Morning Update/ Market Thread 12/13 - Lies, More Lies, and Still More Lies Edition

Good Morning,

Equity futures are rising bouncing this morning with the dollar flat, bonds lower, oil higher, gold & silver flatware, needed to swallow rising food commodity prices.

Gamblers beware, yesterday the market fell substantially, but so did the VIX.

There have been many large corporations lowering their earning estimates in the past week, this morning it was Best Buy’s turn. Hmmm, how does that square with all the hype over huge (supposedly record setting) gains in “Black Friday” sales, and now the made for T.V. supposed 15% one year gain in online sales to which my bullshit flag is flying at full mast!?

Yep, not so much. Retail Sales for November decelerated from the .5% supposed growth in October to only .2% which is less than half the .5% expected. Just as a reminder, the Retail Sales report is grossly overstated due to measurement in dollars and also due to substitution bias which fails to account for stores that have closed. So, all the hype was just that, a complete snow job on the populace – here’s Econoplicit:

Highlights
Retail sales in November advanced but not as strongly as expected. However, October and September were revised up and weakness in November was largely in components that had surged earlier. Overall retail sales in November grew 0.2 percent, following a 0.6 percent boost in October (originally up 0.5 percent) and a 1.3 percent spike in September (previously up 1.1 percent). November's number fell short of market expectations for a 0.5 percent increase. Excluding autos, retail sales gained 0.2 percent in November after increasing 0.6 percent in October (unrevised) and increasing 0.6 percent in September (previously up 0.5 percent). Analysts had called for a 0.4 percent improvement. Gasoline sales declined marginally in November. Sales excluding autos and gasoline in November rose 0.2 percent, following a healthy 0.7 percent increase in October. Within the core (excluding autos and gasoline), gains were mixed but mostly positive.

Overall components were largely favorable. Once again, the strongest component was for electronics & appliance stores which jumped 2.1 percent in November, followed by nonstore retailers (up 1.5 percent) and auto dealers (up 0.5 percent). Also seeing gains were furniture & home furnishing, clothing & accessory stores, sporting goods & hobby, and general merchandise.

The largest decline was for miscellaneous store retailers, down 1.2 percent. Modest decreases also were seen in building materials & garden equipment, food & beverage, health & personal care, gasoline stations, and food services & drinking places.

Retail sales on a year-ago basis in November came in at up 6.7 percent, compared to 7.5 percent in October. Excluding motor vehicles, sales were up 6.6 percent on a year-on-year basis, compared to 7.5 percent the month before.

The headline numbers for November retail sales were disappointing but upward revisions are partially offsetting. The trend still appears to be moderately healthy spending gains, taking into account earlier robust gains. However, today's later released Redbook sales suggest a deceleration in sales growth in early December. A caveat as always is that weekly numbers are relatively volatile.

So much for setting records, note how Econoday fails to compare the current number to the revised number like they do when it’s the other way around? If they reported this consistently then the headline would read, “Retail Sales growth only one-third that of October!” But the truth is, as I’ve pointed out repeatedly, these numbers are all, well let’s just say that my bologna has a first name…

If you really want to see your true Retail Sales growth and true all-time records, here it is right here:

M1


Gee, measure retail sales in dollars, how’s that .2% increase in “sales” looking now? Can you say exponential math?

Yep, getting close to a record all right:

M2 Velocity:


Bucking the trend of large corporate misses, the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index actually did rise 1.8 points in November, up to 92.0 which is still well below their base 100 index number. Here’s Econohope followed by the entire NFIB report which is a always a pretty good read and indeed they are more optimistic sounding… (just as the rug gets pulled?)

Highlights
Pessimism is easing significantly in the small business sector based on the November sentiment report from the National Federation of Independent Business whose index is up 1.8 points to 92.0. Five of 10 components rose while three held unchanged with gains led by a big jump in the key component of future sales. Employment plans also rose sharply while economic expectations improved sharply. Though the direction is positive, overall readings still remain weak and well below those prior to 2008.

NFIB Small Business Index Dec 2011

Also from the B.S. department, the National Association of Realtors is admitting that they, too, have been grossly overestimating sales:

Home sales even worse than we thought

After its numbers were challenged, the National Association of Realtors took another look at the data and has decided to lower its numbers for home sales from 2007 to 2010.

Last year saw the fewest number of homes sold in 13 years. Now we find the number is even smaller than the 4.91 million sales we thought occurred.

The National Association of Realtors, which for decades has published statistics on sales of existing homes, says that its data were wrong and that fewer homes were sold from 2007 to 2010 than it had reported.

New numbers will be issued Dec. 21, The Associated Press reported.

Questions about the numbers were first raised earlier this year by CoreLogic, a real-estate analysis firm, which said the NAR's home-sales numbers could be as much as 20% too high.

While the NAR said 4.91 million existing homes were sold in 2010, CoreLogic said its analysis showed that only 3.3 million homes were sold.

The NAR responded by saying it would take another look at the data. In recent months, the group consulted with CoreLogic, as well as the Federal Reserve, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Mortgage Bankers Association, the National Association of Home Builders, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, The AP reported.

The NAR concluded that its numbers were too high and that some sales had been counted twice.

OOPS! Reported home sales 20% too high? …Just a mistake, no nefarious action there, no. No self-interest driven deception foisted upon the masses that a commoner might commonly refer to as FRAUD?

“No,” says President Obama, “technically” they can’t be prosecuted because they didn’t break the law. Really? Guess he’s never heard that fraud is completely illegal.

In case you didn't see it yesterday in the comments, here is someone who is running for President who promises to actually do something about the fraud:



I, Nathan Martin, no longer consent to the lies.

Morning Update/ Market Thread 12/12

Good Morning,

Equity futures are tumbling this morning with the dollar strengthening, Euro falling, bonds rising, WTIC oil falling back below the $100 mark, gold & silver are down sharply, and food commodities are lower, once again resting on the neckline support of a very large H&S top formation.

Below is a chart of gold, you can see that it has fallen to initial up sloping support:



Should that support fail, the next support will be found in the $1,540ish range where the longer term up sloping trend line is currently co-located with prior volumetric support. Of course it could turn around from the current support level, we’ll have to watch it and see.

Below is the H&S pattern in wheat with the current price sitting on the neckline:



The central EuroCriminal latest meeting and meeting and meeting went so fantastically well that the media had a frenzy and stocks flew higher for, oh, about four hours as the half-life of their stupid pronouncements, rumors, and emergency meetings continues to shorten to less time than is required to cook a real turkey. Even as the equity market was heading higher, spreads covering the debts were still shooting higher.



The current lack of confidence in the Eurozone probably is creating somewhat of a “flight to safety” play back to the U.S. – hey, all money made of debt is dumb money. And the United States is full of it. In fact the only thing we do better than Europe is to pretend that our math is somehow more workable than theirs… it’s not. Impossible is impossible no matter where in the world you are.

So the turkeys continue to squawk while they attempt to snow the people into believing the same people who created the impossible math can somehow reverse or control their ill-conceived deeds – not going to happen. Yet the complicit mainstream media continues to obey their masters while morons still continue to listen to the manure the crap purveyors spew. Why anyone would invest a nickel in any of these “markets,” much less actually listen to these narcissists is beyond me.

Today our own central criminals meet once again so that they can spew forth at tomorrow’s FOMC announcement – oh boy, can’t wait! Think I’ll hang on their every word and parse the meaning between the lines, then I’ll head to Vegas and put my life’s savings on black. If you want a sure bet, though, bet that they will continue to act in desperation to hold onto their power – that is the only given besides the fact that “other events” are well under way.

I, Nathan Martin, no longer consent to the lies.

Market Thread 12/9

Good Morning,

I'm out of town this morning. Please keep each other posted on today's wackiness (lawlessness) via the daily thread...

Morning Update/ Market Thread 12/8 - Lawless Edition…

Good Morning,

Futures are down prior to the open, the dollar is higher, bonds are flat, oil is still above $100, gold & silver are flat, and food commodities are lower.

Yet another late day rumor spiked the markets yesterday afternoon – I think the game here is very clear, the criminals who create money from nothing, own the exchanges, and fuel the HFT machines are the ones who float these rumors. One hand on the HFT switch, the other pressing the “send” button to initiate the bullshit du jour. The markets are completely not real, they are 100% fake. I’ve been warning of that for quite some time, but just in case you need confirmation then you must have missed the Ann Barnhardt interview I posted yesterday, therefore I’m posting it again today for those who may have missed it: Ann Barnhardt: The Entire Futures/Options Market Has Been Destroyed by the MF Global Collapse

Of course Jon Corzine is a crook, he is a former head of Goldman Sachs, the former Governor of New Jersey, he is said to have “hired” Bill Clinton’s lobbying firm to the tune of $50,000 per month, and is one of the largest contributors to Obama. Thus, despite being a criminal of historic proportions he still walks a free man. That is lawlessness that highlights the different set of laws that apply to the 1%.

Note that this lawlessness is money centric – it is not just political! I can say that because just take a look at the 14 year sentence Blagojovich received – his crimes pale in comparison to Corzine’s, but he was not a money connected insider and thus the other rule of law applied to him (and Martha Stewart, and you, and me).

Europe is a complete mess, of course. This morning the ECB lowered rates by .25% to a flat 1%. Austerity measures cause a slowdown in the measurement of economic activity and thus interest rates are lowered in response. Note that the Europeans couldn’t even stand 1.5% interest rates! This is because they are saturated with debt! The REAL economic activity can only support so much debt at 7%, a little bit more at 6%, at 5%, etc., until finally interest rates are zero like they are here. Once you run out of the lowering interest rates game, then “stimulus” must take another form, that form is commonly referred to as printing money, which has euphemisms such as “Quantitative Easing,” the “Twist,” the “European Stabilization Fund,” or some other impressive sounding bullshit designed to mask their real activity.

German politicians are stating pretty clearly that the solution to the crisis is POLITICAL. Germany’s Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schauble, has repeated this numerous times and has even stated that a crisis is required to pull off a truly unified Europe. This is also pure bologna, again it is all about power and control and the truth is that Europe will not accept a political system in which Germany is in power (nor should they).

So, the impossible math of debt continues, other events continue and will worsen until the debt is cleared which is coming one way or the other (money printing cannot clear debt under the current system with the current crooks in charge).

Meanwhile more bad data in the form of Weekly Jobless Claims which we are supposed to believe fell to 381,000. Note the double talk from Econocomplicit, “no unusual factors,” but “the holidays are always a tough time to get a clear read…” Uh-huh, all you really need to know is that “the unadjusted week-to-week increase is the largest of the year.” In fact the unadjusted data rose by 151,000, so I would definitely take this number with a very large grain or hundred thousand grains (plus or minus) of salt:

Highlights
Initial jobless claims fell a sizable 23,000 in the December 3 week to 381,000, their lowest level since February (prior week revised 2,000 higher to 404,000). There are no unusual factors in the data though the unadjusted week-to-week increase for the post-Thanksgiving week is the largest of the year, a factor that seasonal adjustments smooth and one that clouds the results a bit. A clearer positive is the four-week average of 393,250, down 3,000 in the week and at its lowest level since April.

Thanksgiving effects are also at play for continuing claims, down a very sizable 174,000 to 3.583 million in data for the November 26 week. The four-week average of 3.667 million, down 21,000, is the lowest of the recovery as is the unemployment rate for insured workers which is at 2.8 percent for a one tenth decline.

Today's report is very welcome but the results will have to be confirmed by improvement in subsequent weeks. The holidays are always a tough time to get a clear read on weekly claims data.

Remember, real job growth doesn’t occur until this number (not manipulated) is below 350k.

The printing of debt backed money can at best only delay the inevitable, not cure it. Thus you will hear no solutions from the Euronuts today, you will only hear the clink of the can going down the road as those in power struggle to maintain their control. Not to worry, eventually a landslide will bring them down…

I, Nathan Martin, no longer consent to the lies.

Morning Update/ Market Thread 12/7 - Infamy Edition…

Good Morning,

Equities are lower this morning with the dollar higher, bonds higher, oil still in la la land, gold & silver higher, and food commodities still hanging out around support.

The still amazingly hypocritical Mortgage Bankers Association came out with more amazing double-digit one week moves for the data of the day, completely not believable, here’s a snippet from Econoday:

Highlights
Mortgage application volumes in the December 2 week bounced right back following the lull of the Thanksgiving week, up a weekly 8.3 percent for purchase applications and up 15.3 percent for refinancing applications. Purchase applications have been trending higher which is a positive signal for home sales. Low rates are lifting demand for mortgages with the average 30-year FHA loan down two basis points to 3.98 percent. Conforming 30-year loans ($417,500 or less) averaged 4.18 percent, down three basis points, with jumbo loans (over $417,500) also down three basis points to 4.52 percent.

Please.

Perusing the news this morning, I am left with little but an empty pit and a gnawing bad feeling. I see a world in disarray and in moral decay. Ravaged and ransacked by the purveyors of debt, disconnects from reality are everywhere.

In Russia, the obvious charade of election is drawing protests, people thrown in prison. The poll on CNN asks Americans if the elections were real or rigged – 90% of Americans can see that they are rigged. Yet what they fail to see is that Putin simply learned his tricks from America – present the illusion of election while manipulating the flow of money, the economy, and work the strings of your puppets who entertain the masses.

Just look at the Republican candidates and the degeneration of “debates” into just the latest reality T.V. show where ratings are all that matter. Newt Gingrich leading the polls, are you kidding? Talk about moral decay, you might as well vote for Charles Manson and just get straight to the bottom.

Sure, you’ll get to vote this upcoming election, just like the people in Russia. You can vote for the Obama puppet who is feeding the financial industry massive profits, at your expense, or you can vote for the next shameless narcissist who will also feed the financial industry your life’s blood. The choice is yours – what a country, what a world.

And on this Pearl Harbor day, I can’t help but think about the karma that has come back to haunt Japan. Think about this… nearly 70 years ago Japan made the decision to attack Pearl Harbor. They lost the war and have been occupied by America ever since. They were dragged into the western way of the world, replete with Westinghouse reactors. To say that they are now paying the price is the karma understatement of the century – the mainstream media is still ignoring the Fukushima fallout, of course, but you need only read the nuclear headlines to get a feel for the trauma that country is really going through. And that’s just the physical reality that is now northern Japan – the economy is experiencing its own China Syndrome where trillions upon trillions of Yen simply vaporize upon contact as they spew from the reactor that is the western style of modern banking, aka debt saturation.

China is there too, and in Australia and all over the globe “growth” is weak despite measuring in money while producing massive quantities thereof. A lousy 1% GDP is all they could muster Down Under, yet you can hear the “liquidity” sloshing around the central banker’s coffers all the way from here.

In Europe they are drowning in “liquidity,” so much of it fake that the purveyors of debt know how fraudulent it is and thus with coffers overflowing the “liquidity” doesn’t go anywhere. How can it? You see their “liquidity” is another man’s debt! But the purveyors of debt have already been so good at their job that the whole world is already saturated with all the debt their income can possibly service.

Good thing, then, that the American purveyors are throwing out that “liquidity” lifeline! Glug, glug, glug goes the Titanic as she settles ever so silently to the bottom of the deep morass.

Sure, you get to vote, you’re in charge of this “democracy,” LOL. Go Newt, you’re my fat assed immoral hope for the future! Be sure to give Putin hugs – and say hello to Jamie Dimon, you can talk to him anytime, just give a tug on the strings.

Want to hear a knock-your-socks-off interview? Here it is: Ann Barnhardt: The Entire Futures/Options Market Has Been Destroyed by the MF Global Collapse

I, Nathan Martin, no longer consent to the lies.

Bill Still & the Republican Presidential Debate

Bill produced an excellent video where he hits directly on target, right on the root issue of WHO it is that produces our money! Way to go, Bill!

He does an excellent job of calling out the illegal "Fed," along with the IMF, and to that I would add World Bank - all sham and highly undemocratic money from nothing, self-anointed central banking criminals who have never received proper authorization from the people of the planet and in fact are operating against our rule of law as spelled out in our own Constitution! Absolutely, they are literally taking over countries and Bill correctly points out what they have done to both Italy and Greece - their game is to enslave with debt (which they did nothing to create), and then to take over direct control. Money creation is all about power and control.

Donald Trump running a debate? Are you kidding me? Until our nation is conscious enough to start voting for people like Bill Still, we are going nowhere fast. Go Bill, way to get the proper word out!

Morning Update/ Market Thread 12/6 - ETF’s = Derivatives = Legalized Gambling…

Good Morning,

In our down is up world, Equity markets in Europe are higher after S&P put all of Europe on credit watch “negative.” The spin is this will prompt them into action and thus it is a good thing! What a charade.

With our futures slightly higher, the dollar is also higher. Is the U.S. a safe haven? LOL X 100 trillion, plus or minus a few tens of trillion. Bonds are slightly lower, oil is still hovering above $100, gold & silver are slipping, while food commodities head in the correct direction – lower.

There is no meaningful economic data today, so I want to take the time to talk a little bit more about Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs).

Many brokers are pushing them as a way for people to be “self-directed” in their retirement plans. When they first came out I actually thought they may be a good thing as they allow people to “invest” in things they couldn’t otherwise and they do allow ordinary people to play the markets in both directions. However, this industry has morphed into something that more closely resembles a gambling parlor. My advice is to stay as far away from ETFs as possible, here’s why…

An ETF is a DERIVATIVE. It is simply a piece of paper of some underlying market. It’s basically a market on top of some other market. It is someone’s attempt to create a market so that they can profit from the market – it is NOT created to benefit you, society, or some business. And unlike stock, it provides no working capital for any legitimate business. In fact, I would contend that they are not legitimate as they serve no real purpose to society, they are simply a form of legalized gambling.

Some would say they provide a legitimate hedge opportunity – and to that I would say that “investing” in something that requires you to hedge means that you are assuming too much risk in the first place! Thus the very need for hedging means there is too much risk already. In the second place I would contend that there are insurance markets for legitimate hedge reasons and those insurance markets are at least regulated.

ETFs have two ways of eating through your money. The first is that they are extremely high in management fees – remember, they are created to benefit the manager, not the sucker who buys them! But even bigger than that is the fact that the managers buy other derivatives to make their own derivatives work! This causes massive slippage. Slippage is when the underlying market moves say 10%, but the derivative only moves in that direction by 7%! Slippage is so bad in some ETFs, that if you own them for more than a few days then you can be right in your direction but still lose money because the ETF slips so badly!

In fact, this effect is so bad that many ETFs hide slippage under verbiage like this that accompanies SDS, the “Ultrashort” (2x) SPX ETF (designed to go up when SPX goes down at two times the rate):

This Short ProShares ETF seeks a return that is -2x the return of an index or other benchmark (target) for a single day, as measured from one NAV calculation to the next. Due to the compounding of daily returns, ProShares' returns over periods other than one day will likely differ in amount and possibly direction from the target return for the same period. These effects may be more pronounced in funds with larger or inverse multiples and in funds with volatile benchmarks. Investors should monitor their holdings consistent with their strategies, as frequently as daily.

Get that? Not only will your returns vary, but they may even differ in direction! To see a real world example of this, let’s look at a two year chart of SDS (red and black dashed line) with SPX (solid black line) in the background:



If you had purchased SDS in say May of this year and held it until today, you would have been absolutely correct in direction, and thus you would expect SDS to pay double the amount that the SPX is down. But in fact your SDS investment LOST YOU MONEY! You were right, you bet correctly, and yet you LOST MONEY. Great investment, great “hedge!”

So, what happened to your money? The derivatives players took it from you – period.

This “market” is completely not regulated – as in any regulators left, like the SEC, are completely in on the scam via the revolving door.

Again, my advice is to stay completely away from ETF’s of ALL types. Although some are better than others, they are all derivatives and they are not guaranteed by anybody. Again, they are nothing but sanctioned gambling, STAY AWAY.

To be fair, I will show you an example of an ETF that does track the underlying very well – that is the gold ETF, GLD. Below is a 3 year chart of GLD with the price of Gold underlying it, you can see that indeed it does have a nearly perfect correlation:



To their credit, the managers of GLD buy actual physical gold and place it in a vault. Thus your derivative has an actual physical something behind it – most ETFs do not. This is the proper way to run an ETF, and in my opinion if you’re going to allow them, then they must track the underlying by actually owning the underlying or they should be illegal. Still, as good as GLD is, I do not personally recommend owning it, I would prefer to simply own the physical metal myself as I know that when our monetary system unwinds that history proves that gold can be confiscated and I think it wise that ownership not be tracked or known by anyone.

I hope this article saves someone some grief – buyer beware! Stay as far away from ETFs as you can.

I, Nathan Martin, no longer consent to the lies.