Report: The Fed is Effectively Defenseless Against a Harsh Economic Downturn

Over the weekend a delightful research paper was released by David Reifschneider, who is the deputy director of the division of research and statistics at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. In it, he cites the low levels of interest rates and indulged himself to imagine what an economic downturn might look like in the post QE era.

The results were less than awe-inspiring.

The degree of economic downturn used in the study were the base case, standard, run of the mill scenario: negative shockwaves reverberating throughout America–sending unemployment up by a mere 5%.

“Simulations of the FRB/US model of a severe recession suggest that large-scale asset purchases and forward guidance about the future path of the federal funds rate should be able to provide enough additional accommodation to fully compensate for a more limited to cut short-term interest rates in most, but probably not all, circumstances,” Reifschneider writes.

Moreover, Reifschneider factored in a psychotic $4 trillion QE programme, plopped atop the current $4.5t Fed balance sheet and could only jimmy rig the unemployment rate by 0.2%. And this is assuming the Fed funds rates would be at 2-3%, a far cry from the current rates of 0.5%.

“In the simulation, QE and forward guidance take 10 year yields down 225 basis points to 300 basis points depending on the starting point for Fed funds and whether you do $2 trillion or $4 trillion for QE,” he says. “But that is not going to work very well if, by design, Fed funds and 10 year yields can’t go below zero. And if expected rates are already low then forward guidance does not have much room” to stimulate the economy. In effect, Fed officials would have to “keep a straight face while saying they we will keep rates at zero … forever.”

In other words, QE for life–like I’ve been saying. And, even with QE for life, we’re still doomed. However, I am sure stock prices will do just fine under these conditions, with the Fed intervening with an enormous $4t QE warchest.

Rigged.

Pulitzer prize winner, Michael Goodwin, weighs in on the media savagery of Donald Trump and the seamless cooperation with the H. Clinton campaign. In his article, Goodwin says ‘indeed, no foreign enemy, no terror group, no native criminal gang suffers the daily beating that Trump does. The mad mullahs of Iran, who call America the Great Satan and vow to wipe Israel off the map, are treated gently by comparison.’

He elaborates his piece in a Fox Business interview, featured below.

“There’s nothing independent about what they’re doing.”

Last week’s short squeeze in crude was something to behold. Assholes running around, thinking they’re geniuses because the middled east was gonna cut or freeze oil production. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Joe Monkeywrench was digging as fast and furious as humanly possible to retail that black gold out for sub $50 WTI. In the real world that isn’t ruled by fiction, current oil prices are a deleterious drag–a real Debbie Downer.

European markets were down today, but America figured out the codes to the rubik’s cube and has feverishly twisted and turned itself into a flat market–biased toward the downside. I only say these blasphemous words because more than 57% of stocks are in fact lower. Also, bonds are rallying, evident and with vigor in the share price pin action of my beloved TLT.

WTI and copper are both headed towards hell, taking with it Satan’s son, FCX. At the present, I am short FCX and wholly wish for the downfall of the company. I’d like to see their operations shut down and their people lost at sea or in a war.

Moving on. There are some winners today. Perhaps you’d like to purchase some utilities at record valuations or some REITs? Go ahead, I fucking dare you.

On the downside are industrial stocks, stuff that makes global trade profitable and/or sectors that work against the interests of the most hated demographic in world history: middled class Americans.

People keep saying the Fed needs to hike rates, in order to jack up the carrying costs for America’s $20t debt load and to somehow help out the old fucker in search of yield. But if the Fed did that, the world would literally implode, taking us into a 5th dimension, into a land ruled by gay giraffe’s driving iced cream trucks and flying devils shitting on people’s dinner plates. You get the picture.

QE for life, because they fucked it up to the point of no return.

Two thousand and sixteen has been a renaissance for semiconductor companies. Following years of underperformance and moribund stock action, the semis have come alive in 2016–all to do with easy compares, lower inventories and decent end user demand for electronics.

Micron has been the crown jewel of the rally, with shares rising more than 50% over the past 3 months.

Needham is out shitting on their parade path this morning, citing bloated inventories and a stupid as sin Digitimes article that wrongly praised Micron last week. Needham is intent on thrashing the shares of MU about the side of their boat this morning and there is nothing the illiterates from Digitimes can do about it.

Needham on Firday noted MU was up 3% on a Digitimes Article citing a “DRAM production slip-up has forced a Korea-based vendor to scrap 30,000-50,000 wafers from its 21nm node”. Based on their conversations with their supply chain contacts, they believe this claim is unsubstantiated. While it’s true that the DRAM pricing environment has improved, mainly driven by better PC DRAM pricing, they believe MU is sitting on a lot of excess inventory on its books and is having difficulty selling it, which could pressure gross margins. Moreover, as they discussed during their recent Asia trip, MU is still having qualification issues on its mobile DRAM 20nm product and is behind the competition. On the NAND side, MU has to cost-effectively transition to 3D NAND because it does not have a 14nm 2D NAND alternative, and here they remain cautious on that transition; Underperform.

Lots of hate in that research note. Maybe they need to chill for a minute and smoke some H to settle down.

There’s always a flat market somewhere. I’m here to find it just for you.

Let’s be honest with one another on this glorious Monday morning, ahead of what will likely be another record setting week for this motherfucker of a whore market. I don’t like stocks anymore. Having established that as my bias, I’d like to point out that copper has been flat since March, in spite of the fact that markets have been ripping chest hairs off to the upside.

Listen to me.

Everything you pretend to know about markets is a fiction. Isn’t growth supposed to emanate out of China? Well then, don’t they need an endless supply of copper to build out their ghost cities? I know and I get it. Everything is one giant lovely facade.

But in between the fiction, every once in awhile, peers reality. At some point, people will begin to wonder why copper isn’t drifting higher with crude oil and how come FCX (I am short) is failing to participate in this great vengeful experiment in macro economics. When confidence erodes, so will stock prices.

Dr. Copper isn’t sleeping. He’s fucking dead.

Wikileaks just published a tweet, revealing that someone had been caught and escaped after scaling the walls of the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where founder Julian Assange is holed up. I am sure that if Hillary Clinton wasn’t deathly ill, she’d scale the fucking walls and murder Assange herself.

Hillary Clinton strategist, Bob Beckel, has openly called for the murder of Assange–calling him a traitor and guilty of treason. What the drunkard Beckel doesn’t realize is American laws don’t apply to Assange, mainly because he’s not an American.

Freedom.

Apparently, no one is afraid of a strengthening yen anymore. The good folks at the BOJ have done a splendid job cornering their stock market, via QE fueled ETF purchases in the open market, jacking up share prices of companies that should be indelibly fucked. With the yen rising against the dollar, Japanese exporters and yen carry trade players are placed inside of a jam-box with no place to go but down. Nevertheless, the NIKKEI has been drifting along just fine this summer, as the central bank robber barons apply their science to the markets.

“There is some skepticism that they are going to mount an even stronger defense against yen appreciation,” Todd Elmer, Citigroup’s head of G-10 foreign-exchange strategy for Asia ex-Japan, said in an interview in Singapore on Friday. “International authorities aren’t going to be seeing any signs that a stronger yen is destabilizing other markets. If anything, since the spring, there does seem to be some degree of agreement among international authorities that a somewhat weaker dollar is a better outcome for global markets.”

MOAR

A weak dollar has “been associated with stronger asset prices, less volatility, and I don’t think that pattern is going to change anytime soon,” Elmer said.

The yen will probably reach 95 before the Bank of Japan meets on Sept. 21 unless investors are convinced the authorities will move beyond the policy steps that have been unveiled so far, he said.

The BOJ last month disappointed investors by leaving two key policy tools — bond purchases and negative interest rates — unchanged. That sentiment was compounded after details of a 28 trillion yen ($278 billion) fiscal spending package released on Aug. 2 failed to ignite optimism that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe can boost growth.

“To me the path of least resistance is lower for dollar-yen,” Elmer said. “There’s not a great deal of fear in the market for intervention.”

Typically, when the yen rises, the NIKKEI falls. Not recently.

Year to date, the yen is higher by 20% v the dollar and the NIKKEI is down 12.25%

Back in March of 2013, the US Department of Agriculture opened up American markets to Egyptian strawberries. This was delightful news for the freedom loving Arab springers, who just got done running through the streets like morons, in search of theocracy. In a little more than 3 years hence, dozens of people are now ill with hepatitis A, provided by the good smoothie makers at Tropical Smoothie.

In a statement given a few months ago, Alain Tulpin of Tulpin Group discussed the difficult harvest Egypt was facing, saying “The weather in Egypt was too cold, which meant the strawberries didn’t get the right colour. The production volumes were also disappointing.” The demand there was a lot lower, I estimate that the consumption decreased by a third. All in all the Egyptian season is disappointing, but that’s the fruit and vegetable sector. One year you will make a profit, the next not so much.”

He did not mention, however, that the weak harvest would produce a bountiful amount of projectile vomiting patrons at a low end Virginian smoothie chain.

The Virginia Department of Health said testing indicates frozen strawberries from Egypt used at Tropical Smoothie Cafe stores may be to blame for the illnesses.
Tropical Smoothie Cafe said it stopped using strawberries from Egypt at all of its stores, including those outside Virginia, after learning about the potential issue. The smoothie chain said the cafes and their food handling practices “have not been implicated in any way.”

Health officials are encouraging anyone who consumed a smoothie with frozen strawberries at a restaurant in the last 50 days to watch for symptoms of hepatitis A. Those include jaundice, fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, dark urine and light-colored stools.

Individuals who consumed a smoothie from a Tropical Smoothie Cafe in Virginia that contained frozen strawberries on Aug. 5, 6, 7 or 8, 2016, may still benefit from vaccine or immune globulin to prevent hepatitis A, the health department said.

Health officials said a vaccine or immune globulin given within two weeks of exposure to hepatitis A virus is effective at preventing the disease.
There are 96 Tropical Smoothie Cafe locations throughout Virginia, according to the chain’s website. Visit their website for all locations. There is no information at this time that any Maryland locations have been affected.

In a statement given by Tropical Smoothie, they shit (pun intended) on the great pyramid nation of Egypt.

“Tropical Smoothie Cafe was notified by the Virginia Department of Health about several foodborne illnesses in the state linked to frozen strawberries sourced from Egypt. Our cafes and their food handling practices have not been implicated in any way – the health department believes this is a single product issue (strawberries) sourced from Egypt. Egyptian strawberries represent a fraction of our overall strawberries purchased, and were predominantly distributed to stores in the Virginia market. Today, our strawberries are primarily sourced from Mexico and California. However, in an abundance of caution, we voluntarily pulled all strawberries sourced from Egypt from every cafe in our system, not only the Virginia cafes. Our primary concern is for the safety and well-being of our guests and crew members and we will continue to cooperate with the health authorities.”

Be careful where you’re sourcing your fresh fruits and vegetables from.

Hang on, let me guess why yields are rising.

1. Bond bubble of an unprecedented scale.
2. The Fed is gonna hike rates.

Right?

You’re fucking nuts.

As I write this, US 2yr notes are yielding 0.77%, based off some fucking inane assumption that we’re in a bond bubble and the Fed is sick and tired of low borrowing rates for the government and are fixing to jack carrying costs for the nation, in order to apply fiscal fuckery onto this great steak’d land, just because.

Now that I got that off my chest, answer the following questions.

How can we be in a bubble when all of Europe and Japan are purposely controlling their bond yields? For those of you who say it’s a conspiracy to say the market is rigged, I entreat you to study the QE programmes of both Europe and Japan. Understand, that without QE, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Irish and even French yields would be through the fucking roof. It’s absurd to think that Italy or Spain should be able to borrow at lower rates than America. But that’s what’s happening. Also, it’s positively insane to believe the Japanese markets would be even close to where it is now, if not for their complete control of their stock market, via stock and ETF purchases.

So, with that in mind, global markets are 100% rigged. Period, end of story.

To that point, and using the same logic, we can’t be in a traditional ‘bond bubble’ if the fucking market isn’t natural and is being controlled by central bank printing presses. In my opinion, bonds will continue to outperform, providing there are buyers out there who are fucking mandated, by law, to buy and control the market.

With regard to the Fed hiking rates, come on son. Do we really need to get into this monetary land of fantasy, one that would bring forth an undeniable nightmare for the corrupt and soulless ghouls who depend on fiscal chicanery to gain reelections?

Sanofi tried to buy them about a month ago for much cheaper prices and were told to buzz off.

Enter cash cow Pfizer.

By acquiring Medivation, Pfizer would gain a blockbuster prostate-cancer treatment, Xtandi, that’s already approved and that analysts project will generate $1.33 billion in sales by 2020.

Medivation previously had rejected French drugmaker Sanofi’s offer of $58 a share, plus a contingent value right valued at a maximum of $3 a share. The Financial Times reported earlier Sunday that the Pfizer agreement was imminent.

This deal bodes well for large cap biotech, companies with advanced pipelines and good prospects for positive free cash flow. This is not, however, an endorsement for rampant speculation in early stage refuse, which currently populates the biotech sector in overwhelmingly large numbers.

The deal prices MDVN at $87, approximately 25% above Friday’s close.