existence created by the ECB. After the loan there is 19,000 euros “in existence”, John’s 9,000 euros on top of Paul’s 10,000 euros. Bank A has created 9,000 euros through fractional reserve banking.

And it doesn’t end there. When John buys a 9,000 euro sailing yacht from Bob, Bob deposits these funds at bank B. For this bank the same rules apply, it’s only required to hold 10 % of the 9,000 euros in reserve, so it lends 8,100 euros to Michael. Another 8,100 euros is created out of thin air, now there is 27,100 euros in existence! Needless to say, Michael’s money will be deposited at a bank and multiplied by 90 % as well, and the new money will multiplied by 90 % as well – you get the picture. Eventually, out of the initial 10,000 euros created by the ECB a fresh 90,000 euros can be created by commercial banks at a required reserve ratio of 10 %.

The degree to which commercial banks can procreate money from central bank money is referred to as the money multiplier (MM), which is the inverse of the reserve requirement ratio (RRR). A smaller RRR will result in a higher MM, and vice versa, as the smaller a bank’s reserves, the more it can lend (create). Money created by a central bank is called base money and money created by commercial banks is called credit (note, on a gold standard, the gold was base money). If banks make loans they create credit and the total money supply in the economy expands, if these loans are repaid (or default) the money supply shrinks. In the next chart we can see how 10,000 units of base money procreate 90,000 units of credit through 50 stages of fractional reserve banking (RRR = 10 %).

Fractional Reserve Banking Stages, credit money, money multiplier

Note, the total money supply in the economy nowadays is compounded of less than 10 % base money and more than 90 % credit! For the sake of simplicity I’ve used a reserve requirement ratio of 10 %.

The essence of fractional reserve banking is exactly the same as what the blacksmiths did. When all customers run to a bank to get their money out, the bank has to admit it doesn’t have all the money. Banking thrives on the presumption not all money will be withdrawn from a bank at once. That is, until that happens. Millions of banks have gone bust in the past and many will in the future. The question is not if a bank can go bust, but when, as banks are by definition insolvent in holding a fraction of deposits in reserve. After the bankruptcy of investment bank Lehman Brothers in 2008 an economic depression was triggered and governments globally bailed out banks whose insolvent nature was exposed.

The fact banks are by definition insolvent is “strangely” accepted throughout society. People know banks go belly up when everybody rushes to get their money out, though they’re less aware of alternatives to storing money at the bank. This situation can be explained by the fact people are fooled by how banks operate. In high school and university students are taught banks simply facilitate in lending out money from depositors, striking a profit on the difference in interest rates. While actually banks create money to lend out, whereby a fraction of the initial deposit is held in reserve and the insolvent state is conceived. Most people that work at banks are not even aware about the fine details of credit creation. Henry Ford once said:

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.

The bait for fractional reserve banking is of course interest. Why do you receive interest on a bank deposit? Basically, because you lend your money to the bank and receive interest for the risk of losing it – the golden rule is: no risk no return. Banks have to offer interest or no one would hand over their money. Then banks charge borrowers a higher interest rate than they pay on deposits and the wheel of credit starts turning round. Until the expansion of credit sends up asset bubbles that eventually pop and the house of cards comes tumbling down. The real problem starts to surface when the money supply shrinks prices and incomes decline. This makes it harder for everyone to repay debt to banks, pushing bank bankruptcies. Deflation is a huge threat for the fractional reserve system.

The most intriguing fact is that credit simply doesn’t exist. Credit is created through an accounting trick. If more than a fraction of all bank customers want to withdraw their “money”, it’s just not there. Credit only exists as book entries and in our minds. If customers have 1,000,000 euros deposited at a bank in total, they think they truly own that money, whereas in reality there is only a fraction of the 1,000,000 euros held by the bank in reserves. Yet every financial decision they make is based upon the amount of money they think they own. The lion share of their money only exists in their minds. This is what I call the money illusion, in which most of us on this planet are submerged. Will we ever awaken from this dream and will the real value of money and credit be exposed?

[Fenix]

When "Virtuous Debt" Turns Ferociously Vicious: The Mother Of All Corporate Margin Calls On Deck
09/06/2015 11:25 -0400

Submitted by Bawerk.net

Corporate foie gras

One of the arguments put forth in the bull vs. bear debate is that the solidity of US non-financial corporations have never been stronger. The amount of cash held by non-financial corporations has risen 150 per cent since the depth of the crisis in 2009. With such a massive cushion to stave off whatever the market may throw at them, they will be able to cope, or so it is held.

In addition, we know that financial corporations are flush with cash, or excess reserves held at the Federal Reserve. Throughout the various quantitative easing (QE) programs conducted by the Federal Reserve, commercial banks have been force fed cash as ducks on a foie gras farm. This has swelled their excess reserves to the unprecedented, and what would be thought unimaginable only few years’ back, level of US$2.6 trillion.

With all this cash the system should be, again according to the perma-bulls, more than ready to withstand the shock from the ongoing global deleveraging, a stronger dollar, emerging market blow-ups and the forthcoming US recession.

We beg to differ. When it comes to excess reserves they are most likely already “spoken” as a form of collateral in shadow banking chains. While the initial effect from QE on the shadow banking system was massive deflationary shock as all the high quality securities used in re-hypothecated collateral chains were soaked up by the Federal Reserve, it is a safe bet that excess reserves has to some extent filled that void.

In the non-financial sector on the other hand cash is, well, plain old cash. With more than US$1 trillion of the stuff on their balance sheet complacency is destined to be prevalent. And it is.

Credit market instruments, i.e., debt, have also risen at a tremendous rate. Net debt, that is credit market liabilities less cash, has actually never been higher. As the chart below shows, sitting at more than US$6.6 trillion, non-financial net debt outstrips even the high from 2008.

Now, if we express the gargantuan debt load as share of market value of non-financial equities outstanding things looks not only sustainable, but outright sound. At only 30 per cent the debt to equity ratio is at multiyear lows. We need to go all the way back to the peak of the dot-com folly to find today’s equal.

And it is exactly the folly of the dot-com (and went) that best epitomizes todays manic corporate debt issuance. According to Bloomberg more than US$2.7 trillion in stock buybacks has been effectuated over the last six years. We would be amiss if we didn’t mention that this spending spree, not on capital goods or R&D that will help propel future growth mind you, but on liability massaging, coincided with ZIRP.

Investors desperate for yield have more than happy to lend US Inc. trillions of dollars, even though it is used mainly to buy back own stock. Not surprisingly this also help goose the market value of equites outstanding; also known as the denominator in the ratio presented in our chart.

So more debt begets higher market value of equites which in turn improves the debt/equity ratio which gives the incentive to issue more debt ad infinitum. Or in a slightly simpler version, debt begets more debt.

We have seen the story before. In the shaded grey areas we highlight episodes when the virtuous relationship turns ferociously vicious. Remember, markets take the escalator up, but the elevator down. And the longer the escalator the further down the elevator goes.


Source: Federal Reserve Flow of Funds (Z.1), Bawerk.net

When the US recession hits (see here for more) the massive gap between the green and red line in our chart above will close in short order and the calamity will be even worse than last time, which incidentally was far worse than the time before that.

And this Ladies and Gentlemen is aggregate demand management in practice where, for some unexplained reason, the abundance of savings does not clear the market for investable funds not even at the zero lower bound.

The fact that central bank perverts capital markets and is to a large extent responsible for the very same secular stagnation central bankers believe they must fight, seems lost on today’s intelligentsia.

* * *

Back to ZH here, in addition to Bawerk's explanation of what may be the biggest "non-financial sector" margin call ever on deck, we just wanted to underscore one of the main points made in the piece above, namely the stability - or rather lack thereof - of US Commercial banks, whose cash assets according to the most recent H.8 statement amounts to $2.8 trillion. The problem is that of this, over $2.5 trillion comes from the Fed's excess reserves which at some point will be unwound, meaning the true cash level of US banks - when one excludes excess reserves - has not budged at all since the financial crisis, and has in fact declined to a pro forma level of just over $200 billion.

[Fenix]

Europe's Biggest Bank Dares To Ask: Is The Fed Preparing For A "Controlled Demolition" Of The Market
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/06/2015 14:25 -0400

Why did we focus so much attention yesterday on a post in which the IMF confirmed what we had said since last October, namely that the BOJ's days of ravenous debt monetization are coming to a tapering end as soon as 2017 (as willing sellers simply run out of product)? Simple: because in the global fiat regime, asset prices are nothing more than an indication of central bank generosity. Or, as Deutsche Bank puts it: "Ultimately in a fiat money system asset prices reflect “outside” i.e. central bank money and the extent to which it multiplied through the banking system."

The problem is that the BOJ and the ECB are the only two remaining central banks in a world in which Reverse QE aka "Quantitative Tightening" in China, and the Fed's tightening in the form of an upcoming rate hike (unless the Fed loses all credibility and reverts its pro-rate hike bias), are now actively involved in reducing global liquidity. It is only a matter of time before the market starts pricing in that the Bank of Japan's open-ended QE has begun its tapering (followed by a QE-ending) countdown, which will lead to devastating risk-asset consequences. The ECB, which is also greatly supply constrained as Ewald Nowotny admitted yesterday, will follow closely behind.

But while we expanded on the Japanese problem to come in detail yesterday, here are some key observations on what is going on in both the US and China as of this moment - the two places which all now admit are the culprit for the recent equity selloff, and which the market has finally realized are actively soaking up global liquidity.

Here the problem, as we initially discussed last November in "How The Petrodollar Quietly Died, And Nobody Noticed", is that as a result of the soaring US dollar and collapse in oil prices, Petrodollar recycling has crashed, leading to an outright liquidation of FX reserves, read US Treasurys by emerging market nations. This was reinforced on August 11th when China joined the global liquidation push as a result of its devaluation announcement, a topic which we also covered far ahead of everyone else with our May report "Revealing The Identity Of The Mystery "Belgian" Buyer Of US Treasurys", exposing Chinese dumping of US Treasurys via Belgium.

We also hope to have made it quite clear that China's reserve liquidation and that of the EM petro-exporters is really two sides of the same coin: in a world in which the USD is soaring as a result of Fed tightening concerns, other central banks have no choice but to liquidate FX reserve assets: this includes both EMs, and most recently, China.

Needless to say, these key trends covered here over the past year have finally become the biggest mainstream topic, and have led to the biggest equity drop in years, including the first correction in the S&P since 2011. Elsewhere, the risk devastation is much more profound, with emerging market equity markets and currencies crashing around the globe at a pace reminiscent of the Asian 1998 crisis, while in China both the housing and credit, not to mention the stock market, bubble have all long burst.

Before we continue, we present a brief detour from Deutsche Bank's Dominic Konstam on precisely how it is that in the current fiat system, global central bank liquidity is fungible and until a few months ago, had led to record equity asset prices in most places around the globe. To wit:

Let’s start from some basics. Global liquidity can be thought of as the sum of all central banks’ balance sheets (liabilities side) expressed in dollar terms. We then have the case of completely flexible exchange rates versus one of fixed exchange rates. In the event that one central bank, say the Fed, is expanding its balance sheet, they will add to global liquidity directly. If exchange rates are flexible this will also mean the dollar tends to weaken so that the value of other central banks’ liabilities in the global system goes up in dollar terms. Dollar weakness thus might contribute to a higher dollar price for dollar denominated global commodities, as an example. If exchange rates are pegged then to achieve that peg other central banks will need to expand their own balance sheets and take on dollar FX reserves on the asset side. Global liquidity is therefore increased initially by the Fed but, secondly, by further liability expansion, by the other central banks. Depending on the sensitivity of exchange rates to relative balance sheet adjustments, it is not an a priori case that the same balance sheet expansion by the Fed leads to greater or less global liquidity expansion under either exchange rate regime. Hence the mere existence of a massive build up in FX reserves shouldn’t be viewed as a massive expansion of global liquidity per se – although as we shall show later, the empirical observation is that this is a more powerful force for the “impact” of changes in global liquidity on financial assets.

That, in broad strokes, explains how and why the Fed's easing, or tightening, terms have such profound implications not only on every asset class, and currency pair, but on global economic output.

Liquidity in the broadest sense tends to support growth momentum, particularly when it is in excess of current nominal growth. Positive changes in liquidity should therefore be equity bullish and bond price negative. Central bank liquidity is a large part of broad liquidity and, subject to bank multipliers, the same holds true. Both Fed tightening and China’s FX adjustment imply a tightening of liquidity conditions that, all else equal, implies a loss in output momentum.



But while the impact on global economic growth is tangible, there is also a substantial delay before its full impact is observed. When it comes to asset prices, however, the market is far faster at discounting the disappearance of the "invisible hand":

Ultimately in a fiat money system asset prices reflect “outside” i.e. central bank money and the extent to which it multiplied through the banking system. The loss of reserves represents not just a direct loss of outside money but also a reduction in the multiplier. There should be no expectation that the multiplier is quickly restored through offsetting central bank operations.

Here Deutsche Bank suggests your panic, because according to its estimates, while the US equity market may have corrected, it has a long ways to go just to catch up to the dramatic slowdown in global plus Fed reserves (that does not even take in account the reality that soon both the BOJ and the ECB will be forced by the market to taper and slow down their own liquidity injections):

Let’s start with risk assets, proxied by global equity prices. It would appear at first glance that the correlation is negative in that when central bank liquidity is expanding, equities are falling and vice versa. Of course this likely suggests a policy response in that central banks are typically “late” so that they react once equities are falling and then equities tend to recover. If we shift liquidity forward 6 quarters we can see that the market “leads” anticipated” additional liquidity by something similar. This is very worrying now in that it suggests that equity price appreciation could decelerate easily to -20 or even 40 percent based on near zero central bank liquidity, assuming similar multipliers to the post crisis period.



Some more dire predictions from Deutsche on what will happen next to equity prices:

If we only consider the FX and Fed components of liquidity there appears to be a tighter and more contemporaneous relationship with equity prices. The suggestion is at one level still the same, absent Fed and FX reserve expansion, equity prices look more likely to decelerate and quite sharply.



The Fed’s balance sheet for example could easily be negative 5 percent this time next year, depending on how they manage the SOMA portfolio and would be associated with further FX reserve loss unless countries, including China allowed for a much weaker currency. This would be a great concern for global (central bank liquidity).

Once again, all of this assumes a status quo for the QE out of Europe and Japan, which as we pounded the table yesterday, are both in the process of being "timed out"

The tie out, presumably with the “leading” indicator of other central bank action is that other central banks have been instrumental in supporting equities in the past. The largest of course being the ECB and BoJ. If the Fed isn’t going doing its job, it is good to know someone is willing to do the job for them, albeit there is a “lag” before they appreciate the extent of someone else’s policy “failure”.

Worse, as noted yesterday soon there will be nobody left to mask everyone one's failure: the global liquidity circle jerk is coming to an end.

What does this mean for bond yields? Well, as we explained previously, clearly the selling of TSYs by China is a clear negative for bond prices. However, what Deutsche Bank accurately notes, is that should the world undergo a dramatic plunge in risk assets, the resulting tsunami of residual liquidity will most likely end up in the long-end, sending Treasury yields lower. To wit:

... if investors believe that liquidity is likely to continue to fall one should not sell real yields but buy them and be more worried about risk assets than anything else. This flies in the face of recent concerns that China’s potential liquidation of Treasuries for FX intervention is a Treasury negative and should drive real yields higher.... More generally the simple point is that falling reserves should be the least of worries for rates – as they have so far proven to be since late 2014 and instead, rates need to focus more on risk assets.



The relationship between central bank liquidity and the byproduct of FX reserve accumulation is clearly central to risk asset performance and therefore interest rates. The simplistic error is to assume that all assets are treated equally. They are not – or at least have not been especially since the crisis. If liquidity weakens and risk assets trade badly, rates are most likely to rally not sell off. It doesn’t matter how many Treasury bills are redeemed or USD cash is liquidated from foreign central bank assets, US rates are more likely to fall than rise especially further out the curve. In some ways this really shouldn’t be that hard to appreciate. After all central bank liquidity drives broader measures of liquidity that also drives, with a lag, economic activity.

Two points: we agree with DB that if the market were to price in collapsing "outside" money, i.e. central bank liquidity, that risk assets would crush (and far more than just the 20-40% hinted above). After all it was central bank intervention and only central bank intervention that pushed the S&P from 666 to its all time high of just above 2100.

However, we also disagree for one simple reason: as we explained in "What Would Happen If Everyone Joins China In Dumping Treasurys", the real question is what would everyone else do. If the other EMs join China in liquidating the combined $7.5 trillion in FX reserves (i.e., mostly US Trasurys but also those of Europe and Japan) shown below...

... into an illiquid Treasury bond market where central banks already hold 30% or more of all 10 Year equivalents (the BOJ will own 60% by 2018), then it is debatable whether the mere outflow from stocks into bonds will offset the rate carnage.

And, as we showed before, all else equal, the unwinding of the past decade's accumulation of EM reserves, some $8 trillion, could possibly lead to a surge in yields from the current 2% back to 6% or higher.

In other words, inductively reserve liquidation may not be a concern, but practically - when taking in account just how illiquid the global TSY market has become - said liquidation will without doubt lead to a surge in yields, if only occasionally due to illiquidity driven demand discontinuities.

* * *

So where does that leave us? Summarizing Deutsche Bank's observations, they confirm everything we have said from day one, namely that the QE crusade undertaken first by the Fed in 2009 and then all central banks, has been the biggest can-kicking exercise in history, one which brought a few years of artificial calm to the market while making the wealth disparity between the poor and rich the widest it has ever been as it crushed the global middle class; now the end of QE is finally coming.

And this is where Deutsche Bank, which understands very well that the Fed's tightening coupled with Quantiative Tightening, would lead to nothing short of a global equity collapse (especially once the market prices in the inevitable tightening resulting from the BOJ's taper over the coming two years), is shocked. To wit:

This reinforces our view that the Fed is in danger of committing policy error. Not because one and done is a non issue but because the market will initially struggle to price “done” after “one”. And the Fed’s communication skills hardly lend themselves to over achievement. More likely in our view, is that one in September will lead to a December pricing and additional hikes in 2016, suggesting 2s could easily trade to 1 ¼ percent. This may well be an overshoot but it could imply another leg lower for risk assets and a sharp reflattening of the yield curve.

But it was the conclusion to Deutsche's stream of consciousness that is the real shocker: in it DB's Dominic Konstam implicitly ask out loud whether what comes next for global capital markets (most equity, but probably rates as well), is nothing short of a controlled demolition. A premeditated controlled demolition, and facilitated by the Fed's actions or rather lack thereof:

The more sinister undercurrent is that as the relationship between negative rates has tightened with weaker liquidity since the crisis, there is a sense that policy is being priced to “fail” rather than succeed. Real rates fall when central banks back away from stimulus presumably because they “think” they have done enough and the (global) economy is on a healing trajectory. This could be viewed as a damning indictment of policy and is not unrelated to other structural factors that make policy less effective than it would be otherwise - including the self evident break in bank multipliers due to new regulations and capital requirements.

What would happen then? Well, DB casually tosses an S&P trading a "half its value", but more importantly, also remarks that what we have also said from day one, namely that "helicopter money" in whatever fiscal stimulus form it takes (even if it is in the purest literal one) is the only remaining outcome after a 50% crash in the S&P:

Of course our definition of “failure” may also be a little zealous. After all why should equities always rise in value? Why should debt holders be expected to afford their debt burden? There are plenty of alternative viable equilibria with SPX half its value, longevity liabilities in default and debt deflation in abundance. In those equilibria traditional QE ceases to work and the only road back to what we think is the current desired equilibrium is via true helicopter money via fiscal stimulus where there are no independent central banks.

And there it is: Deutsche Bank saying, in not so many words, what Ray Dalio hinted at, namely that the Fed's tightening would be the mechanistic precursor to a market crash and thus, QE4.

Only Deutsche takes the answer to its rhetorical question if the Fed is preparing for a "controlled demolition" of risk assets one step forward: realizing that at this point more QE will be self-defeating, the only remaining recourse to avoid what may be another systemic catastrophe would be the one both Friedman and Bernanke hinted at many years ago: the literal paradropping of money to preserve the fiat system for just a few more days (At this point we urge rereading footnote 18 in Ben Bernanke's "Deflation: Making Sure "It" Doesn't Happen Here" speech)

While we can only note that the gravity of the above admission by Europe's largest bank can not be exaggerated - for "very serious banks" to say this, something epic must be just over the horizon - we should add: if Deutsche Bank (with its €55 trillion in derivatives) is right and if the Fed refuses to change its posture, exposure to any asset which has counterparty risk and/or whose value is a function of faith in central banks, should be effectively wound down.

* * *

While we have no way of knowing how this all plays out, especially if Deutsche is correct, we'll leave readers with one of our favorite diagrams: Exter's inverted pyramid.

[Fenix]

Presenting Five Channels Of Contagion From China's Hard Landing
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/06/2015 14:59 -0400

Before China’s bursting equity bubble grabbed international headlines, and before the PBoC’s subsequent devaluation of the yuan served notice to the world that things had officially gotten serious in the global currency wars, all anyone wanted to talk about when it came to China was a “hard landing.” Indeed for what seems like forever, the bogeyman hiding in every economist’s closet was a sharper-than-expected deceleration in China’s economy which, as everyone is now acutely aware, is the engine for global growth and trade.

Of course no one knows where China’s official output numbers actually come from. They could be some amalgamation of real data and NBS tinkering (much like what you get from the BEA in the US) or they could come straight from the imagination of Xi Jinping. There’s also a strong possibility that a lack of robust statistical controls mean China routinely understates its deflator, leading to perpetually overstated GDP growth during times of plunging commodity prices - times like now.

But whatever the case, China’s “shock” devaluation effectively telegraphed the “real situation” (to quote the NBS). That is, policy rate cuts had failed to boost growth and the situation was in fact becoming so precarious that the PBoC was willing to loosen up on the dollar peg that had caused the yuan to appreciate by some 15% on a REER basis over the course of just 12 months, putting untold pressure on the export-driven economy.

The message was clear: China is landing and it’s landing hard.


Now, the task is to determine what the channels are for contagion and on that note, we go to RBS’ Alberto Gallo who has more.

* * *

Via RBS

The contagion from China’s economic slowdown is deep and widespread, with profound implications for both emerging and developed markets.

There are five main channels of contagion for credit:

1. Exports and revenue exposure. Economies for which China is the largest trading partner will suffer from lower demand: Brazil, Chile, Australia, Peru, Thailand and Malaysia. Specific sectors in developed markets will also be affected, especially Germany and Italy. A number of sectors in DM credit with high dependence on Chinese revenue could be vulnerable, including German carmakers (VW, Daimler, BMW), luxury goods manufacturers (LVMH), and telecoms companies.

2. Banking system exposure. Among countries which report to the BIS, South Korea, Australia and the UK have the largest proportion of foreign claims in China. For the UK and Australia, exposure is concentrated among a few banks, specifically HSBC, Standard Chartered and ANZ. UK banks are more exposed than Australian banks, as their loans to China represent up to 30% of their total lending, whereas loans to Asia are generally less than 5% of Australian bank lending (except for ANZ at 14%).

3. Commodity dependence. With China consuming nearly half of the world’s industrial metal supply, slower growth may weigh on supply-demand dynamics and directly lower commodity prices. Countries that rely on commodity exports, and specifically China’s consumption of them, are especially vulnerable.

4. Petrodollar demand for $-denominated fixed income asset investment. Lower commodity prices also mean oil exporters will have lower revenues and less savings to invest in $-denominated fixed income assets. The yearly flow of Petrodollars may shrink to around $280bn/year this year from $700bn in 2014, according to our estimates based on average annual oil prices and lifting costs. If we assume that 30% of oil proceeds is invested in $ fixed income, then the decline is roughly equivalent to $100bn/year in lower demand for dollar assets. This is equivalent to the increase in net supply of Treasuries or $ IG corporates YoY.

5. Currency depreciation and a high proportion of hard currency debt increase solvency risks for EM corporates. While EM sovereigns generally do not rely on hard-currency debt much more than in the past, EM firms have boosted their share of hard-currency debt over the past decade. The portion of $-denominated bonds from foreign firms is now a quarter of the total US IG market. Many EM firms have a large proportion of their debt in hard currency. We have previously highlighted the vulnerability of some EM firms in particular, such as Chinese real estate developers.

* * *

Bonus: The updated China contagion flowchart

[Fenix]

Three Reasons Why Saudi Arabia Flip-Flopped On Iran. And Now Supports The US "Nuclear Deal"
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/06/2015 - 18:01

To summarize: in order to get the Saudis to "agree" to the Iran deal, all the US had to do is remind King Salman, that as long as oil is where it is to a big extent as a result of Saudi's own record oil production, crushing countless US oil corporations and leading to the biggest layoffs in Texas since the financial crisis, the country will urgently need access to yield-starved US debt investors. If in the process, US corporations can invest in Saudi Arabia (and use the resulting assets as further collateral against which to take out even more debt), while US military corporations sell billions in weapons and ammo to the Saudi army, so much the better.




Dow Dip-Buyers Evident After Futures Open With Another Mini-Flash-Crash
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/06/2015 - 18:15

As Dow futures opened ahead of this evening's China open (after being closed since Wednesday), it appears someone (or something) decided it was time to test down 100 points to Friday's pre-ramp lows. Of course that mini-flash-crash has now been followed - since stops were run - with a 140 point ripfest, we assume gunning for the stops just above Friday's late-day highs...



The IMF Just Confirmed The Nightmare Scenario For Central Banks Is Now In Play
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/06/2015 19:59 -0400

The most important piece of news announced today was also, as usually happens, the most underreported: it had nothing to do with US jobs, with the Fed's hiking intentions, with China, or even the ongoing "1998-style" carnage in emerging markets. Instead, it was the admission by ECB governing council member Ewald Nowotny that what we said about the ECB hitting a supply brick wall, was right. Specifically, earlier today Bloomberg quoted the Austrian central banker that the ECB asset-backed securities purchasing program "hasn’t been as successful as we’d hoped."

Why? "It’s simply because they are running out. There are simply too few of these structured products out there."

So six months later, the ECB begrudgingly admitted what we said in March 2015, in "A Complete Preview Of Q€ — And Why It Will Fail", was correct. Namely this:

... the ECB is monetizing over half of gross issuance (and more than twice net issuance) and a cool 12% of eurozone GDP. The latter figure there could easily rise if GDP contracts and Q€ is expanded, a scenario which should certainly not be ruled out given Europe’s fragile economic situation and expectations for the ECB to remain accommodative for the foreseeable future. In fact, the market is already talking about the likelihood that the program will be expanded/extended.



... while we hate to beat a dead horse, the sheer lunacy of a bond buying program that is only constrained by the fact that there simply aren’t enough bonds to buy, cannot possibly be overstated.



Among the program’s many inherent absurdities are the glaring disparity between the size of the program and the amount of net euro fixed income issuance and the more nuanced fact that the effects of previous ECB easing efforts virtually ensure that Q€ cannot succeed.

(Actually, we said all of the above first all the way back in 2012, but that's irrelevant.)

So aside from the ECB officially admitting that it has become supply*constrained even with security prices at near all time highs, why is this so critical?

Readers will recall that just yesterday we explained why "Suddenly The Bank Of Japan Has An Unexpected Problem On Its Hands" in which we quoted BofA a rates strategist who said that "now that GPIF’s selling has finished, the focus will be on who else is going to sell. Unless Japan Post Bank sells JGBs, the BOJ won’t be able to continue its monetary stimulus operations."

We also said this:

"in 6-9 months, following the next major market swoon when everyone is demanding more action from the BOJ, "suddenly" pundits will have discovered the biggest glitch in the ongoing QE monetization regime, namely that the BOJ simply can not continue its current QE program, let along boost QE as many are increasingly demanding, unless it finds willing sellers, and having already bought everything the single biggest holder of JGBs, the GPIF, had to sell, the BOJ will next shakedown the Post Bank, whose sales of JPY45 trillion in JGBs are critical to keep Japan's QQE going.



The sale of that amount, however, by the second largest holder of JGBs, will only last the BOJ for the next 3 months. What next? Which other pension fund will have the massive holdings required to keep the BOJ's going not only in 2016 but also 2017 and onward. The answer: less and less.

Once again to be accurate, the first time we warned about the biggest nightmare on deck for the BOJ (and ECB, and Fed, and every other monetizing central bank) was back in October 2014, when we cautioned that the biggest rish was a lack of monetizable supply.

We cited Takuji Okubo, chief economist at Japan Macro Advisors in Tokyo, who said that at the scale of its current debt monetization, the BOJ could end up owning half of the JGB market by as early as in 2018. He added that "The BOJ is basically declaring that Japan will need to fix its long-term problems by 2018, or risk becoming a failed nation."

This was our summary:

The BOJ will not boost QE, and if anything will have no choice but to start tapering it down - just like the Fed did when its interventions created the current illiquidity in the US govt market - especially since liquidity in the Japanese government market is now non-existant and getting worse by the day. All that would take for a massive VaR shock scenario to play out in Japan is one exogenous JGB event for the market to realize just how little actual natural buyers and sellers exist.

That said, our conclusion, which was not to "expect the media to grasp the profound implications of this analysis not only for the BOJ but for all other central banks: we expect this to be summer of 2016's business" may have been a tad premature.

The reason: overnight the IMF released a working paper written by Serkan Arslanalp and Dennis Botman (which was originally authored in August), which confirmed everything we said yesterday... and then some.

Here is Bloomberg's summary of the paper:

The Bank of Japan may need to reduce the pace of its bond purchases in a few years due to a shortage of sellers, said economists at the International Monetary Fund.



There is likely to be a “minimum” level of demand for Japanese government bonds from banks, pension funds, and insurance companies due to collateral needs, asset allocation targets, and asset-liability management requirements, said IMF economists Serkan Arslanalp and Dennis Botman.

Here are the excerpts from the paper:

We construct a realistic rebalancing scenario, which suggests that the BoJ may need to taper its JGB purchases in 2017 or 2018, given collateral needs of banks, asset-liability management constraints of insurers, and announced asset allocation targets of major pension funds.



... there is likely to be a “minimum” level of demand for JGBs from banks, pension funds, and insurance companies due to collateral needs, asset allocation targets, and asset-liability management (ALM) requirements. As such, the sustainability of the BoJ's current pace of JGB purchases may become an issue.

Back to Bloomberg:

While Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said in May that he expects no obstacles in buying government bonds, the IMF analysts join Nomura Securities Co. and BNP Paribas SA in questioning the sustainability of the unprecedented debt purchases.

Who in turn merely joined Zero Hedge who warned about precisely this in October of last year.

Back to the IMF paper, which notes that in Japan, where there is a limited securitization market, the only "high quality collateral" assets are JGBs, and as a result of the large scale JGB purchases by the JGB, "a supply-demand imbalance can emerge, which could limit the central bank’s ability to achieve its monetary base targets. Such limits may already be reflected in exceptionally low (and sometimes negative) yields on JGBs, amid a large negative term premium, and signs of reduced JGB market liquidity."

To the extent markets anticipate limits, the rise in inflation expectations could be contained, which may mitigate incentives for portfolio rebalancing and create a self-fulfilling cycle that undermines the BoJ’s objectives.

For those surprised by the IMF's stark warning and curious how it is possible that the BOJ could have put itself in such a position, here is the explanation:

So far, the BoJ’s share of the government bond market is similar to those of the Federal Reserve and still below the Bank of England (BOE) at the height of their QE programs. Indeed, the BoE held close to 40 percent of the conventional gilt market at one point without causing significant market impairment. Japan is not there yet, as the BoJ held about a quarter of the market at end-2014. But, at the current pace, it will hold about 40 percent of the market by end-2016 and close to 60 percent by end-2018. In other words, beyond 2016, the BoJ’s dominant position in the government bond market will be unprecedented among major advanced economies.

As we expanded yesterday, the biggest issue for the BOJ is not that it has problems buying paper, but that there are simply not enough sellers: "under QQE1, only around 5 percent of BoJ’s net JGB purchases from the market came from institutional investors. In contrast, under QQE2, close to 40 percent of net purchases have come from institutional investors between October 2014 and March 2015."



This is where things get back for the BOJ, because now that the BOJ is buying everything official institutions have to sell, the countdown has begun:

given the pace of BoJ purchases under QQE2 and projected debt issuance by the government (based on April 2015 IMF WEO projections of the fiscal deficit), we estimate that Japanese investors could shed some ¥220 trillion of JGBs until end-2018 (Table 2, Figure 4). In particular, Japanese insurance companies and pension funds could reduce their government bond holdings by ¥44 trillion, while banks could sell another ¥176 trillion by end-2018, which would bring their JGB holdings down to 5 percent of total assets. At that point, the BoJ may have to taper its JGB purchases.



Then there are the liquidity issues:

As the BoJ ascends to being a dominant player in the JGB market, liquidity is likely to be affected, implying that economic surprises may trigger larger volatility in JGB yields with potential financial stability implications. As noted in IMF (2012), demand-supply imbalances in safe assets could lead to deteriorating collateral quality in funding markets, more short-term volatility jumps, herding, and cliff effects. In an environment of persistent low interest rates and heightened financial market uncertainty, these imbalances can raise the frequency of volatility spikes and potentially lead to large swings in asset prices.

This, too, is precisely what we warned yesterday would be the outcome: "the BOJ will not boost QE, and if anything will have no choice but to start tapering it down - just like the Fed did when its interventions created the current illiquidity in the US govt market - especially since liquidity in the Japanese government market is now non-existant and getting worse by the day."

The IMF paper conveniently provides some useful trackers to observe just how bad JGB liquidity is in real-time.

The IMF is quick to note that the BOJ does have a way out: it can simply shift its monetization to longer-dated paper, expand collateral availability using tthe BOJ's Securited Lending Facility (which basically is a circular check kiting scheme, where the BOJ lends banks the securities it will then repurchase from them), or simply shift from bonds to other assets: "the authorities could expand the purchase of private assets. At the moment, Japan has a relatively limited corporate bond market (text chart). Hence, this would require jumpstarting the securitization market for mortgages and bank loans to small and medium-sized enterprises which could generate more private assets for BoJ purchases."

But the biggest risk is not what else the BOJ could monetize - surely the Japanese government can always create "monetizable" kitchen sinks... but what happens when the regime shifts from the current buying phase to its inverse:

As this limit approaches and once the BoJ starts to exit, the market could move from a situation of shortage to one with excess supply. The term premium could jump depending on whether the BoJ shrinks its balance sheet and on the fiscal deficit over the medium term.

When considering that by 2018 the BOJ market will have become the world's most illiquid (as the BOJ will hold 60% or more of all issues), the IMF's final warning is that "such a change in market conditions could trigger the potential for abrupt jumps in yields."

At that moment the BOJ will finally lose control. In other words, the long-overdue Kyle Bass scenario will finally take place in about 2-3 years, tops.

But ignoring the endgame for Japan, and recall that BofA triangulated just this when it said that "the BOJ is basically declaring that Japan will need to fix its long-term problems by 2018, or risk becoming a failed nation", what's worse for Abe is that the countdown until his program loses all credibility has begun.

What happens then? As BNP wrote in an August 28-dated report, "Once foreign investors lose faith in Abenomics, foreign outflows are likely to trigger a Japanese equities meltdown similar to the one observed during 2007-09."

And from there, the contagion will spread to the entire world, whose central banks incidentally, will be faced with precisely the same question: who will be responsible for the next round of monetization and desperately kicking the can one more time.

But before we get to the QE endgame, we first need to get the interim point: the one where first the markets and then the media realizes that the BOJ - the one central banks whose bank monetization is keeping the world's asset levels afloat now that the ECB has admitted it is having "problems" finding sellers - will have no choice but to taper, with all the associated downstream effects on domestic and global asset prices.

It's all downhill from there, and not just for Japan but all other "safe collateral" monetizing central banks, which explains the real reason the Fed is in a rush to hike: so it can at least engage in some more QE when every other central bank fails.

But there's no rush: remember to give the market and the media the usual 6-9 month head start to grasp the significance of all of the above.

[Fenix]

Why The New Car Bubble's Days Are Numbered
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/06/2015 - 21:00

Having recently detailed the automakers' worst nightmare - surging new car inventories - supply; amid rapidly declining growth around the world (EM and China) - demand, it appears the bubble in new car sales is about to be crushed by yet another unintended consequence of The Fed's lower for longer experiment. As WSJ reports, Edmunds.com estimates that around 28% of new vehicles this year will be leased - a near-record pace - leaving 13.4 million vehicles (leased over the past 3 years in The US) - compared with just 7 million in the three years to 2011 - set to spark a massive surplus of high-quality used cars. Great for consumers (if there are any left who have not leased a car in the last 3 years) but crushing for automakers' margins as luxury used-care prices are tumbling just as residuals have surged.




China Stocks "Death Cross", Default Risk Hits 2-Year High As Regulators Promise G-20 'Whatever It Takes' To Stabilize Market
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/06/2015 - 21:22

Even before China reopened from its 5-day holiday, regulators were pitching Chinese stocks as cheap (37.3x P/E) and less-margined (+108% YoY) and promised to "safeguard stability" in a "variety of forms" seemingly pouting cold water on The FT's recent report (and the malicious instigator of China's market crash). All of this is quite ironic, given China's chief central bankers admitted "the chinese bubble has burst." As stocks open, CSI-300 (China's S&P 500) has confirmed a 'Death Cross' which in 2008 was followed by a further 60% decline. More troubling, however, is the incessant rise in interbank rates as despite CNY530bn of liquidity injected in the last 3 weeks, overnight rates have doubled. China credit risk jumps to 2-year highs and AsiaPac stocks are generally lower at the open (as US futures dumped'n'pumped) not helped by Japanese weakness on BoJ tapering concerns. PBOC strengthened the Yuan fix for the 4th day in a row - the most since Sept 2010.

[Fenix]

CyberWar & The False Comfort Of Mutually Assured Destruction
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/06/2015 - 22:00

As an investor, you have enough to be concerned about just taking into account factors like inflation, deflation, Fed policy and the overall state of the economy. Now you have another major threat looming – financial warfare, enabled by cyberattacks and force multipliers. What can you do to preserve wealth when these cyberfinancial wars break out? The key is to have some portion of your total assets invested in nondigital assets that cannot be hacked, wiped out or disrupted by financial warfare. The time to take defensive action by acquiring some non-digital assets is now.



Mass Confusion: Fate Of US Treasurys Is Great Unknown Amid China Dumping
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/07/2015 - 10:39

Logically, the massive liquidation of USD assets by China and other emerging market central banks should put upward pressure on UST yields and will, all else equal, work at cross purposes with DM central bank QE. But all else is never really equal...


If You Think That Was A Crash...
Submitted by Tyler D.
9/07/2015 - 11:10

Last week’s volatility to the downside was entirely predictable, as the first leg down during this ongoing market crash reached the correction stage of 11%. The technical bounce was a given, as the 30 year old HFT MBAs on Wall Street have been trained like rats to BTFD. In their lemming like minds, it has worked for the last six years of this Federal Reserve created “bull market”, so why wouldn’t it work now. Last week was their first lesson in why it doesn’t work during bear markets, and we’ve entered a bear market. John Hussman seems amused at the shallowness of the arguments by Wall Street shills and CNBC cheerleaders about the future of the stock market in his weekly letter. After this modest pullback from all-time highs, the S&P 500 is still overvalued by 92%...

[Fenix]

A September Rate Hike Is "Not Even Close": Goldman's Seven Reasons Why Yellen Will Delay... Again
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/07/2015 14:09 -0400

On one hand, every economist, virtual portfolio manager, Yahoo Finance Twitter expert, and TV talking head is certain that a September rate hike is inevitable.

On the other hand, the bank that runs the NY Fed (and whose chief economist Jan Hatzius has dinner with NY Fed head Bill Dudley at the Pound and Pence every other month), Goldman Sachs is doubling down on its call that the Fed will not hike in September.

We'll go with Goldman (only because in this case it really is a dumb vs dumber moment).

Incidentally, here is Hatzius in January 2014 predicting "above-trend growth" for the US (and "for what it's worth", Joe Wisenthal naturally agreeing with him).

So here, without further ado for those who still care about this most farcical of discussions, is Goldman's Jan Hatzius with seven reasons why Yellen will delay. Again.

* * *

From Goldman's Jan Hatzius

Shouldn't Be Close

1. We do not expect a rate hike at the September 16-17 FOMC meeting. This call was originally based on our interpretationof the June “dot plot” and Chair Yellen's July 10 speech, which suggested to us that her own expectation was liftoff in December, not September. If this interpretation was correct at the time, and if we are right in assuming that Yellen’s views are ultimately decisive, the key question is how the economy and the financial markets have performed relative to her expectations of 2-3 months ago. If developments have beaten her expectations, it is possible that she might now support a hike. In contrast, if developments have been in line with or weaker than her expectations, she will presumably resist a hike.

2. Even if we focus only on the economic data, it is difficult to argue that developments have beaten expectations. Although growth has been decent and the labor market has improved further, both wage and price inflation have fallen short of consensus expectations. Our wage tracker stands at just 2.1% as the Q2 employment cost index surprised on the downside, and core PCE inflation just made a four-year low of 1.24%. Moreover, the notion that the weakness in core inflation is principally due to the temporary effects of a stronger dollar and lower commodity prices does not look right; core PCE goods inflation, where such effects should be concentrated, is only 0.4pp below its 20-year average, a gap that is worth just 0.1pp for the overall core PCE index. This suggests that most of the inflation shortfall relative to the Fed’s 2% target is due to more persistent factors, including continued labor market slack.

3. Once we broaden the perspective to include financial markets, developments have been substantially worse than almost anyone expected in June or early July, leading many forecasters (ourselves included) to shave their expectations of future growth. Our GS Financial Conditions Index (GSFCI) is at the tightest level since 2010, as the dollar has appreciated further, credit spreads have widened, and stock prices have fallen substantially. At this point, our “GSFCI Taylor rule” suggests that actual financial conditions are much tighter than the level suggested by the current levels of employment and inflation relative to the Fed’s targets. In a similar vein, market inflation expectations have fallen back to the lows of early 2015; the five-year five-year forward TIPS breakeven stood at 1.88% on Friday, which we think is consistent with a market expectation for PCE inflation of just 1½%, half a point below the Fed’s target.

4. So how do we explain Vice Chairman Fischer’s relatively hawkish CNBC interview and speechat the Jackson Hole symposium? While Fischer did not comment directly on the timing of liftoff, he did provide a fairly upbeat interpretation of the labor market and inflation picture, which many have interpreted as a signal that he will support a hike on September 17. However, an alternative interpretation is a desire to avoid pre-empting the actual FOMC meeting, at a point in time when the market-implied probability of a September hike stood below 25%. In support of this interpretation, we would note that Fischer also gave a speech widely interpreted as hawkish just three weeks before the March 17-18 FOMC meeting, which featured sizable downward revisions to the committee’s inflation and funds rate paths.

5. There are also some logistical difficulties with a hike on September 17. Right now, the market-implied probability of a hike is 30%-35%. We believe that the FOMC will want to be reasonably sure that the first rate hike in nearly a decade is well anticipated by the market on the day it occurs. This implies that a strong signal between now and the meeting may be necessary to put the committee in a position where it feels it actually can hike without potentially causing a significant amount of market disruption. But again, the desire to avoid pre-empting the discussion at the meeting itself presumably argues against sending such a signal. The path of least resistance is therefore to wait, which might mean that the market-implied probability of a hike on the day of the meeting itself will be close to current levels. If so, we think that market pricing in itself would become a strong argument around the FOMC table against pulling the trigger on September 16-17 [ZH: which means that as many have suggested, it is the market's tantrums and not the Fed, which calls the shots].

6. If we are right about the will-they-or-won’t-they issue, the next question is what message the committee will send about future policy on September 17. On this, it is harder to be confident. The tightening of financial conditions has greatly strengthened the case of commentators such as former Treasury Secretary Summers that the committee should not be signaling a 2015 liftoff; taken literally, our GSFCI rule implies that the committee should be looking for ways to ease, not tighten, policy. And the simplest way to do that would be to signal a later liftoff than the market is currently discounting. Against this, many meeting participants will argue that the tightening of financial conditions could reverse quickly and a 2016 liftoff is too late given the further improvement in the labor market and the sharper-than-expected decline in the headline unemployment rate in recent months. In the end, our baseline expectation is that the message from the meeting, including the “leadership dots”, will remain broadly consistent with liftoff in December but Chair Yellen will make it clear in the press conference that financial conditions need to improve for the committee to actually hike this year.

7. Other aspects of the meeting are also likely to be mostly dovish. Although the unemployment rate path will once again have to come down, we expect this to be largely offset by a reduction in the committee’s estimate of the structural unemployment rate. The forecasts for real GDP growth, inflation, and the longer-term funds rate are also likely to decline modestly. That said, the Fed’s funds rate expectations are likely to remain well above the distant forward rate, which now suggests a market view of the equilibrium funds rate of just 2%. We agree with the Fed’s view that this is likely too low, although the question will not be definitively settled for several years.

[Fenix]

The Numbers Are In: China Dumps A Record $94 Billion In US Treasurys In One Month
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/07/2015 - 20:10

The data point everyone has been waiting on is out and, just as we tipped weeks ago, China liquidated nearly $100 billion in USD assets during the month of August in support of the yuan.


The Danger Of Eliminating Cash
09/07/2015 18:10 -0400

Submitted by Alasdair Macleod
In the early days of central banking, one primary objective of the new system was to take ownership of the public's gold, so that in a crisis the public would be unable to withdraw it.



Gold was to be replaced by fiat cash which could be issued by the central bank at will. This removed from the public the power to bring a bank down by withdrawing their property. A primary, if unspoken, objective of modern central banking is to do the same with fiat cash itself.

There are of course other reasons for this course of action. Governments insist that they need to be able to trace all private sector transactions to ensure that criminals do not pursue illegal activities outside the banking system, and that tax is not evaded. For the government, knowledge of everything individuals do is necessary control. However, in the monetary sense, anti-money laundering and tax evasion are not the principal concern. Central banks are fully aware that the financial system is fragile and could face a new crisis at any time. That's why cash in their view must be phased out.

A gold run against a bank or banks, in the ordinary course of banking, is no longer a systemic threat, but the possibility that depositors might queue up to withdraw physical cash from a bank in which they have lost confidence is very real. Furthermore it is a public spectacle associated with monetary disorder of the most alarming sort. It is far better, from a central banker's point of view, to only permit the withdrawal of a deposit to be matched by a redeposit in another bank. That way, a bank run can be hidden through the money markets, with or without the intervention of the central bank, and the deflationary effects of cash hoarding are avoided.

This is commonly understood by followers of monetary matters. What has not been addressed properly is how a cashless economy behaves in the event of a significant alteration in the public's preferences for money relative to goods. Normally, there is a balance in these matters, with the large majority of consumers unconcerned about the objective exchange-value of their money. There are a number of factors that can change this complacent view, but the one that concerns us for the purpose of this article is the speed at which the relationship between the expansion of money and credit and the prices of goods and services can change.

There is no mechanical link between the two, but we can sensibly posit that the extra demand represented by an increase in the money quantity will eventually drive up prices, setting the conditions for a potential shift in public preferences for money, which would drive prices up even more. When the general public perceives that prices are rising and will continue to do so, people will buy in advance of their needs, increasing their preference for goods over holding money.

This is currently desired by central bankers wishing to stimulate demand, but they are under the illusion it is a controllable process. Furthermore, increases in the money quantity are being driven by factors not under the direct control of monetary authorities. Welfare states are themselves insolvent and require the issuance of money and low-interest credit to balance their books. Commercial banks can only continue in business if the purchasing power of money continues to fall, because their customers are over-indebted. Unless the expansion of the money quantity continues at an increasing rate, the whole financial system will most likely grind to a halt. It is now required of central banks to ensure the money quantity continues to expand sufficiently to prevent systemic failure.

It is therefore only a matter of time, so long as current monetary policies persist, before it dawns on the wider public what is happening to money. Preferences will then shift more definitely against holding money, radically altering all price relationships. If this leads into a hyperinflation of prices, which is the logical and unavoidable outcome, the speed at which money collapses will be governed in part by physical factors. In the case of Germany's great inflation in the 1920s, the final collapse can be tied down to a period of six months or so, between May and November in 1923, after a last-ditch attempt to control monetary inflation failed.

The limiting factor in this case was the time taken to clear payments through the banking system, and when prices began to rise so rapidly that cheques lost significant value during the clearing and encashment process, the economy moved entirely to cash. When prices rose faster than cash could be printed, the limitation on the purchase of necessities then became one of cash availability.

It is in truth impossible to isolate all the factors involved, and the course of events during the destruction of a currency's purchasing power is bound to vary from case to case. Today the situation is very different from the hyperinflations in Europe over ninety years ago. A society which uses electronic transfers spends bank deposits instantly. The merchant, who is subject to the same panic over the value of the payment received looks to dispose of his cash balances as rapidly as possible as well. In other words, the electronic transfer of money has the potential to facilitate a collapse in purchasing power at a rate that is far more rapid than previously experienced.

The most obvious delaying factor left becomes the speed with which the public realises that government money has no value at all. People are generally ignorant of monetary matters, and a majority of them have no alternative but to believe in their money, because without it they are reduced to barter. It is entirely human to wish these concerns away. For a minority of the population lucky enough to have a combination of wealth and foreign currency bank accounts the problem was not so great in the past, but the interconnectedness of the global monetary system suggests that all today's fiat currencies face the same problem contemporaneously, and there is no refuge in foreign currency.

These concerns have encouraged the development of alternative solutions, such as our own Bitgold/GoldMoney payment and storage facility, which will allow both consumers and producers to reduce their exposure to the banking system and continue to trade. There are also private currency alternatives such as bitcoin. Whether or not alternative currencies have a future monetary role for ordinary people at this stage looks unlikely, primarily because they are less stable than government currencies; however that might change in the future. They represent a work-in-progress that has the power to undermine the state monopoly on money, not least because they lie outside a government's ability to manage capital controls directed through the banks.

What fascinates many of those with an understanding of anticipatory private sector solutions, is the potential for triggering a seismic change in the money used today. They have the ultimate potential to free commerce from the whole concept of a state-directed monetary policy. Rapidly developing technological solutions are therefore another factor that could accelerate the public rejection of government money and the state-licensed banking system, simply by offering a practical alternative to a debasing currency. With the progress being made to eliminate cash and the private sector's ability to develop an alternative financial system in advance, if the collapse of government money comes, it could be very swift indeed.

[Fenix]

Japan's Nikkei Flash-Smashes 400 Points Higher In Milliseconds After Abenomics Gets Three-Year Extension
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/07/2015 - 20:20

Whether it is due to thin holiday liquidity, due to the BOJ intervening just ahead of its usual time, because Japan's "legendary" Twitter trader "CIS" just went bullish (again), because prime minister Abe just learned he would be reinstalled as head of his ruling LDP party because no challenger had emerged unleashing three more years of unchallenged Abenomics, because Japan's Q2 GDP was just revised modestly higher (to a less negative number) or just because this is how the New Normal rolls, moments ago the Nikkei flash smashed higher some 400 points higher, in a well-choreographed algorithmic frenzy, to take out Friday's high stops.




In Bed With The Despotic House Of Saud
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/07/2015 - 21:00

In hot spot after hot spot in the Middle East, U.S. and Saudi objectives and priorities diverge, even if in some loose sense they are considered to be on the same side. It ought to be astounding that a place this far removed from the liberal democratic values with which the United States likes to be associated, even without considering the aforementioned divergence of objectives elsewhere in the region, still is considered a close partner of the United States. The usual, and to a large degree valid, explanation is that, as Friedman puts it, “we’re addicted to their oil and addicts never tell the truth to their pushers.”



698K Native-Born Americans Lost Their Job In August: Why This Suddenly Is The Most Important Jobs Chart
Submitted by Tyler D.
09/07/2015 - 15:14

Over the past year, some have asked - is there any labor-related chart that matters any more? The answer: a resounding yes, only it is none of the conventional charts that algos and sometimes humans look at. The one chart that matters more than ever,has little to nothing to do with the Fed's monetary policy, but everything to do with the November 2016 presidential elections in which the topic of immigration, both legal and illegal, is shaping up to be the most rancorous, contentious and divisive.