Russian Foreign Minister Disapproves of US Destroyer Entering the Black Sea, Promises ‘Response Measures’

I guess our leaders miss having a cold war to stoke military supply sales. In yet another provocation, the United States sent the USS Porter into the Black Sea a few days ago, much to Russia’s chagrin. Moreover, we’re sending two aircraft carriers into the Mediterranean, because war is peace and peace is war.

Russian state media reported that the USS Porter, a U.S. naval destroyer, entered the Black Sea a few days ago on a routine deployment, a move it said raised hackles in Moscow because it had recently been fitted with a new missile system.
U.S. Navy officials told reporters on Wednesday the U.S. military would also have two aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean this month ahead of a July NATO summit in Warsaw as Washington sought to balance Russian military activities.
“Of course, this does not meet with our approval and will undoubtedly lead to response measures,” RIA cited Andrei Kelin, a senior Foreign Ministry official, as saying about the USS Porter’s movements.
He also said the deployment of U.S. aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean was a show of force which in his view deepened a chill in ties between Moscow and Washington caused by Russia’s actions in Ukraine and Syria.
“As regards the overall situation of course there is a definite increase and stoking of tensions in our relations,” he was quoted as saying.
“It is all being done on the eve of the Warsaw NATO summit. It is a show of force.”

No word yet on what those ‘response measures’ will be. Rumor has it, Putin will halt exports of borscht to Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach.

I did  warn you about my blog’s traffic, didn’t I? Watch those numbers surge next week, coinciding with an Exodus oversold signal.

Over in Europe, based on fears that England will leave the pedophilers in the EU, European markets are plunging lower, led by Germany. Additionally, and more to the point, US markets are pointing towards a lower open.

EU membership costs us billions of pounds each year. Let's Leave and spend that money here instead.https://t.co/UuzNZjoRPe

— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) June 10, 2016

Vimal Gor is calling for the complete annihilation of the Australian dollar, based on the premise that the Australian central bank will be forced to lower rates. In turn, foreign capital will flee and the currency will halve. I cannot get my head around this line of thinking. It just seems retarded to me.

Is Mr. Gor simply smoking opium in his offices, while writing newsletters?

His basis for this destruction is a resumption of the drop in crude back to the lows, followed by a deleterious economic decline, forcing retardation to afflict all of those in charge at the RBA.

Vimal Gor, who oversees the equivalent of about $11 billion in fixed-income assets at BTIM in Sydney, predicted in a newsletter published Thursday that the Reserve Bank of Australia will be forced to cut its cash rate from 1.75 percent to 1 percent or lower. He pointed to what he described as the “weakness” in the composition of Australia’s most recent economic growth figures and the risks posed by the country’s reliance on foreign capital.

“The Australian dollar is at far more risk than most people think,” wrote Gor, the fund manager’s head of income and fixed interest. “A shock downside could easily see it move to 40 cents against the U.S. dollar if current trends continue, commodities fall to lows again and economic growth deteriorates.”

Gor, who said last month that it was a “distinct possibility” the RBA would follow its peers in Europe and Japan in taking rates below zero, has views that are at odds with a majority of analysts. The swaps market is currently pricing in just one quarter-point reduction in the cash rate over the coming 12 months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Gor underscores the risks posed by the twin deficits in Australia’s current account and its budget as the RBA lowers rates and said that the country’s top credit rating is likely to be put on review within the next few months.

“The move towards zero for the RBA will be the first for a country so reliant on foreign capital,” he said. “Low rates in an economy like Australia will genuinely be a test of the stability of an economy that has a very specific relationship with the rest of the world.”

I’m done for the night. I can’t deal with these people any longer.

Oh my, this is the biggest crock of shit since Dennis Gartman said he’d be dead before crude saw $44 again.

Francisco Blanch, head of horseshit at BofA/Merrill, wasted everyone’s time with some capricious headline of a ‘black swan’ event occurring in crude–with his main thesis being Saudi Arabia depegging from the U.S. dollar.

That’s like saying House DuPont would stop trying to control the world or Monsanto the food supply. Outrageously naive analysis by BofA’s chief.

He thinks crude can trade up to $75, but offered no price target for his black swan event–because even he doesn’t take it seriously.

This is some blasphemous shit. Julian Emanuel, clown from UBS, is bullish on gold and stocks–but thinks yields will rise because the economy is getting better. Hello, the economy has been ‘getting better’ since February and TLT is hitting new highs.

Why is TLT hitting new highs? It has nothing to do with economic conditions. Instead, it’s the perversion being purported in Japan and in the ECB with negative rates and ultra-low long dated yields. Have a look.

German 30 yr, yielding 0.62%

Japanese 30 year, yielding 0.30%

U.S. 30 year, yielding 2.48%

Get the picture? Tell me, who in their right minds is gonna take a JGB or a Bund over a Treasury, unless of course you’re a Japanese or German institution or bank mandated to buy them? This arb is live and the US 30 is the only game in town.

Having said that, Julian makes his argument, suggesting stocks will rise, but utilities and consumer staples are extremely vulnerable to pullbacks on any move higher in yields. He’s calling for two (count ’em) Fed rate hikes in 2016.

Fucking delusional.

This is a perfect example of government stupidity. The CEO of CME is threatening, or promising rather, to leave Illinois over a proposed transaction tax that would shatter his business to pieces–leaving it in ruins. The absurdity of the tax proposal lies in the fact that the CME has 28 other data centers, in different states, that would welcome the CME with open arms. The State of Illinois is directly targeting the CME with this tax, in an attempt to raise $12 billion for their financially and morally bankrupt state.

Duffy is calling their bluff and promising to protect his shareholders.

I can hear the violent waves cresting against the ark’s bow as I write this. This harmonious treachery of the sea, wreaking havoc on those without a safe haven. From my vantage point, there are two places to play this market.

1. Board the ark and get long TLT in the hopes that investors continue to arb against German bunds via the purchase of American bonds.
2.  Get in the gold mine and hope central banks will continue to believe they can print their way out of the jam box they find themselves in.

Understand, the circumstances of the market and the central banks are completely different. They have to go to work every day and print money, like morons, then go out and buy junk bonds, crossing their fingers and hoping it will spur inflation. From their perspective, THINGS ARE AS DIRE AS THEY COULD BE. Why else would the BOJ and ECB be QEing themselves to death? If everything was going swimmingly, rates would normalize and central banks would be unwinding their positions, not the opposite.

Going forward, all eyes will be on the currency crosses, the price of commodities and sovereign bonds yields.

Swiss 20 yr bonds are yielding -.04%.

I like U.S. bonds and gold, indefinitely.

Life is good for the rats.

A former of the company that was prosecuted , turned full time snitch, has received a $17 million pay day, for providing assistance in advancing one of their cases.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is giving a $17 million award to a former company employee who gave information that helped advance an agency investigation.

“The information and assistance provided by this whistleblower enabled our enforcement staff to conserve time and resources and gather strong evidence supporting our case,” SEC enforcement chief Andrew Ceresney said in a statement Thursday announcing the award, the second-biggest ever in the agency’s five-year-old whistleblower program.

Whistleblowers are eligible for an award if they voluntarily provide the SEC with unique information that leads to a successful enforcement action. The awards can range from 10 to 30 percent of the money collected on sanctions beyond $1 million.

No word on what case this was in regards to. However, I am sure this former C-level clerk  is now enjoying the fruits of his snitchery, lavishing himself with the millions of dollars that he earned for helping to prosecute and incarcerate some insider trading rascal.

God bless America.

As some of you know, I’ve been blogging, in one form or another, since 2003. I’ve always had an impetus for the written word and I’ve been at the forefront of financial blogging since 2006. Over the years, markets have undergone tumultuous pops and drops, to borrow a phrase. As the proprietor of one of the most widely read financial blogs in North America, I am privy to see, first hand, important trend shifts, such as demographics of the reader, the device from which they access the site, locality, and most importantly– if they bother to come at all.

Anyone in the digital media business will tell you that when traffic is all new highs, people are wrought with an overwhelming sense of remorse for being long equities. Hence, they visit the site all day long, in great numbers, to get insight into whatever the hell is haranguing the market that day. During periods of hedonism and excess, the idlers of the reader class are out drinking champagne over Delmonico steaks, laughing it up, throwing mashed potatoes at those professing caution.

I will have you know, during these insatiable periods of wanton ecstasy, traffic at the site plunges, causing everyone who writes here to become apathetic and to idle a bit more, just like the reader.

There is a concatenation between these two things, traffic and the direction of the market, and it is predictive.

BEHOLD the traffic on iBankCoin during the week of February the 8th, 2016, also known as the recent bottom in equity and commodity prices. I compared it to the same week last year, to give you a point of reference.

Now look at traffic from last week, the week of May the 30th, 2016.

Notice how the traffic sucked wind, in spite of the fact that yours truly brings the fire every single day? Indeud.

Now have a look at the VIX index, which measures volatility. This is a fancy way of saying when the shit hits the fan, this thing goes up. The high point of volatility correlates perfectly with web traffic, a concatenation indeud.

Now that volatility is low and markets are high, a great majority of people are, irresistibly, drawn to the market–like flies to a black light behind an electrically charged metal grid. This process will repeat itself until the end of time, with mawkish redundancies. Resist the temptation of comporting yourselves like the bipedal primates that you are.

Board the ark or get in the gold mine.

Always a crowd pleaser because he keeps it real, Art Cashin gives his take on the current events, touching on Soros, Icahn to ECB fuckery and JGB chicanery.