Cashin: ‘Central Banks Are Essentially Helpless’

Art Cashin is out talking greasy this afternoon, as the Dow sinks to session lows. He cites the appreciation in the Yen, up 10% for the year, as a source of major concern for the Bank of Japan. Moreover, he believes if the Yen strength continues, the BOJ will be forced to up the ante on their draconian negative interest rate agenda. As such, this is an indelible negative for banks–which is precisely why the financial sector has been rife with underperformance.

Lastly and perhaps most importantly, he believes the market might be breaking through support now, something that is keenly watched by scores of chart-chomping knuckle-draggers.

As the NASDAQ swan dives, lower by 83, I have one question for all of you: did you reserve a seat on the ark (TLT)?

Super asshole, married to the heir to the ketchup fortune, keeps himself very busy in the sky, gallivanting from one destination to the next–forging conflagrations and schemes across the globe.

He has traveled 1.06 million miles, spending more than 96 days in the sky since 2013.

For all of those miles, the American people have received nothing but the bill.

Morgan Stanley lowered their price target on the bank run, Arab spring causing social media platform today to $16, citing troubling trends in engagement as being the core issues facing the company–moving forward.

“We believe TWTR’s core user engagement remains in decline, as time spent per U.S. mobile user fell by an estimated 10% YoY in 1Q:16. This may be an improvement from the 30%+ YoY declines from last year, but stepping back, TWTR’s time spent per user is already among the lowest in the social group … and is still in decline. New user growth doesn’t appear to be rebounding either, as quarter-over-quarter new mobile-app downloads were flat for the second straight quarter.”

Who the fuck ‘engages’ on Pandora? I don’t get that.

In a nut shell, Morgan thinks Twitter is a huge piece of shit and should be treated as such, until further notice.

“We see fewer users and less time per user holding back Twitter’s platform monetization — putting a limit on ad impression growth and holding back the pace at which advertisers increase their share of ad budgets toward the (shrinking) platform,” the analysts wrote.

Just fire @Jack already and leave him to Square.

Evan Greenberg, CEO of CB, is warning that liquidity might be tightening soon, as availability of credit gets constricted as America weans itself off the drug called ‘cheap money.’

“We may be at the beginning of a great unwind in credit availability,” Greenberg said in an annual letter to investors. “If so, that bodes poorly for future growth and the interest rate outlook.”

Greenberg believes the economy has slowed because “global overcapacity and increase of capital caused by cheap money from years of central banks’ stimulus — a drug we should have been off of some time ago.”

“We see less-coordinated central bank policies with the Fed aiming to tighten but confounded by a strong dollar while the EU and Japan engage in continued monetary easing,” Greenberg said. “Many emerging economies are suffering at their own hand as well.”

“We are eating our seed corn brought to you by the Fed,” Greenberg said about the impact of cheap money. “Central bank policies to stimulate growth following the financial crisis have in my judgment outlived their usefulness.”

This isn’t the comments of a misinformed man. He is the CEO of one of the largest insurance companies in the world.

Board the ark.

Wait, did Cramer just admit that placing tariffs on Chinese goods entering the United Steaks, in order to protect U.S. industry, would make Alcoa ‘zoom’? I thought tariffs were evil and free trade was beneficial for helping ‘create moar jobs’?

Imagine if we had a President who made it his duty to protect all industries and not just the one’s cherry picked by the influential few.

Coincidentally, zero American politicians were found in the 11,000 page leak.

Putin dismissed the leak as ‘rubbish’, saying the Obama administration was “an attempt to shake the situation [in Russia] from within, make us more compliant, and tar us the way they want.””

He then went on to recall the propaganda days of World War 1, suggesting it was being employed now, by the U.S.

“And what’s the easiest way? It’s by infusing some mistrust in society toward government bodies and the government, and by setting people against each other,” said Putin, adding that this plan was “brilliantly employed during the tragic years of WWI.”

Finally…

“You journalists all know what an information product is,” Putin told the forum. “So they went through this offshore [material]. Your humble servant was not there, but they don’t talk about that. But there’s still a job to be done. So what did they do? They make an information product – they found acquaintances and friends.”

Ever get the feeling we were the bad guys, or is it just me?

Copper accurately called the bottom in February, bouncing and moving higher before the broader indices. It’s my belief the inverse is occurring now. As copper sinks, the bullish narrative for China darkens and with it the bull run.

Freeport McMoran is the most levered to the space. Its stock is being dismantled today.

All eyes should be on Dr. Copper, for he is a physician in the ancient arts of financial medicine, offering tonics for the infirmed, and bleeding out his patients who get overzealous.

This is a hugely negative development for longs. The reversion back to the grind house is indicative of a market sentiment that beckons back to the past two years, a period which was cruel to market participants.

Relatedly, the flight to treasuries is pervasive and consistently rewarding.

The Nasdaq is within 10 points of giving up all of yesterday’s degenerate gains.

A storm is coming. You’ve been warned.

Understand something, the problem here isn’t the fact that Kenyan banks open and close like the doors on a Disney ride. The problem is Kenyans expressing free speech on Twitter, using the devilish hash tag #KOT to communicate with fellow Kenyans–concerned over their deposits.

“We had some individuals that shouted fire in a crowded theater room; to me there is nothing as reckless as that,” he told reporters in the capital, Nairobi. “If one made such horrendous statements, you can cause a run, some crisis. Indeed the bank was under serious pressure.”

Chase Bank on Wednesday sought to assure customers that it was operating normally as a flurry of comments on social-media sites speculated on the financial health of the company. Rumors on the safety of deposits and investments mounted following the resignation of Chairman Zafrullah Khan and Managing Director Duncan Kabui, and concern over a qualified opinion expressed by auditors on earnings that had been restated to show a surge in loans to employees and directors.

Don’t worry folks. The government of Kenya, the all benevolent non corrupt officials who are pilfering the country, will protect you from those Twitter people causing banks to fail. Once Twitter releases the location of these criminals and the government imprisons them, all will be well again.

“Rumors have been rife on social media which is turning out to be a pre-eminent early warning system,” Aly-Khan Satchu, chief executive officer of Rich Management, an adviser to companies and wealthy individuals, said in response to e-mailed questions

This outlier of a move is beginning to become a serious matter. The yen is markedly higher for the 5th straight day and really applying some gusto to the move, higher by more than 1.2% now.

S&P futs are sharply lower.

Gold is the real deal in 2016. Aside from treasuries, nothing has been more consistent.

Crude is mildly lower.

It’s a classic risk off tape, with treasuries firming, gold soaring, Yen spiraling higher and stocks lower. The market has been very resilient and we did add 75 NASDAQS yesterday. Therefore, unless we give back all of yesterday’s gains, today’s pullback will be viewed as healthy, rightly so.

But the Yen move higher isn’t good for Japan, currently at a 17 mo high.