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Monthly Archives: November 2013

$GS Expects Forward Looking Dovish Statements From the Fed on Rate Hike Threshold

“The extreme experiment of current US monetary policy has evolved (as we noted yesterday), from explicit end-dates, to unlimited end-dates, to threshold-based end-dates. Of course, this ‘threshold’ was no problem for the liquidty whores when unemployment rates were extremely high themselves, but as the world awoke to what we have been pointing out – that it’s all a mirage of collapsing participation rates – the FOMC (and sell-side strategists) realized that the endgame may be ‘too close’. Cue Goldman’s Jan Hatzius, who in today’s note, citing two influential Fed staff economists, shifts the base case and forecasts that the Fed will lower its threshold for rate hikes to 6.0% (and perhaps as low as 5.5%) as early as December (as a dovish forward-guidance balance to an expected Taper announcement).

 

Via Goldman Sachs,

  • The most senior Fed staff economists for monetary policy analysis and domestic macroeconomics, William English and David Wilcox, havepublished separate studies that imply a strong case for a reduction in the 6.5% unemployment threshold for the first funds rate hike. We have proposed such a move for some time, but have been unsure whether it would in fact happen. And while the uncertainty around near-term Fed policy remains very considerable, our baseline view is now that the FOMC will reduce its 6.5% threshold to 6% at the March 2014 FOMC meeting, alongside the first tapering of QE. A move as early as the December 2013 meeting is possible, and if so, this might also increase the probability of an earlier tapering of QE.

It is hard to overstate the importance of two new Fed staff studies that will be presented at the IMF’s annual research conference on November 7-8. The lead author for the first study is William English, who is the director of the Monetary Affairs division and the Secretary and Economist of the FOMC. The lead author for the second study is David Wilcox, who is the director of the Research and Statistics division and the Economist of the FOMC. The fact that the two most senior Board staffers in the areas of monetary policy analysis and domestic macroeconomics have simultaneously published detailed research papers on central issues of the economic and monetary policy outlook is highly unusual and noteworthy in its own right. But the content and implications of these papers are even more striking.

It will take us some time to absorb the sizable amounts of new analysis in the two studies, and we are only able to comment on a few selected aspects at this point. But our initial assessment is that they considerably increase the probability that the FOMC will reduce its 6.5% unemployment threshold for the first hike in the federal funds rate, either coincident with the first tapering of its QE program or before.

The first study, written by William English, David Lopez-Salido, and Robert Tetlow and entitled “The Federal Reserve’s Framework for Monetary Policy–Recent Changes and New Questions,” uses a smaller version of the staff’s large-scale econometric model FRB/US to analyze the optimal path for the federal funds rate. Using “small FRB/US,” a set of assumptions about Fed preferences, and a set of assumptions about the baseline performance of the economy, the authors find that the theoretically optimal policy involves a commitment to hold the federal funds rate near zero until 2017, followed by a series of hikes that push the rate well above neutral by the early 2020s. In this simulation, the unemployment rate falls below the structural rate for a time, and inflation rises modestly above the 2% target. (The optimal policy in the English et al. study is more aggressive than that shown in Vice Chair Yellen’s earlier set of optimal control simulations, which points to the first hike in early 2016; the reasons seem to include a lower assumption for the structural unemployment rate and a later baseline for the first hike in the funds rate.)

However, the authors note that such an optimal policy is possibly infeasible because it is complex and model-dependent….”

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Technical Analysis Suggests the Bull Market is on a Short Leash

“Current Position of the Market

SPX: Very Long-term trend – The very-long-term cycles are in their down phases, and if they make their lows when expected (after this bull market is over), there will be another steep decline into late 2014. However, the severe correction of 2007-2009 may have curtailed the full downward pressure potential of the 40-yr and 120-yr cycles.

Intermediate trend – SPX initial top in place.

Analysis of the short-term trend is done on a daily basis with the help of hourly charts. It is an important adjunct to the analysis of daily and weekly charts which discusses the course of longer market trends.

Market Overview

… For some indices, probably. For the SPX, DOW, and NDX, perhaps not! I mentioned some time ago that I expected a minor top to form which would be followed by the final short-term uptrend. That minor top came at 1775 on SPX — three points beyond the 1772 target I had in place since the 1646 low was confirmed – and the minor correction is under way. Although Friday saw an intra-channel bounce, there are some indications that it was only a rally in a downtrend and that the final minor low is still ahead. After that, we should experience the final up-phase of the bull market which will either re-test the tops, or make new highs in the indices listed above. The DOW has recovered and managed to eke out a fractional new high which was celebrated on CNBC last week. Indexes which tend to lead, such as RUT, experienced the most weakness in last week’s correction.

The mood on Wall Street is very bullish, most individuals believing that as long as the Fed continues its purchases at the same rate, the market will continue to rise. Now that tapering has most likely been put off until next year, the bull market is expected to continue. According to the SentimenTrader:“Active fund managers have added to their exposure to stocks and are now carrying among their heaviest loads in 7 years”.

Cycles, however, may be telling a different story and, if some of the more reliable cycle analysts are correct, the bull is on a very short leash. Also waving a red flag, sentiment indicators are reaching levels that are seen at important tops. If you are an investor, it’s time to become wary!

Chart Analysis

Even though the DOW is trying to catch up….”

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$FB 2.0? $TWTR Raises IPO Price by 25%

“This morning’s announcement of the 25% rise in the IPO price of Twitter raised a few eyebrows across Wall and Main Street. Most will argue that investors have all learned many lessons in the 18 months since Facebook IPO’d to a clarion call for retail money large and small from every form of media that exists… The following headlines from the pre-IPO suggest, unfortunately, that we learned absolutely nothing…”

 

Full report

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New Report Says Defense Department and CIA Health Professionals Violated Professional Ethics Standards

“WASHINGTON (AP) — A report by a medical task force says Defense Department and CIA health professionals violated professional ethics standards by helping to develop interrogation and torture techniques and participating in force-feeding of terror suspects over the last decade.

While reports of torture following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 are not new, the report by the Institute on Medicine as a Profession said the U.S. should do a full investigation into how much military and intelligence physicians and psychologists participated in the interrogations, saying the record “remains fragmentary.”

The report, compiled by a 20-member task force, says that government agencies improperly used legal restrictions rather than ethical standards to determine the actions of health professionals. And it said heath workers must be held to higher ethical standards than interrogators, who can inflict stress to legal limits.

“A health professional has an obligation not to participate in acts that deliberately impose pain or suffering on a person,” said the report, which was also funded by the Open Society Foundations and is titled, Ethics Abandoned: Medical Professionalism and Detainee Abuse in the War on Terror. It added that replacing ethical standards with legal ones “eviscerates the ethical standards.”

Billionaire and longtime liberal political donor George Soros funds Open Society Foundations.

The report said that medical professionals were used to advise interrogators on how to exploit detainee vulnerabilities, even as they were required to be present in order to protect detainees from severe harm. And the report said that even today reporting requirements for health professionals who witness abuse are unclear.

CIA spokesman Dean Boyd said the report “contains serious inaccuracies and erroneous conclusions,” adding that the CIA has no detainees in custody and that the interrogation program was ended by President Barack Obama in 2009. He said the CIA’s medical staff upholds “the highest standards of their profession in the work they perform,”

The ongoing debate ….”

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$EBAY: “Its Payment Unit PayPal May One Day Incorporate BitCoin.”

“First it was China hinting that where Silk Road failed in monetizing, pardon the pun, BitCoin, the world’s most populous nation could soon take the lead. Then, none other than private equity titan Fortress said it had great expectations for the digital currency. Now, it is eBay’s turn to announce that it is preparing to expand the range of digital currencies it accepts, adding that “its payment unit PayPal may one day incorporate BitCoin.” But not just yet. FT reports that according to eBay CEO John Donahoe, “digital currency is going to be a very powerful thing.”

The ecommerce group, which has more than 124m active users, is initially focusing on incorporating reward points from retailers’ loyalty schemes into its PayPal wallet.

 

“We are building the container so any retailer could put their loyalty points into the PayPal wallet,” Mr Donahoe said.

 

“There is a limit to how many cards you will carry, or remembering what points you have or don’t have,” he said. “But in a digital wallet, you can put 50 different loyalty cards.”

 

Mr Donahoe said Ebay was not expanding the PayPal wallet to include Bitcoins, “but we are watching it”.

 

“That same technology could accept other digital currencies,” he said.

While traditional retailers have so far balked at even the vaguest idea of considering allowing BitCoin as a viable payment method, all that would take to start a seismic shift in perception would be one angel idea “investor” to show that it can be done. ….”

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Investor Confidence Builds as IPOs Get Scooped Up in a Frenzy Like State

“Investors are stampeding into initial public offerings at the fastest clip since the financial crisis, fueling a frenzy in the shares of newly listed companies that echoes the technology-stock craze of the late 1990s.

October was the busiest month for U.S.-listed IPOs since 2007, with 33 companies raising more than $12 billion. The coming week is slated to bring a dozen more initial offerings, including Thursday’s expected $1.6 billion stock sale by Twitter Inc., the biggest Internet IPO since Facebook Inc. FB -0.10% ‘s $16 billion sale in May 2012.

The 190 U.S.-listed IPOs this year have raised $49.2 billion, more than the $45 billion raised by the 132 deals during the same period in 2012.

 

Container Store Group Inc. TCS +101.11% rose 101% on its first day of trading Friday, making it the sixth company this year to double in its first day of U.S. trading. There were eight such doubles in the previous 12 years, according to data tracker Dealogic.

The rush to buy shares of newly public companies is the latest sign of investors’ thirst for assets with potential upside, at a time when relatively safe investments are generating scant income due to tepid economic growth and Federal Reserve policies that have kept a lid on U.S. interest rates.

Many of these companies aren’t profitable. But investors increasingly are willing to roll the dice, particularly on technology firms that they say have the potential to “disrupt” the industry.

“After all these years of the market going up, investors are getting reacquainted with equities,” said Alan Gayle, senior investment strategist at RidgeWorth Investments, which manages $49 billion in Atlanta. “In a slower-growth environment, the newer names are much more likely to be disruptive. Disruptive companies are more likely to grow their top line at a fast pace.”

To some, the hunger for shares of newly public companies is a sign that the IPO market has begun to find its footing after five years in the doldrums, and could return to being a driver of growth for companies looking for capital to expand and hire.

To others, however, the demand is an indication that a rally fueled primarily by abundant liquidity from the Fed, and not by earnings growth and economic expansion, is entering dangerous territory.

“When I hear intelligent investors asking me not which companies are good to invest in, but which IPOs can I get into, it scares the heck of me,” said Mark Lamkin, a wealth-management adviser based in Louisville, Ky.

So far this year, 61% of companies selling U.S.-listed IPOs have lost money in the 12 months preceding their debuts, according to Jay Ritter, professor of finance at the University of Florida. That is the highest percentage since 2000, the year the Nasdaq Composite Index roared to its all-time high of 5048.62. The index closed Friday at 3922.04.

Investors this year are putting a higher value on debut companies’ revenue than at any time since the crisis. The median IPO this year has been priced at five times the past 12 months’ sales, according to Mr. Ritter. That is the highest mark since 2007, when the median ratio was more than six times.

Companies holding their IPOs in the U.S. this year have posted an average 30% gain in share price, according to Dealogic. That compares with a 23.5% advance in the S&P 500 index…..”

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Fun With Medicine

[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYBdZa2eGAs 450 300]

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Documentary: David vs $MON

In true Halloween fashion we have both a trick and a treat.

This is a David and Goliath story that shows how just one man can take on the system and win. If only every citizen of the world had David’s fervor we would certainly be a lot better off as a “civilized”  species living on this planet.

Cheers on your weekend!

[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dw961tpkkA 450 300] [youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2W3aG8uizA 450 300]

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$700 Billion Ways to Get Hosed

“Do you remember the $700 billion bailout of the financial system in 2008?

It seems these days that most investors do not. People are partying like it’s 1929… as if all the issues and challenges that plagued the banking sector just a few years ago have miraculously vanished.

This thinking is absurd, and even a casual glance at the balance sheets of so many banks in the West shows objectively that the entire system is still precariously leveraged, undercapitalized, and illiquid.

In the wake of the bailout, Congress created a special position to oversee how the funds were spent. Like anything else in government, they used an unnecessarily long name followed by a catchy acronym–

Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or SIGTARP.

(The first SIGTARP was a former federal prosecutor who had previously indicted 50 leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia… just the right man to keep a watchful eye on bankers.)

SIGTARP just released its quarterly report to Congress… and it’s scatching, suggesting that “the toxic corporate culture that led up to the crisis and TARP has not sufficiently changed.”

There are some real zingers in the 518 page report, including:

  • “[F]raudulent bankers. . . sought TARP bailout dollars to have taxpayers fill in the holes on their fraud-riddled books.”
  • “Some bankers cultivated a culture of self dealing, criminally concealing that the bank was funding their luxury lifestyles, believing they were entitled to the finest money could buy. . .”
  • “They were trusted to exercise good judgment and make sound decisions. However, they abused that trust. Many times they abused that trust for their own personal benefit.”

Moreover, the report calls into question the Treasury Department’s administration of the bailout.

For example, many banks have been delinquent in making TARP payments, or payments to one of TARP’s sub-programs.

Yet while many banks are delinquent by 1-2 quarters, according to the report, roughly 3% of the banks who received funds under the Community Development Capital Initiative are more than –two years– behind in their payments.

Yet the Treasury Department has done nothing to enforce terms on behalf of taxpayers.

Most alarmingly, though, the report throws a giant red flag on the Treasury Department’s deceit.

In 2011, the report states, 137 banks took in billions of dollars of funding from the Treasury under the Small Business Lending Fund (SBLF). They then used those funds to repay their TARP loans.

In other words, they repaid taxpayer money with more taxpayer money….”

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