Oh No! Hedge Fund Outflows Most Since 2009

This is horseshit.

Investors withdrew $15 billion more than they allocated between January and March, reducing money under management to $2.86 trillion from $2.9 trillion, Hedge Fund Research Inc. said Wednesday. The last time outflows were higher was in the second quarter of 2009 when $43 billion was pulled out.

Money managers have struggled to navigate turbulent markets, with hedge funds losing an average 0.7 percent in the first quarter after a 1.1 percent loss in 2015, according to the HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index.

Simply put, what is 2% of $2.86 trillion? The hedge fund Ceasars are doing just fine.

While I loathe the industry with almost every fiber of my existence, despite being in it, it serves a necessary evil. Rich people need to delegate. It’s what they do. Delegating others to run their fortunes for them is one of their favorite pastimes. As much as people delude themselves into thinking rich people want zero commission brokerage firm accounts, they don’t.

All they want is 10-20% per annum, sometimes less, sometimes more. Consistent returns without headaches. Hence, 2 and 20 thrives.

Come on already with the horseshit lies about crude and the bullish case for it. Crude was over $100 for years and no one had the slightest idea why that was the case. We were, seemingly, swimming in the stuff. Production was expanding rapidly and demand was flat. I chalked up the price of crude as something to be tolerated, a tax of sorts by assholes in power.

Then prices dropped and forced selling hit markets. Crude got down to the $20’s, at which point Dennis “The Commodity King” Gartman suggested it was headed for $15. In hindsight, those dark days were the best buying opportunities in many, many years. Since then, a multitude of oil stocks have doubled, some more.

What now?

Traders are taking every excuse they can muster to buy oil stocks, even though the price of crude has been rangebound for a month or so. All this is transpiring at a time when Iran, our new ally, is stepping back into the market, adding a few million barrels of crude–per day–to the already absurd supply glut.

“We paid for our barrels with our centrifuges,” the source said, referring to Iran’s acceptance of curbs on its nuclear program in order for Western sanctions on Tehran to be lifted.

“We are going to get our share back. For us, oil is only 12 percent of our GDP. We used to sell oil in the war (between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s) at $6 a barrel.”

The Iranians are serious about punching Saudi Arabia in the face with jellied donuts.

Is it starting to resonate?

OPEC isn’t cutting supply. Iran is ADDING supply. Russia is operating at peak capacity with zero plans to slow. By my vantage point, the only major oil producing nations that will end up on the receiving end of a giant fucking L are the United States and Canada. To that point, in order to cut production, companies must go bankrupt. When that occurs, losses for the debt associated with those companies will be around 80 cents on the dollar.

At any rate, crude is trying to rally here, on news that we added ‘just’ 2.1 million barrels of crude to storage for the week, upping our stockpile to a mere 538 million fucking barrels of crude.

Our main storage hub, Cushing, OK, is just about full–dangerously close to being at full capacity. As a point in fact, we’ve never had more oil at Cushing than we do now.

Capacity is 73 million barrels.

Go crude!

It was a limited edition, founders series, car. The Ford Motor company paid up to spy on the competition, paying about $200k for the latest Tesla suv.

These cars are ridiculous. I want one.

“Wow, I hope that investment pays off in some good intelligence,” Michelle Krebs, senior analyst for researcher Autotrader.com, said of the premium Ford paid. “If you’re going to be one of the early buyers, you’re probably going to pay well over list. But that’s significant.”

“We’re going to definitely see more electrification and light-weighting,” Krebs said. “Those are the things I suspect Ford would be taking special note of as they develop their sport utilities of the future.”

Tesla’s first Model Xs are limited-edition Founders Series — fewer than 100 of them were made — that typically go to board members and close friends of the company like Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Those are followed by the Signature Series models, which require a $40,000 deposit from customers and start at $132,000. The window sticker price on the all-wheel-drive Model X P90D that Ford purchased is $144,950, including the $10,000 Ludicrous Speed Upgrade that boasts a 0-to-60 miles per hour time of 3.2 seconds.

It’s worth mentioning that without the economic system called capitalism, none of this would be happening now. The fucking electric car, an SUV no less, can get up to 60mph in 3.2 seconds?!

By the way, the government is mandating cars run at 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. I like the direction the automakers are going, especially TSLA.

Futures were lower by 60; now they’re slightly higher. This banana run we’ve been on has instilled a sense of entitlement amongst traders, something unseen since 2013. Both 2014 & 2015 were abysmal years, both taxing and filled with misdirection. Aside from the first 5 weeks of 2016, this has been a bullish traders nirvana.

Traders have enjoyed melt up after melt up, with very little repercussions or reprisals. There have been very few pullbacks since February and people are starting to get bold again. The run in crude stocks, as oil idles itself in the low $40s, is absolutely asinine. I see what’s taking place in the market and can’t help but to shake my head–because I know what’s coming next.

None of this propping up can hold. The recovery story is a lie, always has been. It was fun playing the POMO game, pretending that the economy was pistol hot–but it wasn’t. Financial engineering can only take you so far. All hope and responsibility for a prosperous economy has been laid to rest at the feet of the federal reserve. There is nothing left for our politicians to do, as they’ve spent the treasury and more. Fiscal disaster is all but a certainty for a number of western economies, as well as China.

The prime risk to the market is recession during a time of stark fiscal uncertainty, the sort of debt to GDP that disables government from stimulus spending. Sadly, that’s the position we’re in, defenseless spendthrifts hanging onto every word of our Fed overlords, who all but control our economy and country by controlling the supply of money.

Does this seem healthy to you?

It might be a councidence, or not. But something tells me the Chinese don’t want Amercia to become great again.

Trump wins big; China’s stock market slams into a cement wall and explodes.

“The fear of a January plunge is back,” said Wei. “We haven’t heard anything particular for the decline and it’s strange and surprising that the market is dropping at such a fast and steep rate.”

U.S. futs are off a bit and WTI is trading lower by 3%.

This was quite entertaining. I counted 127 lies, while smoking my pipe.

Trump was in NY today and he gave a speech.

Interestingly enough, Governor John Kasich won 2nd place in NY today, triumphant and well positioned to receive the RNC coronation this July.

PENDING: We are eagerly awaiting Kasich’s victory speech and will be posting it as soon as it concludes.

New York isn’t feeling the Bern, apparently.

The Hilderbeast has mudstomped Bernie into a fucking hot dog stand and he’s been left there ever since, eating sauerkraut sandwiches, talking to himself about ‘fucking banks’ this and ‘fucking billionaires’ that.

With 59% of the vote in, Hillary is up 59% to 40%, in a regular knee-slapping beat down, primordial in nature, arcane in practice.

With 25% of precincts reporting, iBankCoin can comfortably predict that Ohio’s Governor John ‘Mr. Rogers’ Kasich has won second place in the New York primary, humiliating Ted ‘LYIN’ Cruz in what can only be described as a George Washington-esque landslide.

Before Kasich gives his much awaited for victory speech, it is rumored that LYIN Ted Cruz is holed up in his hotel room, crying like an illegal Cuban immigrant stuck in a capsized migration boat en route to Florida.

Long live J. Kasich. God bless President Kasich.

Apex technology and PAG Asia capital led a consortium to acquire the legendary Lexington, KY hardware company, in a deal valued at $3.6 billion. Shareholders will enjoy a 15% or so premium tomorrow, as the deal was agreed upon at $40.50 in an all cash deal.

“This is an exciting transaction that Lexmark’s board of directors believes is in the best interests of our shareholders,” Lexmark Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Paul Rooke said in the statement. “The transaction will benefit our customers and provide new opportunities for our employees.”

Aside from the mundane printer, Lexmark specializes in a wide swath of security applications for the U.S. govt and justice system, including court case management, health benefits exchange software, public assistance, application automation, professional licensing boards, public safety, law enforcement as well as the DMV.

Big win for the dog eaters in Beijing.