Friday, December 19, 2014

EMERGING MARKETS UNRAVELING: IS THE US GOING FOR BROKE – OR JUST STUPID?

BY JOHN WARD

dimonJerk or psychopath?
When Yellen tapered, Brics gaped. They thought cheap money was going to last forever. When Wall St and The City attacked the oil price, Venezuela had an attack of the vapours and Russia began hurriedly to top up its already engorged gold reserves. As Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes in the Telegraph this morning, ‘They [the Brics] now face the margin call from Hell as the global monetary hegemon pivots’. They certainly do: significant among my ‘7 reasons who Obama should’ve vetoed Congress’s new anti-Putin sanctions’ from yesterday was this one:
‘4. Think about the effect on emerging markets debt: by yesterday afternoon, investors worldwide were storming out of EM bonds. If things get worse, Turkey and South Africa will start to suffer.’
A day later, it’s already happening. Nigeria, Venezuela and other petro-states are facing deadly margin calls and capital flight at one and the same time. The Turkish lira is down 12%, and the Istanbul bourse is down 20%. The Brazilian real has fallen dramatically against the Buck…to a level last seen in 2005. The country’s oil giant Petrobas owes $170bn…but faces an economic crash.
You think these folks are minnows? Think again: emerging markets now account for roughly 50% of global gdp. Just when everybody’s output has died – based on the poor demand predicted here last April – Washington is tightening the money supply, attacking the oil price, and inviting the return of currency defence via interest rates. I finished yesterday’s piece by observing, ‘Up until now, Washington has been shooting itself in the foot. It is in danger of shooting itself in the head’. The US has shot itself in the head, and we are heading for 1929 – The Remake only on a scale vastly more destructive than the original movie.
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I must confess to, last night, pausing for some other thought: that the mad 3% in fact knows exactly what it’s doing: that it wants to bring the stock markets crashing, property dying and even its own debt problem to a head by wiping out Russia’s business model, decimating the demand for Chinese goods, and destroying every fiat but the Dollar in a last desperate bid to restore its unassailable power….before those keen to freeze them out of transactions can get their act together.
Imagine how beneficent the US would look if, at some time around, say, March 2015, it declared that times were so desperate, it was now time for a global Jubilee, via which all debt would be wiped off the slate….and so a real recovery could get under way again.
I don’t know whether the ageing Australian political giant Malcolm Fraser had this in mind when he wrote yesterday:
‘It is time for Australia to end its strategic dependence on the United States. The relationship with America, which has long been regarded as beneficial, has now become dangerous to Australia’s future. We have effectively ceded to America the ability to decide when Australia goes to war. Even if America were the most perfect and benign power, this posture would still be incompatible with the integrity of Australia as a sovereign nation. It entails not simply deference but submission to Washington, an intolerable state of affairs for a country whose power and prosperity are increasing and whose national interests dictate that it enjoy amicable, not hostile, relations with its neighbors, including China….’
As time goes on, I suspect – and quite quickly – many more nations will decide the same thing: the US is heading for pariah status. Pariahs – be they ancient Rome, Victorian Britain or Soviet Russia – always end up being brought down by their hubris. And someone pulling hard on your hubris is not funny, let me tell you.
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So: is this the élite’s final Act – the denouement of a plot designed to enslave everyone else? No, frankly – I don’t think it is. It’s just more of “thmericunwayee” crap one’s come to expect of corporate-institutional America.
I believe what we’re seeing here is Snafu on a hitherto unimaginable scale. By and large, pretty much since the end of the Second World War, the US hierarchy’s upper levels have demonstrated serial ignorance, knee-jerk testoterone, thinly-disguised aggression and unbelievable insensitivity in their dealings with the outside world. By 1960, virtually every country in Latin America loathed imperial Washington. By 1980, most of Europe did. The collapse of the Soviet Union, however, marked the solidification of that tiny US axis insisting that all other ways than naked globalist greed were prima facie evidence of insanity or Communist leanings – and probably both.
Only neoliberal banker-swamped Britain has gone along with them on this, and in my view (accompanied by an avalanche of evidence) it has destroyed the place as a functioning ‘social’ civilisation. The French reject ‘l’anglo-saxonisme’ utterly – a large percentage of the reason I live there now. The Germans under Merkel have seemed generally keen to do America’s bidding, but the ‘old’ Eastern, central and south-eastern European States do not want anything to do with what they increasingly see as US-led globalist colonialism. The Poles suspect American motives, the Hungarians actively oppose them, and Greece will never forgive the US for siding with fascists throughout its postwar period. All of these States feel closer to Moscow: they detested the Communists, but see Putin as a bulwark against Washington.
All of this seems to bounce off sovereign America without making the slightest dent in policy. And as long as the politicians remain the bought whores of US corporates and bankers, that braindead response will continue.
As I’ve written before about both the UK and Brussels, “Anything could happen, but nothing will change”.

What Options at the Federal Reserve: A Global Financial Crisis is Looming?

Home / Breaking News / What Options at the Federal Reserve: A Global Financial Crisis is Looming?
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It is being said today’s FOMC announcement is “the most important of Yellen’s tenure”, I could not disagree more.  In the past I have written pieces regarding the potential announcements by the FOMC and come to the conclusion “what can they possibly say?”.  This is more true now, Janet Yellen et al cannot “say” anything of substance because they cannot “do” anything of substance.  The Fed backed themselves into a corner of their own making several years ago, I believe it is only a matter of time before the markets “test” them.
What options does the Fed have?  Can they raise interest rates at all?  Can they tighten credit at all?  Can they really go the other way and institute truly negative interest rates?  The answers are all NO, they are “frozen” of their own making and have only one option (really two in tandem).  The Fed can only remain in place with interest rates nonexistent and must continually create (fund) debt and grow money supply while a Treasury arm, the PPT must guide, massage and dampen volatility of markets …ALL markets.  The only thing currently being discussed is “when” will the Fed tighten?  I would ask, when will QE 4 be instituted?  The answer of course is when the markets seriously begin to implode again which may not even be more than a calendar month or two away.
I am sure a part of their statement will include oil and energy prices.  This is a market they cannot heal with monetary policy.  The volatility has already occurred and the dead bodies already exist though we don’t yet know who they are.  The dilemma the Fed has is they have no tools left other than outright support once markets begin to collapse.  Their QE policies have already been seen as ineffective at supporting the real economy other than stabilizing decline.  My question is this, when QE 4 becomes a necessity, will the markets “buy it” or will the phrase “three strikes and your out” come into play?  What once worked to turn the real economy from contraction to recovery to an actual growth phase now has no power.  The Fed only has an accelerator so to speak, the brake pedal is off limits.  I have written many times on “velocity” and why it continues to decline.  This is the sticking point, the money they create is being hoarded by the banks and not reaching Main St.

Wealth Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans Highest on Record

New analysis from Pew Research Center finds that economic gains of the wealthiest continue to soar as the middle-class and low-income families face chronic stagnation
Sarah Lazare
The gulf between rich and poor people in America has hit a new record.
An analysis released Wednesday by Pew Research Center finds that the wealth gap between the top 21 percent of families and everyone else is the widest since the Federal Reserve began collecting such income data 30 years ago.
Last year, the median wealth of upper-income families ($639,400) was almost seven times that of middle-income families and nearly 70 times that of lower-income families.
Measured as the “difference between the value of a family’s assets (such as financial assets as well as home, car and businesses) and debts,” wealth is an “important dimension of household well-being because it’s a measure of a family’s ‘nest egg’ and can be used to sustain consumption during emergencies (for example, job layoffs) as well as provide income during retirement,” the report notes.
“The latest data reinforces the larger story of America’s middle-class household wealth stagnation over the past three decades,” the report states. “The Great Recession destroyed a significant amount of middle-income and lower-income families’ wealth, and the economic ‘recovery’ has yet to be felt for them.”
The findings follow another Pew analysis published last week which finds that U.S. wealth inequalities along racial lines have dramatically worsened since the Great Recession, with the gap between white and black people at its highest in 25 years.
According to that study, which also looks at Federal Reserve data, in 2013 white household wealth was 13 times that of black households and 10 times that of Hispanic households.
This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.

Philadelphia Fed Business Index Slows

After reporting November business conditions were the best in more than two decades, Mid-Atlantic manufacturers curbed their enthusiasm about the economic environment this month.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said Thursday that its index of general business activity covering the regional factory sector fell to 24.5 in December after it had surged to 40.8 in November, the highest reading since December 1993.
The December reading is close to the 25.0 expected by economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal. Readings under zero denote contraction, and above-zero readings denote expansion.

"The December Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey suggests a slower pace of expansion of the region's manufacturing sector but general optimism about the future," the report said.
The Philadelphia Fed's other indexes covering business activity also gave up ground this month after hitting multiyear high readings in November.
The new orders index dropped to 15.7 in December from 35.7 last month. The shipments index fell to 16.1 from 31.9.
The employees index plunged to 7.2 in December from 22.4 in November. The workweek index index slowed only slightly to 6.2 from 7.8.
More Philadelphia area manufacturers are raising their own selling prices. The prices-received index increased to 12.5 from 11.5 in November. The prices-paid index fell to 14.0 from 17.3.
Philadelphia-area manufacturers remain optimistic about the next six months although the confidence slipped from November's lofty level.
The general business expectations index slowed to 51.9 from 57.7. The expected employment index fell to 21.7 from 31.5.
-Write to Kathleen Madigan at kathleen.madigan@wsj.com
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This article appears in: Market News Headlines

Chart: Spain 10yr government bond yield hits a new low on QE expectations

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Chart: Spain 10yr government bond yield hits a new low on QE expectations -

North Sea oil industry 'close to collapse': Experts' warning that oil price plunge is not all good news for UK economy

  • Oil tycoon and government adviser Sir Ian Wood says 10% of jobs could go
  • Premier Oil boss Robin Allan says at current oil prices it is 'almost impossible to make money'
  • Brent crude has nearly halved in price on world markets since June 

The tumbling oil price has left the UK’s North Sea oil industry ‘close to collapse’ experts warned today
North Sea oil and gas tycoon and government adviser Sir Ian Wood has said around 10 per cent of jobs may go, while Robin Allan, chairman of the independent explorers' association Brindex and Premier Oil executive, said today that at current oil prices it is ‘almost impossible to make money’.
A report into the sector found 35,000 jobs could go over the next five years following the sharp fall in the price of oil. Brent crude has nearly halved since June and touched over a five-year low this week amid increased US shale oil supply and the continued output from Opec.
Scroll down for video 
Oil woes: A report into the sector found 35,000 jobs could go over the next five years following the sharp fall in the price of oi. with Brent crude having nearly halved since June
Oil woes: A report into the sector found 35,000 jobs could go over the next five years following the sharp fall in the price of oi. with Brent crude having nearly halved since June
Today Brent crude stood at around $63 a barrel having bounced from the low of $58.50 hit on Tuesday.
Allan told the BBC: ‘It's almost impossible to make money at these oil prices It's a huge crisis. This has happened before, and the industry adapts, but the adaptation is one of slashing people, slashing projects and reducing costs wherever possible, and that's painful for our staff, painful for companies and painful for the country.’
A number of oil explorers and services firms have announced plans to slash jobs. US giant ConocoPhillips is cutting 230 out of 1,650 jobs in the UK, and oil services firm Schlumberger cut back its UK-based fleet of geological survey ships.
BP, Shell and Petrofac have cut contractor rates and yesterday FTSE 250 oil services firm Wood Group – founded by Sir Ian Wood - said it is cutting pay for 1,300 North Sea contractors by 10 per cent from January and will freeze the salaries of its 4,000-strong UK workforce next year.
But although the fall in oil price is bad news for the industry it has been a welcome relief for the wider economy.
Accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers said the falling oil price 'should be a net benefit to our economy as a whole, even if there is some losers in the UK oil and gas sector and in particular places like Aberdeen'.
PwC chief economist John Hawksworth, said: ‘In essence, an oil price fall acts like a tax cut for the economy, but a particularly favourable one in the sense that the burden of lost revenue is primarily borne by the major oil producers.'
He added: ‘As an illustration, in our shale oil report from February 2013, we estimated that a $50 (£32) fall in the oil price, if sustained, could lead to the level of UK GDP being around 3 per cent higher in the long run.’
UK consumers are already reaping the benefits with falling inflation pushing up spending power, providing a knock-on effect for suppliers of consumer goods, he said.

The tumbling oil price has left the UK’s North Sea oil industry ‘close to collapse’ experts warned today
North Sea oil and gas tycoon and government adviser Sir Ian Wood has said around 10 per cent of jobs may go, while Robin Allan, chairman of the independent explorers' association Brindex and Premier Oil executive, said today that at current oil prices it is ‘almost impossible to make money’.
A report into the sector found 35,000 jobs could go over the next five years following the sharp fall in the price of oil. Brent crude has nearly halved since June and touched over a five-year low this week amid increased US shale oil supply and the continued output from Opec.
Scroll down for video 
Oil woes: A report into the sector found 35,000 jobs could go over the next five years following the sharp fall in the price of oi. with Brent crude having nearly halved since June
Oil woes: A report into the sector found 35,000 jobs could go over the next five years following the sharp fall in the price of oi. with Brent crude having nearly halved since June
Today Brent crude stood at around $63 a barrel having bounced from the low of $58.50 hit on Tuesday.
Allan told the BBC: ‘It's almost impossible to make money at these oil prices It's a huge crisis. This has happened before, and the industry adapts, but the adaptation is one of slashing people, slashing projects and reducing costs wherever possible, and that's painful for our staff, painful for companies and painful for the country.’
A number of oil explorers and services firms have announced plans to slash jobs. US giant ConocoPhillips is cutting 230 out of 1,650 jobs in the UK, and oil services firm Schlumberger cut back its UK-based fleet of geological survey ships.
BP, Shell and Petrofac have cut contractor rates and yesterday FTSE 250 oil services firm Wood Group – founded by Sir Ian Wood - said it is cutting pay for 1,300 North Sea contractors by 10 per cent from January and will freeze the salaries of its 4,000-strong UK workforce next year.
But although the fall in oil price is bad news for the industry it has been a welcome relief for the wider economy.
Accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers said the falling oil price 'should be a net benefit to our economy as a whole, even if there is some losers in the UK oil and gas sector and in particular places like Aberdeen'.
PwC chief economist John Hawksworth, said: ‘In essence, an oil price fall acts like a tax cut for the economy, but a particularly favourable one in the sense that the burden of lost revenue is primarily borne by the major oil producers.'
He added: ‘As an illustration, in our shale oil report from February 2013, we estimated that a $50 (£32) fall in the oil price, if sustained, could lead to the level of UK GDP being around 3 per cent higher in the long run.’
UK consumers are already reaping the benefits with falling inflation pushing up spending power, providing a knock-on effect for suppliers of consumer goods, he said.

Russia crisis leaves banks around the world exposed by the billions

RIA Novosti
RIA Novosti


Major banks across Europe, as well as the UK, US, and Japan, are at major risk should the Russian economy default, according to a new study by Capital Economics.
The ING Group in the Netherlands, Raiffeisen Bank in Austria, Societe General in France, UniCredit in Italy, and Commerzbank in Germany, have all faced significant losses in the wake of the ruble crisis. On Tuesday, the currency had its biggest fall in a decade and a half, losing 20 percent, nearing the 27 percent drop it experienced in 1998 that led to a default.
Ruble crisis LIVE UPDATES
Overall Societe General, known as Rosbank in the Russian market, has the most exposure at US$31 billion, or €25 billion, according to Citigroup Inc. analysts. This is equivalent to 62 percent of the Paris-based bank’s tangible equity, Bloomberg News reported.
Following the drop, Raiffeisen, which has €15 billion at risk in Russia, saw its stocks plummeted more than 10 percent. Raiffeisen also has significant exposure in Ukraine, which is facing a similar currency sell-off as Russia.

Source: Capital Economics
Source: Capital Economics
Many Russian companies borrow money from European and American banks, but now the value of their domestic currency has decreased by more than 50 percent against the dollar, so the cost of the loans has doubled in ruble terms.
But the Russian Central Bank, flush with foreign cash reserves, can help these companies out.
“The current ruble crisis does not have any material impact on Russia’s ability to service foreign debt obligations,” Chris Weafer, partner at MacroAdivsory in Moscow, wrote in a note on Wednesday.
READ MORE: 1998 and 2014: Russian crisis in perspective
The Russian economy is nowhere near default. The Central Bank has more than $400 billion in foreign currency reserves, unlike the last time when they defaulted in 1998, when they only had $16 billion.
“There is no risk of default amongst the major banks or industrial companies. Reserves are adequate and the weak ruble boosts the outlook for trade and the current account surplus for 2015,” Weafer said.

The typical affluent family in America has nearly 7 times the wealth of a middle-income family

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The typical affluent family in America has nearly 7 times the wealth of a middle-income family http://on.wsj.com/1GtCU96 

Gold Still On Launch Pad As We Start 2015 – Peter Schiff | Kitco News


Kitco News speaks with Peter Schiff to get his forecasts for gold in this special outlook edition. Last time Schiff was on the show, he said he expects gold price to take a “rocket ship back up” and we wanted to know if he has since changed his tune. He is still bullish on gold and says the U.S. economy is not as strong as people perceive it to be. “I think [gold] is set up perfectly and I think it’s still on that launch pad,” he says. “I do believe you are going to see panic buying in the gold market because it’s really going to be panic selling of the dollar.” Schiff adds that too many people believe in what he called a “phony recovery” and warns that a rude awakening is coming when the Fed, instead of raising rates, launches a QE4 to keep the economy from slipping back into a recession. Tune in now to find out why Schiff doesn’t think the Fed can raise rates and why he thinks the economic data isn’t as accurate as it may seem. Kitco News, December 17, 2014.

Housing Bubble 2 Goes Nuts: San Francisco Home Sales Plunge 20%, Prices Soar 27%

Wolf Richter wolfstreet.com, www.amazon.com/author/wolfrichter
San Francisco is known for its mindboggling booms and breathtaking busts as the hot money from all over the world ebbs and flows amidst startup frenzies and IPO manias.
And now the hot money is flowing. It has created a delirious craziness in the housing market, surrounded by an environment where app makers without revenues but with big dreams and the word “disrupt” in their description are worth billions and draw so much cash from investors that they struggle harder to burn through it all than to disrupt anything.
So I read with fatalist amusement in SF Curbed that the most expensive home on the market in early November is still on the market. At the time, SF Curbed described it this way:
Raw food chef Roxanne Klein and her entrepreneur/guitar-CEO husband, Michael Klein, have put their neoclassical-revival mega-manse on the market for $39 million. The couple have only owned the seven-bedroom, 16,000-square-foot home, located at 2701 Broadway, for two and a half years, having picked it up from real-estate mogul Ron Zeff for $27 million back in 2012…. The ask is a full $12 million above the last sale price, though the present owners haven’t so much as changed the paint in the au pair suite.
Why fatalist amusement? The asking price is 44% higher than when the home was sold two-and-a-half years ago.
So Fed Chair Yellen, in her press conference after the FOMC meeting today, said she’s surprised that housing hasn’t recovered more than it has. But for those who were on the receiving end of the Fed’s free money, the housing market recovered just fine.
There’s only one problem: there aren’t enough of these folks, and they don’t like to live in median homes. But with each price increase, more and more people who want to buy a median home to live in are left behind. And homes sales tumble.
In the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area, sales in November of new and resale houses and condos dropped 10% from November last year, according to CoreLogic DataQuick. It was the worst November since crisis-year 2008. DataQuick blames the debacle on the “limited number of homes for sale, cautious buyers, a challenging mortgage market, and a quirk of the calendar….”
But with a median price of $601,000 in November, up 9.3% year-over-year, there aren’t that many people left who can afford to buy a home. And investors, fattened by Yellen’s monetary policy? They’re starting to lose interest. These “absentee buyers” purchased 18.6% of the homes, down from 20.4% in November last year, the lowest level since September 2010.
Sales volume was down in all nine counties year-over-year, topped by my crazy and beloved San Francisco where sales plunged 20%.
But … the median price soared, gulp, 27% from November a year ago – um, that’s not a typo – reaching a new all-time record of $1,072,500.
That’ll buy a 2-bedroom no-view apartment in a so-so area.
The peak of the prior housing bubble in San Francisco occurred in November 2007, based on the same DataQuick series, with a median price of $814,750. After it imploded so spectacularly, everyone acknowledged that it had been an out-of-whack bubble phenomenon. Everyone had anecdotes of craziness. Sanity would henceforth reign in San Francisco, they said. Now, exactly seven years later, the San Francisco median home costs 32% more than it did during that crazy bubble peak.
Only this time, it’s neither a bubble nor a peak. It’s just an insufficiently recovering housing market, according to Yellen. And so she’s surprised that, after six years of free money for certain folks, it hasn’t “recovered” even more.
In the six-county Southland, the nuances are different. November home sales dropped 19% from October and 9.5% from November a year ago, to the lowest level for any November in seven years. The sales debacle hit lower priced homes particularly hard. While sales of homes over $500,000 edged down 3.3% year over year, sales of homes under $500,000 dropped 17%. And sales of homes below $200,000 plummeted 35%.
“Fewer investor purchases and other market factors,” is how DataQuick explained the phenomenon.
The median sale price of $412,000 hasn’t budged much since August and was up only 7% from a year ago – “only” because it was the sixth month in a row of single-digit year-over-year increases, after 22 months of double-digit gains. Hence the sense of stagnation in a world where prices must always soar.
The problem is that “traditional buyers haven’t filled the void left by the investors who’ve pulled out.” At $410,000 for a median home, “affordability and mortgage availability remain as hurdles, as do concerns about job security and the direction of the housing market.” The bad breath of reality.
In the miracle city of San Francisco, the plunging sales volume and skyrocketing prices coincide with an enormous building boom. Midrise buildings are sprouting like mushrooms, and a few towers are popping up too. Some of these units have started to come on the market, with many more scheduled for 2015 and 2016. But housing bubbles that culminate in building booms implode with particular splendor and a lot of nefarious side effects.
“Mind-blowing” how the luxury market has been “completely on fire.” The rest, well. Read…   California Housing Market Cracks in Two, Top End Goes Crazy

Yields spike, damage spreads. Investors try to bail out while they still can.

Wolf Richter wolfstreet.com, www.amazon.com/author/wolfrichter
The price of oil plunged once again off the chart on Monday and early Tuesday. At one point, West Texas Intermediate traded below $54 per barrel, though it soon bounced off. Crude is down nearly 50% since June. And over-indebted energy companies with cash flows that range from increasingly uncertain to completely demolished are suddenly contemplating just how deep the abyss might be.
The below-investment-grade bonds these risky companies issued with enormous hoopla and hype to fund the shale revolution and offshore drilling projects, lovingly dubbed “junk bonds,” had been sold to investors on the premise that oil would sell for ever increasing prices in the future, with the understanding that this might allow the company to make interest payments on time and raise new debt to pay off the old debt when it matures.
Even the still uncertain economics of fracking – the expense of drilling coupled with the horrendous decline rates – or the potential environmental consequences and subsequent backlash were elegantly shrugged off on Wall Street, given the ever increasing price of oil.
And investors loved the slightly higher yields these bonds offered in an era when the Fed and other central banks have conspired to expunge yield from the system with the express purpose of pushing investors ever further out into riskier and riskier bets. Investors, driven to near insanity by these central-bank policies, went for the junk bonds with gusto, and it turned into a feeding frenzy that pushed yields down even further, encouraging companies to issue more and more junk at lower and lower yields.
Now the price of oil has plunged by nearly half. None of the equations work any longer. Sure, oil companies have hedged some of their production at much higher prices, and few are fully exposed, at least not yet, to the wrath of the oil-price collapse. But some of their production is already exposed, and in the future more and more of their production will be exposed.
Then what? The answer hovering in the room for junk bond investors, which includes conservative-sounding bond funds that people have in their retirement portfolios: default. A very unappetizing thought.
So investors are losing their appetite for oil and gas junk bonds. As they dump this suddenly crappy-looking paper and as they unwind this once magnificent bubble, prices drop and yields soar. This chart by S&P Capital IQ’s HighYieldBond.com shows just how rapid the decline has been: in July, energy junk bonds (red line) were still trading above 105 cents on the dollar, outperforming overall junk bonds (blue line) during the peak of the junk-bond bubble. Then the Great Unwind set in:
US-junk-bonds-energy-v-ex-energy
During these times of turmoil in the oil patch and on Wall Street, scores of bond issues become illiquid, and “price discovery” sets in where buyers and sellers are so far apart that no trades take place. And if forced selling sets in, prices collapse entirely. It’s brutal out there.
It’s a big market: energy junk bonds make up over 15% of the $1.3 trillion high-yield market. The rout has started to drag on the overall junk-bond bubble, and junk bonds ex-energy are now also declining.
At the riskiest and erstwhile frothiest end of the overall junk-bond market, it’s getting outright ugly: the effective yield index for bonds rated CCC or lower jumped from the record junk-bond-bubble low of 7.94% in late June to 11.72% on Monday. An increase of nearly 50% in funding cost for companies in that category. Here is a two-year chart with that beautiful spike :
US-Junk-bonds-CCC-2014-12-15
Junk bonds provided $1.3 trillion in funding to risky companies of all stripes, some of which are in terrible shape and likely to default in the near future. But oil drillers saw their revenue model suddenly cut in half, and this scares investors.
They know their favorite junk bonds get in trouble for two reasons:
  • When the oil-price plunge decimates the cash flow from unhedged production, and drillers have trouble making interest payments.
  • When a bond matures that was issued at a yield of, for example, 6% and has to be refinanced at 12%, just when revenues are plummeting while drilling costs remain the same, which might make it impossible to refinance this debt.
Leery investors see this, and they try to bail out of the riskiest end of the market, or they start demanding much higher yields to be enticed back in. In the process, they effectively turn off the cheap-money spigot these companies have become addicted to, and must have access to in order to survive. If this process continues over time, investors are effectively defunding parts of the fracking industry, precipitating the very events they’re so scared of.
The plunge in the price of oil is good for consumers, and so Wall Street promises a big boost to US GDP. But what have these folks been smoking? Read…   This Is Why the Oil-Price Crash Will Maul the US Economy

If Crude Oil hits $35, which countries could be impacted the most?

from kimblechartingsolutions:
crudeoilwhichcountrycouldthishurtdec17
CLICK ON CHART TO ENLARGE
Crude Oil has traded inside of rising channel (A) for the past couple of decades and not even the financial crisis in 2009 could cause Crude Oil to break support of this rising channel.
The break below the multi-year pennant pattern a couple of months ago has caused a good deal of selling in the Crude complex, as it falls like a knife. Crude didn’t even pause as it was slicing through channel (A) support.
Almost 90 days ago, when Crude was trading above $90, the Power of the Pattern suggested that a break of support could send Crude down to $70 at least. (See post here) 
For nearly 20 years, Crude traded inside of sideways channel (1), which was tested as support back in 2009. With Crude breaking down, the next long-term support comes into play could be channel (1), around the $35 level, which was hit in 2009.
What countries will be impacted by lower oil prices? Yes Russia and Saudi Arabia could be impacted, don’t forget that the United States could too!

There Is Hope In Understanding That A Great Economic Collapse Is Coming

The truth does not bring fear and despair
There Is Hope In Understanding That A Great Economic Collapse Is Coming


If you were about to take a final exam, would you have more hope or more fear if you didn’t understand any of the questions and you had not prepared for the test at all?  I think that virtually all of us have had dreams where we show up for an exam that we have not studied for.  Those dreams can be pretty terrifying.  And of course if you were ever in such a situation in real life, you probably did very, very poorly on that test.  The reason I have brought up this hypothetical is to make a point.  My point is that there is hope in understanding what is ahead of us, and there is hope in getting prepared.  Since I started The Economic Collapse Blog back in 2009, there have always been a few people that have accused me of spreading fear.  That frustrates me, because what I am actually doing is the exact opposite of that.  When a hurricane is approaching, is it “spreading fear” to tell people to board up their windows?  Of course not.  In fact, you just might save someone’s life.  Or if you were walking down the street one day and you saw someone that wasn’t looking and was about to step out into the road in front of a bus, what would the rational thing to do be?  Anyone that has any sense of compassion would yell out and warn that other person to stay back.  Yes, that other individual may be startled for a moment, but in the end you will be thanked warmly for saving that person from major injury or worse.  Well, as a nation we are about to be slammed by the hardest times that any of us have ever experienced.  If we care about those around us, we should be sounding the alarm.
Since 2009, I have published 1,211 articles on the coming economic collapse on my website.  Some people assume that I must be filled with worry, bitterness and fear because I am constantly dealing with such deeply disturbing issues.
But that is not the case at all.
There is nothing that I lose sleep over, and I don’t spend my time worrying about anything.  Yes, my analysis of the global financial system has completely convinced me that an absolutely horrific economic collapse is in our future.  But understanding what is happening helps me to calmly make plans for the years ahead, and working hard to prepare for what is coming gives me hope that my family and I will be able to weather the storm.
I do not believe in living my life in a state of fear, and I do not want anything that I write to ever cause fear in my readers.  The ancient Hebrew greeting “Shalom” is roughly translated as “peace” or “completeness”, and that is what we are constantly pursuing in my household.  My wife and I know that incredibly challenging times are coming, but we also know who we are, what our purpose is, and where we are headed.  We also believe that the greatest chapters of our lives are ahead even in the midst of all the chaos that is coming.
When times are the darkest, that is when light is needed the most.  Just think about it.  When you look back over history, what heroes do you admire the most?  If you truly think about it, almost all of those heroes arose during times of great adversity and conflict.
The years ahead can be a time of great adventure for you, or they can seem like hell on Earth.  It all depends on how you respond to your circumstances.
Do you want to know who is going to respond to the years ahead with fear, panic and depression?
The millions of people that have absolutely no idea what is coming and have made absolutely no preparations are going to be absolutely blindsided by the coming economic collapse.  Just like the 1930s, we are going to see people jumping out of windows and jumping in front of trains.  Others will sink into a state of despair so deep that nobody will ever be able to shake them out of it.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
Over the past five years I have spent thousands of hours studying the coming economic collapse.  In my articles you can find tens of thousands of facts and statistics that prove that the U.S. economy is hurtling toward oblivion.
It is not always the most pleasant thing to write about, but it is the truth.  And that is what matters.  If you believe that I am wrong, prove it to me.  I work very hard to put out the most accurate information that I possibly can.  So if you can prove that I am wrong, I will change my mind.
But of course that is not going to happen.  As I have stated previously, anyone with half a brain should be able to see that we are living in the greatest debt bubble in human history.  Anyone with half a brain should be able to see that the “too big to fail” banks are being extraordinarily reckless (derivatives, etc.).  Anyone with half a brain should be able to see that our formerly great manufacturing cities are being transformed into crime-infested hellholes.  Anyone with half a brain should be able to see that the middle class is dying.  Anyone with half a brain should be able to see that the exact same patterns that led up to the great financial crisis of 2008 are happening again.  Anyone with half a brain should be able to see that we simply cannot consume far more wealth than we produce as a nation indefinitely.  Anyone with half a brain should be able to see that the incredibly foolish decisions that our politicians have been making for decades have placed us on a road to utter disaster.
So it doesn’t take anyone special to do what I am doing.  I am just a “watchman on the wall” sounding the alarm the best that I can.  And there are lots of others that are doing the same thing.  We are deeply concerned about where this nation is heading, and we have been pleading with our leaders to do something about it for a long time but they have not listened to us.
Since our leaders just continue doing “business as usual”, there is not going to be a solution to our problems on the national level.
So that is why I am encouraging people to get prepared for the hard times that are coming on a family level and a community level.
Unfortunately, it seems like some people always have an excuse for not getting prepared.  In fact, a few have even gone so far as to accuse me of being “anti-faith” for suggesting that people actually get off their couches and do something to help their families deal with the nightmare on the horizon.  They seem to have the attitude that we should all just sit back and wait for God to do everything for us.
So I am not quite sure why those people get up in the morning and go to work, since they should just “trust God” to deposit paychecks into their banks.  And I am not quite sure why they ever fill up the tanks of their vehicles with gasoline, because they should be able to “trust God” to put more gas there when they need it.
I covered all of this in much more detail in my previous article entitled “Is It ‘Anti-Faith’ To Prepare For The Coming Economic Collapse?
For now, let me just state that what those people are suggesting is the exact opposite of what the Bible teaches.  Trusting God is not about sitting back and doing nothing.  In the Scriptures, we are told that faith is about stepping out and taking action on what God has revealed to us.  That includes working hard, being wise and providing for our families.  For example, just check out Proverbs 6:6-11…
Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise. Which, having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provides her bread in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest.
How long will you sleep, O sluggard? When will you arise out of your sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep— so will your poverty come upon you like a stalker, and your need as an armed man.
In the end, each one of us needs to make the decisions that we feel are best for our own families.
So that is why it is so incredibly important not to let someone else do your thinking for you.
In America today, the average person watches 153 hours of television a month.  In addition to that, we also spend countless hours watching movies, playing video games, listening to music, reading books and surfing the Internet.
What most Americans don’t realize is that there are just six giant corporations that control almost all of that content, and that makes them immensely powerful.
These giant media corporations are constantly manipulating our attitudes, opinions and beliefs.  And at this point most Americans seem quite content to remain “plugged into the matrix” and to allow corrupt corporate executives somewhere to do their thinking for them.
I urge you to break free from that system.
Do your own research and do your own thinking.
Don’t take what I say or what anyone else says as truth without critically examining it yourself.  This can be difficult at first, because in this nation our young people are no longer trained to think critically.  Instead, we are trained to just blindly accept whatever information the system feeds us.
George Orwell once said that “during times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act“.
That perfectly describes the era that we are currently living in.
The truth does not bring fear and despair.
Rather, the truth brings hope and it sets people free.
Share the truth with as many people as you can, because we live in a world that desperately needs it.

UN claims of asylum seekers’ ‘inhumane’ treatment provoke Dutch ire

Asylum seekers await their eviction by the police at a makeshift camp in Amsterdam November 30, 2012. (Reuters/Michael Kooren)
Asylum seekers await their eviction by the police at a makeshift camp in Amsterdam November 30, 2012. (Reuters/Michael Kooren)

The Netherlands, in the throes of an immigration crisis, has accused the UN of publishing ‘one-sided information’ after its senior officials accused the government of “trying to score political points” by “forcing” failed asylum seekers into homelessness.
"The Netherlands endeavors to prevent foreign nationals without lawful residence ending up on the street," immigration minister Fred Teeven wrote to AFP.
The uproar from UN officials came after the central government recently refused to release €15 million in funds for local authorities to provide accommodation and food for those asylum seekers, who have been deemed to lack genuine humanitarian reasons for staying in the Netherlands without a visa

Asylum seekers await their eviction by the police at a makeshift camp in Amsterdam November 30, 2012. (Reuters/Michael Kooren)
Asylum seekers await their eviction by the police at a makeshift camp in Amsterdam November 30, 2012. (Reuters/Michael Kooren)
“In these dark days before Christmas, it is appalling that the Dutch Government will not even commit less than 0.01 per cent of its yearly budget to help people living in absolute misery and poverty,” said the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty, Mr. Philip Alston.
READ MORE: UN urges EU to take refugees despite anti-migrant protests
The country of 17 million people has experienced a spike in arriving asylum seekers, with 12,000 – more than in any year since 2001 – arriving in the first six months of this year.
The countries of origin are some of the most troubled places on Earth: with Syria and Eritrea at the top by some distance, then Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The presence of illegal migrants – and there are thought to be more than 100,000 in the country, according to the Dutch Refugee Council - has generated social friction.

Asylum seekers await their eviction by the police at a makeshift camp in Amsterdam November 30, 2012. (Reuters/Michael Kooren)
Asylum seekers await their eviction by the police at a makeshift camp in Amsterdam November 30, 2012. (Reuters/Michael Kooren)
A demonstration in support of Gaza in the summer in The Hague morphed into a pro-ISIS rally, with the crowd shouting anti-Semitic slogans. This was followed by a counter-rally of Pro Patria, a far-right group, which marched through an immigrant-dominated suburb in the same city.
Right-wing libertarian leader, and noted anti-Islamist Geert Wilders, whose party – already the fourth biggest in parliament - threatens to make gains in the next election has dominated the debate. One of his proposals in the past months has included forcing immigrants from Islamic states to sign a document renouncing Shariah law.
The center-right government has gone on the defensive, passing tough immigration measures to avoid being seen as soft.
The UN has condemned this political posturing.
“Politicians in the Netherlands have been trying to score political points at the expense of homeless irregular migrants in the national debate about immigration,” the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, François Crépeau, said Tuesday.
“Human migration patterns will not change by letting migrants sleep on the streets.”
The international human rights rapporteurs, independent experts, who are authorized by the United Nations, have called for the government to allocate more money to provide basic amenities.
“Forcing the most vulnerable people into homelessness during the harshness of winter is particularly egregious,” said the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Leilani Farha.

People hold a banner reading "We are here to stay" during a protest against the Islamic State (IS) group and against antisemitism in The Hague, The Netherlands, on August 10, 2014. (AFP Photo/Bart Maan/Netherlands out)
People hold a banner reading "We are here to stay" during a protest against the Islamic State (IS) group and against antisemitism in The Hague, The Netherlands, on August 10, 2014. (AFP Photo/Bart Maan/Netherlands out)
“Emergency services such as homeless shelters, and adequate housing alternatives, must be made available to migrants, regardless of their legal status in the country.”
But the government says that any measures should be taken by Europe as a whole, following an EU meeting of foreign ministers, scheduled for February or March, and has reiterated that it will not provide any extra money until then.
"Calling for measures to be adopted is at this stage premature," said a statement from the immigration ministry.

RadioShack Kept Alive by $25 Billion of Swaps Side Bets

RadioShack Corp. (RSH) is finding an unlikely ally in its efforts to stay out of bankruptcy: credit derivatives traders who amassed more than $25 billion of trades speculating how much longer it can keep paying its bills.
After a 60 percent surge this year, the amount of credit-default swaps tied to RadioShack is 28 times its debt, more than any other U.S. company. When the retailer’s biggest shareholder arranged $585 million of funding in October to help it survive the holidays, much of the money came from hedge funds wagering on the company to avoid default, said people with knowledge of the trading. Those included DW Investment Management and Saba Capital Management, the people said.
The derivatives are amplifying the stakes on a company with less than $1 billion of debt that’s running out of cash and struggling to compete with online competitors. By injecting the 93-year-old electronics retailer with new money, swaps traders, more often blamed for pushing companies toward bankruptcy, have been preserving big payoffs if they can delay or prevent a default.
“The sellers of the protection built up quite a large war chest, and it took a relatively small amount of money to keep the company going,” said Peter Tchir, a former credit-swaps trader who is now head of macro strategy at Brean Capital LLC in New York. “They have huge incentives to keep the company alive to not trigger the swaps.”

Motivated Lenders

That provided RadioShack’s biggest shareholder, Standard General LP, a potential pool of lenders when it arranged the loans in October. The financing gave the retailer enough cash to stock up for the holiday season while negotiating with other creditors that are blocking a plan to close underperforming stores. RadioShack has struggled to keep up with a migration of sales to the Internet, losing money for 11 straight quarters.
As part of the October funding, DW Investment, run by David Warren, bought more than $100 million of a $275 million first-lien loan, the people with knowledge of the deal said this month. Saba, founded by former Deutsche Bank AG credit-trading head Boaz Weinstein, also bought a piece of the debt, they said. Both firms have swaps investments that would benefit from RadioShack’s solvency, the people said.
Representatives of DW Investment, Saba Capital, Standard General and Fort Worth, Texas-based RadioShack declined to comment.

Rare Situation

Among U.S. non-financial companies, only one has more swaps tied to its debt than RadioShack: casino operator Caesars Entertainment Corp., according to the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. The $28.3 billion of contracts on that company’s biggest unit is 1.5 times its $18.4 billion of obligations.
The potential to profit from swaps trades swelled this year as concern mounted that the company would run out of cash sooner than investors expected.
In September, a swaps trader could have sold RadioShack default insurance through Dec. 20 for an upfront payment of $3.65 million on every $10 million of protection. Contracts protecting the same amount through March would have paid $5.3 million, while swaps lasting a year paid about $6 million. As long as the company keeps paying its obligations through the contract’s expiration date, the swaps traders pocket the fees.
The upfront payment on a one-year contract climbed to a record $7.45 million this week after the company reiterated to investors on Dec. 12 that it’s running out of cash and may have to file for bankruptcy protection.

Seeking Payouts

The derivatives are usually blamed for pushing a borrower into default, not keeping them solvent.
Firms that bought protection on a RadioShack default sought to collect this month after a lender claimed that the company breached the terms on a $250 million loan.
The request, made to an industry committee that governs the market, sought a so-called credit event and cited concern that Standard General’s funding deal was “structured with a purpose to manipulate the CDS market” by preventing a default long enough to avoid triggering swaps that expire at the end of this week. The committee ruled last week that no credit event occurred.
Swaps on RadioShack have long overshadowed the company’s debt because dealers included the retailer in indexes that are used to wager on the health of U.S. companies. That can generate more volume than normal as investors set up trades to profit from price anomalies between the indexes and individual swaps, as well as to hedge against losses.
While such trading makes the amount at risk appear bigger than it is, even after subtracting offsetting positions, the net amount wagered on RadioShack surged to as much as $1.1 billion in February before falling to about $600 million this month, Depository Trust data show.
“Pumping in enough money for the swaps to roll off makes the most sense if the seller’s position is large and the amount of debt is limited,” said Henry Hu, a law professor at the University of Texas who’s studied the effect of swaps on lender behavior.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jodi Xu Klein in New York

Peter Schiff: Yellen Bluffs Future Rate Hikes and Traders Pretend to Believe Her


What Is the Gold-Oil Ratio Telling Us?

by Charles Hugh-Smith
Based on historical gold-oil ratios, oil appears extraordinarily cheap right now.
One way to establish if a commodity or asset is relatively expensive or inexpensive is to price it in something other than a fiat currency–for example, gold. Gold goes up and down in value relative to other commodities and fiat currencies, so it is itself a volatile yardstick. Nonetheless, it provides a useful measure of the relative value of gold and whatever is being measured in gold–in this case, oil.
The prices listed are approximate, i.e. rounded to averages in the time frame listed. Of the various measures of oil, I am using WTIC.
According to SRSrocco REPORT, the average gold-oil ratio in the period 2000-2014 is 12. That is, on average, one ounce of gold bought about 12 barrels of oil.
For historical context, in 1976, following the first oil-shock in 1973, oil was $12.80/barrel and gold was around $124, for a ratio of 9.7.
In 1986, the average price of gold wasaround $368 while oil fell to $14/barrel, for a ratio of 26.3.
At gold’s peak above $1,800/ounce in 2011, oil was around $90/brl, for a ratio of 20.
At oil’s peak above $140/barrel in 2008, gold was around $950/ounce, for a ratio of 6.8.
As a rule of thumb, oil is relatively expensive (and gold is relatively inexpensive) when the ratio is below 9, and oil is relatively inexpensive (and gold is relatively expensive) when the ratio is above 20.
When oil fell below $55/barrel a few days ago, the ratio reached 22. By historical standards, oil is cheap.
Here is a listing of various highs and lows in gold and oil:
Oil priced in gold: how many barrels of oil can be purchased with one ounce of gold?
2000: Oil $30/brl, gold $275
Ratio: 9.2
2006: Oil $70/brl, gold $600
Ratio: 8.6
2008: Oil $140/brl (at the peak), gold $950
Ratio: 6.8
2011: Oil $90/brl, gold $1,800 (at the peak)
(note that oil traded above $100/brl earlier in 2011, but at gold’s peak was around $90/brl)
Ratio: 20.0
2014 (1st quarter): Oil $105/brl, gold $1,300
Ratio: 12.3
2014 (current): Oil $55/brl, gold $1,200
Ratio: 21.8
Here is a chart of gold from 2012 to the present:

Here is a chart of oil (WTIC) from 2012 to the present:

And here is a chart of the gold-oil ratio from 2012 to the present:

While the gold-oil ratio exceeded 25 three decades ago, in the era of rising demand from the emerging markets of China, India and other nations, the ratio has only touched 20 when gold was trading above $1,800/ounce.
Based on historical gold-oil ratios, oil appears extraordinarily cheap right now. Could oil fall further? Of course. Could gold go up or down? Of course. There are a great many factors that influence the ratio, which is simply a short-hand method of measuring the relative value of two important commodities.

China sets up new $3bn finance fund for Central and East European countries

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (4th L) attends the third China-Central and Eastern European (CEE) Leaders' Meeting in Belgrade, Serbia, on Dec. 16, 2014 [Xinhua]
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (4th L) attends the third China-Central and Eastern European (CEE) Leaders’ Meeting in Belgrade, Serbia, on Dec. 16, 2014 [Xinhua]
At a meeting with the leaders of 16 Central and Eastern European countries (CEE) in the Serbian capital of Belgrade on Tuesday, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced a new investment fund of $3 billion to facilitate financing in the cash-strapped countries. “China will make the loan more preferential and reduce the cost of financing,” Li told the leaders on Tuesday.
Most of these countries are members of the European Union or have bid for membership of the EU.
Tuesday’s announcement came two years after Beijing had set up a $10 billion special credit line to support cooperative projects with CEE countries. Previous summits between China and CEE have been held at Budapest, Warsaw and Bucharest.
Beijing has grown to be an important source of capital for the central and east European countries now that investment and financing from Western Europe is getting harder to attain.
However, annual trade between China and the CEE countries is at a lowly 43 billion euros, unlike the strides Chinese trade has made with other emerging markets.
The Chinese Premier on Tuesday also announced that the second phase of the China-CEE Investment Cooperation Fund worth $1 billion will be launched soon.
The financing package is among the five-pronged proposals made by the Chinese premier to further enhance cooperation between China and CEE countries, which also include constructing a new corridor of inter-connectivity and expanding people-to-people exchanges.
“One year after the Bucharest action guideline was issued, China and CEE countries have witnessed closer exchanges and more active cooperation in various areas,” Li said.
At the second China-CEE leaders’ meeting in the Romanian capital of Bucharest last year, the two sides sketched out 38 cooperation projects.
China and these European nations must cooperate in producing equipment of high-speed railways, nuclear power and telecommunication as well as raw materials including steel, cement and plate glass, said Li.
“We will encourage Chinese enterprises to set up factories in CEE countries and actively participate in the construction of industrial parks there,” said Li.
Li said the two sides should develop interconnected land and sea channels between China and Europe by taking advantage of the railway between Hungary and Serbia and the Greek sea port of Piraeus, among others.

TBP and Agencies