Intel To Team Up With Time Warner

Financial Review

Discretionary Reading

Sinclair Noe — August 19, 2015

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DOW – 162 = 17,348
SPX – 17 = 2079
NAS – 40 = 5019
10 YR YLD – .07 = 2.13%
OIL – 2.02 = 40.60
GOLD + 16.60 = 1135.10
SILV + .44 = 15.41

A new CPI report this morning shows inflation remains muted. The consumer price index, a measure of prices at the retail level, rose 0.1% in July to mark the smallest increase in three months. Yet the cost of housing, the largest expense for most Americans, continued to rise, up 0.4% last month, reflecting the biggest gain in more than eight years. And housing expenses have climbed 3.1% in the past 12 months, the largest annual increase since 2008. The prices of most other consumer goods were little changed in July. Food prices climbed 0.2% while energy prices rose a smaller 0.1%. Excluding food and energy, so-called core consumer prices also advanced 0.1% in July. Aside from shelter, prices for clothes and medical care also rose.

Even though energy prices were up slightly in July, that might not last; eventually the price at the pump for gasoline should reflect the price of oil, which has now dropped to a 6 year low of $40.60 per barrel. Based upon historical pricing for oil and gas, we should be paying about $2.00 to $2.10 a gallon at the pump. Gas prices should be declining in the next month or two. Oil has tumbled more than 30 percent since this year’s peak close in June and producers are maintaining output even after a surplus pushed prices into a bear market. The Energy Information Administration reported today that crude supplies rose 2.62 million barrels last week. Oil balances point to further oversupply throughout 2015. So energy prices might be disinflationary for the remainder of this year.

The Federal Reserve has set a target of 2% inflation. We are not there; not even close. The Fed has said that low energy prices are transitory, but low prices are lingering. And even though the economy has been adding jobs; 215,000 in July, and August seems to be on track for a similar number, we still see significant slack in the labor market and no signs of wage push inflation. Against this backdrop, you might not expect the Fed to hike interest rate targets, but in the minutes of the July Federal Open Market Committee meeting we find that most policymakers are itching to get off the Zero Interest Rate schneid.

According to the minutes, most meeting participants “judged that the conditions for policy firming had not yet been achieved, but they noted that conditions were approaching that point,” and “Almost all members (of the FOMC)” indicated that “they would need to see more evidence that economic growth was sufficiently strong and labor markets conditions had firmed enough for them to feel reasonably confident that inflation would return to the Committee’s longer-run objective over the medium term.”

On a separate issue, the Fed is still trying to figure out what to do with their $4.2 trillion dollar portfolio built up during the various rounds of quantitative easing. About $216 billion of proceeds from maturing Treasury securities come due by the end of this year; the Fed could reinvest, or they could let the securities expire, or they could phase out the investments. They might even time a phase out to coincide with raising rates. No decision was made at the July FOMC meeting. If the Fed decides to not reinvest, and that would be the default position of not doing anything, it would increase the supply of securities available to investors and put upward pressure on yields.

Investors reacted to the FOMC minutes by reducing the probability the Fed would tighten next month to 38 percent, based on pricing of federal funds futures contracts, compared to 50 percent earlier today. The policymakers sound like they want to raise rates but they just lack the confidence to pull the trigger. Now the counter point is that almost 7 years of Zero Interest Rate Policy and trillions of dollars of quantitative easing have not been enough to get the slack out of the labor market or stoke the coals of inflation. So what difference would a few months make?

And while some might argue that the Fed’s courageous action saved the economy (OK, Bernanke, Paulson, and Geithner can make that argument) and that might be true, but they did it with a long term price tag; it is likely that the markets are permanently distorted and at the least we have gone through 7 years of distortion and misappropriation. Further, the last crisis did not preclude the possibility of another crisis. If, or when, the next crisis hits the Fed doesn’t want to be sitting on a $4.2 trillion dollar portfolio with interest rates at zero. What bold and courageous action can the Fed take with no arrows in their quiver?

The minutes from the July FOMC portray a cautious Fed. They remember the taper tantrum of 2013, when then-Fed Chair Bernanke hinted at the possibility of ending QE. The markets responded with all the dignity of a pack of wild hyenas ripping and nipping at both bonds and stocks. When rates eventually rise, in September or December or later, Chair Yellen wants to make sure investors saw it coming.

Volatility prevailed in China’s stock market today, with a late afternoon rally reversing a sharp morning tumble as investors tested whether Beijing would step in to stabilize shares. The Shanghai Composite closed up 1.2% on reports of government intervention after falling as much as 5.1% during the session. Despite the latest stock turmoil, the yuan has held relatively steady this week following the central bank’s shock decision to devalue the currency on August 10.

A slump in emerging market confidence has led to $1 trillion in capital outflows from developing economies over the past 13 months, roughly double the amount that fled during the financial crisis. The sustained exodus of capital highlights concerns that emerging markets, suffering slowing growth and weakening currencies, are relinquishing their longstanding role as locomotives to become a drag on demand. From July 2009 to the end of June last year, a net $2 trillion in capital flowed into the 19 emerging markets. But as the funds now cascade out, a vicious circle is triggered. Currencies tumble against the US dollar, damping demand for imports and driving down aggregate demand. In June, for example, overall emerging market imports were 13.2% lower year-on-year.

German lawmakers have overwhelmingly voted in favor of Greece’s third bailout, ending months of heated negotiations. Prior to the vote German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said: “There is no guarantee that this all will work…but due to the fact that the Greek parliament has already approved a big part of the (aid-for-reform) measures, it would be irresponsible not to use the chance for a new beginning.”

Intel announced several new platforms and partnerships at its developer forum, but the chipmaker’s foray into television came as a surprise. Bearing the title “America’s Greatest Makers,” the TV program will engage do-it-yourselfers who turn chips and other components into gadgets. Intel will team with Time Warner for the series, which will appear on TV and other media channels in 2016.

Kik Interactive, the Canadian startup behind a popular messaging app, has turned to China’s Tencent for a $50 million investment that values it at $1 billion. With more than 240 million registered users, Kik still has a long road to travel, facing stiff competition from the likes of Snapchat, WhatsApp and Facebook’s Messenger.

More than 17 years after the FDA approved Pfizer’s Viagra, the first drug to treat low sexual desire in women has won approval from U.S. health regulators. Addyi, produced by privately-held Sprout Pharmaceuticals, will only be available through certified health care professionals and pharmacies due to its safety issues. The drug can re
sult in potentially dangerous side effects such as low blood pressure and fainting, especially when taken with alcohol.

Hackers claiming to have stolen data from AshleyMadison.com, a website that facilitates hook-ups between would-be adulterers, have released information they say includes details of more than 36 million user accounts. The hackers posted full names, e-mail addresses, partial credit-card data and dating preferences on a site called infidelities-R-us.com. And for divorce lawyers, the Ashley Madison hack should be renamed the Full Employment Act of 2015. Already, reporters have discovered that the list includes about 15,000 military and government email accounts, plus more than 600 email accounts associated with banks.

Time once again to check out this week’s bank docket: JPMorgan is in advanced talks with the SEC to pay more than $150 million for steering clients to its own investment products without proper disclosures. Citigroup has agreed with the New York attorney general to return $4.5 million in management fees charged on some 15,000 frozen accounts, while BNY Mellon will shell out $15 million to settle several bribery cases. Apparently the bank was hiring relatives of foreign officials who managed a Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund. Because really, what’s the point of having interns?

Financial Review

Just Around the Corner

Sinclair Noe — April 17, 2015      

 

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DOW – 279 = 17,826
SPX – 23 = 2081
NAS – 75 = 4931
10 YR YLD – .03 = 1.85%
OIL – .52 = 56.19 Oil posted a 12% gain for the past week.
GOLD + 5.30 = 1,203.30
SILV – .06 – 16.23
 
The economy continues to expand and consumers are feeling better. The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index rose to 95.9 in April, up from 93 in March. Separately, The Conference Board said leading indicators rose 0.2% in March; the leading economic index has been slowing over recent months but it still points to moderate expansion in economic activity.

Consumer prices rose 0.2% in March. Gasoline prices rose 3.9%, which was the biggest jump since February 2013; still, gas prices are about 33% below year-ago levels.  The core-CPI, which excludes energy and food prices, also rose 0.2% due to higher cost of housing and used cars. The cost of clothes, housing, cars, and medical care increased, while food and airfare decreased. Core prices have risen 1.8% in the past year. While the “all-items index” (which includes things like food and energy) declined 0.1% over the last 12 months. Higher inflation would indicate a stronger dollar because it could reinforce the view that the Fed might hike interest rates sooner rather than later.

The Labor Department reports real average hourly earnings for all employees increased 0.1 percent from February to March, seasonally adjusted. This result stems from a 0.3-percent increase in average hourly earnings being partially offset by a 0.2-percent increase in the Consumer Price Index. Real average hourly earnings increased by 2.2 percent, seasonally adjusted, over the past 12 months.

Another tidbit from the Labor Department shows that long-term, wages have not just been flat but slightly down over the past 40 years. Adjusted for inflation, average weekly earnings for production and nonsupervisory employees, the bulk of the workforce, topped out in October 1972. In today’s dollars, the weekly paycheck in 1972 was the equivalent of $811, compared with current paychecks at $703 a week. A recent jump in real average earnings is largely due to low inflation, rather than surging paychecks. Cheaper gasoline and a strong dollar have pushed down overall prices, leaving many Americans with more money, even though they aren’t spending it.

After a string of soft U.S. economic data, the dollar hovered near a one-week low against a basket of major currencies on Friday and was on track for its biggest weekly drop in a month. The dollar index set a fresh one-week low this morning; but moved higher following the economic data on inflation.

An interesting article in the Murdoch Street Journal today argued the idea that the Fed has already tightened monetary policy just by talking about tightening monetary policy. The talk about hiking rates has made itself felt in stock, bond, and most important foreign exchange markets; a version of the taper tantrum, if you will. The dollar’s sharp rise in the last six months is due not just to the European Central Bank’s dramatic easing of monetary policy through quantitative easing (QE, the purchase of bonds with newly created money), but to the juxtaposition of the ECB’s action against anticipation that the Fed will soon tighten. Anticipation of tighter U.S. monetary policy also shows up in various measures of risk such as the spread between yields on corporate bonds and safe Treasuries, which have widened, or the stock market, which has stopped climbing.

This might explain why the economy didn’t seem to take off with the benefits of lower oil prices. It’s also a reminder of something investors and Fed officials routinely forget: Markets discount the Fed’s actions long before they actually occur, in ways that are not obvious at the time.

Bloomberg’s trading terminal experienced a global outage this morning, with traders complaining all over Twitter they had been hit by the issue. And yes, this does affect worldwide trading, especially in the bond markets. There are more than 300,000 subscribers to the Bloomberg terminals and they pay about $20,000 per year for the subscription, so it is for serious business. A lot of traders stepped out for coffee this morning. Service was restored after a couple of hours.

China’s securities regulator tightened rules on margin lending while the country’s two stock exchanges said they would make it easier to short stocks, or bet that stocks will fall in price in an effort to temper the country’s soaring stock markets. Asian markets were generally lower today.

German government bonds continued to break records this morning, lifted by the ECB’s commitment to stimulus, coupled with investors’ appetite for low-risk assets amid growing concerns over Greece. European stocks are down 2.1 percent this week, poised for the worst drop in four months and trimming 2015 gains to 18 percent. In early trade, the yield on Germany’s 10-year bond slipped to 0.049%, breaking through Thursday’s all-time low. The yield on the country’s 30-year debt was just below half a percentage point.

“Liquidity is drying up in Greece,” Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said yesterday in Washington. Athens will continue to “compromise for a speedy agreement, but will not be compromised.” International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde warned that she wouldn’t let Greece miss a debt payment. Greece is struggling to win more aid to avoid a default, while resisting more austerity measures. And the Greeks seem to be dragging their feet when it comes to spelling out specific reforms; the reason is simple; the reforms the EU is requesting won’t work and would not be accepted by Greek voters. So, slowly the EU is starting to realize that a Greek exit from the Eurozone would be a big mistake; they don’t know how big a problem it would create but the thinking is that it would be major. Today, there appeared to be a shift in thinking.

In the event of a missed payment, there is no specific plan B to keep Greece in the monetary union. Which is a frightening proposition that now has the big banks scared of other countries exiting the euro, and even bigger concerns that it could breakdown into bank runs. So now, international creditors are starting to show more flexibility in negotiations over Greek finances to prevent a euro exit. The red-line is that the Syriza led government in Athens needs to commit to at least some economic reforms.

If you have been following the Greek situation, it sometimes sounds like it flips then flops between a possible resolution and what seems to be an inevitable train wreck; either Greece bows down to it paymasters or it defaults and exits the Euro Union. But the longer the Greeks delay, the more they are likely to see flexibility from creditors. A Greek exit would be.., well nobody knows but it would probably be bad. And yet, default seems inevitable because they are just too far in the hole. More and more it looks like a best case scenario is a partial default, a few concessions, Greece stays in the Eurozone. That doesn’t mean it will happen that way, but that looks like a possibility. And if, in this whole process, Greece can wean itself off of dependence from the banksters, they could even pull out of the economic depression they are in.

We have a few earnings reports to cover today:
American Express reported quarterly revenue that fell short of analysts’ estimates, dropping 2.7% to $7.9 billion. AmEx was hurt by a stronger dollar and the loss of several co-branded tie-ups; AmEx recently ended its co-branded relationship with JetBlue, while its agreement with Costco is due to expire next March.

Schlumberger shares rose slightly after the oil equipment provider topped first-quarter earnings projections, although revenue missed. Excluding charges, the company booked a per-share profit of $1.06, beating estimates of $0.91, but down from $1.21 a year earlier. Blaming a decline in drilling activity, Schlumberger said it now plans to cut 11,000 more jobs in addition to the 9,000 job cuts announced in January. You might think a big earnings miss would result in a nasty day of trading, but the Wall Street crowd like to see job cuts.

General Electric reports its revenue fell a worse-than-expected 12% in its first quarter. Overall for the quarter ended March 31, GE reported a loss of $13.5 billion, or $1.35 a share, compared with a profit of $3 billion, or 30 cents a share, a year earlier.

Honeywell reported a 5% drop in quarterly revenue, in part due to a stronger dollar, even as net income rose. Honeywell raised the lower end of its full-year profit forecast, even as they cut their full year revenue forecast.

Fifty years ago April 19th, Gordon Moore, he one-time CEO of Intel, predicted that the number of components on semiconductors or “chips” would continue to double every twelve to eighteen months even as the cost per chip would hold constant. The idea came to be known as Moore’s Law. And it really was a radical idea. Most commodities do not behave like that. Think about meat, grains, coffee, or oil, which get worse and more expensive over time. Computing power and related components of the digital revolution including memory, displays, sensors, digital cameras, software and communications bandwidth, continue to get faster, cheaper, and smaller roughly at the pace Moore anticipated. And through economies of scale, low prices encourage more uses, which raises production and lowers costs in a virtuous cycle. With each cycle of Moore’s Law, computing power doubles, even as price holds constant. If you want to have any understanding of the digital revolution, you have to be able to grasp Moore’s Law.

Thanks to Moore’s Law, tomorrow’s digital products are certain to be better and cheaper. Think of it as the granddaddy of disruption, and the life blood of innovation. Fifty years ago, Moore thought the exponential growth cycle might last for 10 years, but 50 year later it still applies. Every time it seems like innovation has hit a wall, we just break through. And that means there is something new and wonderful just around every corner.

FINANCIAL REVIEW

Theories on Apples and Applesauce

Sinclair Noe — January 16, 2015

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DOW + 190 = 17,511
SPX + 26 = 2019
NAS + 63 = 4634
10 YR YLD + .04 = 1.81%
OIL + 2.32 = 48.57
GOLD + 17.70 = 1281.30
SILV + .83 = 17.88

Stocks bounced back after five sessions of losses. All 10 of the S&P 500 sectors were higher, though energy led the charge, rising 2.8%. U.S. crude oil futures settled up 5% after the International Energy Agency said there were signs that lower prices had begun to curb production in some areas. On the week, oil rose 0.7%, snapping a seven-week losing streak. The IEA report said that the market’s floor was still anybody’s guess, but “the sell-off is having an impact,” and “A price recovery – barring any major disruption – may not be imminent, but signs are mounting that the tide will turn.

We love lower gas prices. A gauge of consumer sentiment jumped up to an 11 year high this month. The preliminary January reading on the University of Michigan’s consumer-sentiment index increased to 98.2, the highest level since January 2004, from a final December reading of 93.6. Also, more households were reporting increases in household incomes.

Consumer inflation in December saw the biggest monthly drop in six years. Consumer prices, the CPI, fell 0.4% in December. You know the big driver for lower prices; energy prices plunged 4.7% in December, the biggest drop since the end of 2008, as gasoline prices fell 9.4%. Overall consumer prices grew 0.8% in 2014, the second smallest calendar-year increase in the last five decades. Core inflation was 1.6% during 2014. Also, the government reported that inflation-adjusted average hourly earnings rose 0.1% in December. For the year, real average hourly earnings rose 1%.

Good news, everything is on sale. Well, not everything; beef, tomatoes, and eggs went up in price; and rents jumped last year. Most things are cheaper but it may not be cause for celebration. We’ve just seen the weakest stretch for prices since 2009, which was not a good year for the economy. The euro zone is in outright “deflation,” which is the opposite of inflation, prices fall instead of rise. Japan, went through a couple of lost decades when prices just went flat or even dropped. Japan has already started on a quantitative easing program. The Eurozone is expected to announce next week that they will start buying sovereign bonds to stimulate their economy.

Of course the problem is that when prices are falling we tend to put off buying stuff because we expect we can get a better deal tomorrow or next week. When everybody is waiting for a better price, nobody is actually buying; when people stop buying things, it is bad for the economy; really bad. The Federal Reserve tends to think this won’t be a problem; they are planning on raising rates at some point in the not so distant future. Unless something upsets the apple cart.

By the third quarter of this year, the Federal Reserve’s 0.25 percent interest rate is expected to at least double, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The Fed already has an idea of what the market impact will be: The so-called taper tantrum in May 2013, when then Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke first suggested the U.S. bond-purchase program would be scaled back, saw the yield on the 10-year Treasury jump half a percentage point in four weeks to end the month at 2.13%.

There’s a risk, though, that this time, having flagged the prospect of a change so far in advance, policy makers will be complacent about the probable market reaction. That’s what happened in 2008 when Lehman Brothers went bust. Treasury officials convinced themselves that the financial crisis had been rumbling on long enough for participants to have shielded themselves against the collapse of a big firm; turned out, not so much.

Right now there is a sort of similar situation with regard to Greece, where the problems have been going on so long, that people forget that Greece is on the edge of collapse. Today, two Greek banks applied for emergency funding from the national central bank. This could be a signal that depositors are pulling their money out at an alarming rate. Or it might just be another scheme to scare Greek voters ahead of next week’s election. After the election, the Greeks might repudiate their sovereign debt; the Euro Union might kick them out. Maybe it won’t be a problem.

The big problem seems to be when something happens without warning; like the Swiss abandoning a cap on their currency. Boom, markets move fast, somebody loses a boatload of money. Soon after the Swiss National Bank unexpectedly ended its three-year policy of keeping the franc weaker than 1.20 per euro, bearish bets on Europe’s common currency soared. While setting a record low versus the franc yesterday, the euro also plunged 3.5 percent against a basket of 10 developed-nation peers, the most since its 1999 debut, and reached an 11-year low against the dollar today. When the news was first announced, the franc exploded, up 41% versus the euro before things calmed down.

Generally, currency trades don’t have big moves. And so brokerages and exchanges allow leverage to entice traders. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission allows investors to put down as little as 2 percent of the value of their foreign-exchange bets. Brokers may get stuck with the balance of losses suffered by clients who used leverage, borrowed on credit cards, or did both to bet against the franc. FXCM handled $1.4 trillion in currency trades last quarter; today they say clients owe $225 million on their accounts. This afternoon, Leucadia National announced it would provide $300 million in financing to FXCM, which would allow FXCM to maintain its regulatory capital requirements. FXCM isn’t the only casualty from the franc’s sudden move. Global Brokers Ltd., based in New Zealand, said losses from the surge are forcing it to shut down.

Meanwhile the Chicago Mercantile Exchange announced that it will double, then triple, margin on Swiss franc futures contracts. That means they will extend a bit more credit and hope their customers just wait it out and everything will return to something like normal. That will reduce the margin calls but it won’t eliminate them, and I suspect we’ll see some more tales of woe in coming days. And that includes some of the big banks; both Deutsche Bank and Citigroup each reported lost $150 million on Swiss franc trades. The losses are mounting, but so far nothing the markets can’t absorb.

Now let’s look at another market that has seen some fast moves – oil. We’ve been tracking the decline since last summer, but still, that is considered a fast move. The day traders have certainly had their chance to get in or out of a trade, but there are many other investors who can’t jump in and out of positions quite so fast. For example, there is quite a bit of debt associated with oil exploration and drilling and refining. And that energy debt is then bundled together in pools, known as CLOs or collateralized loan obligations, and then those CLOs are traded. But the market for CLOs is not as liquid as you might think, and it becomes less liquid when it looks like some off the loans that were bundled might not perform.

Under provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act, banks are required to sell their stakes in certain complex securities, such as CDOs and CLOs. But there has been a push to repeal parts of the Act. The Volcker reprieve would have given banks until 2019 to sell their stakes in CLOs. Much of the recent energy boom has been financed with junk debt and a good portion of that junk debt ended up in collateralized loan obligations. CLOs are also big users of credit default swaps, which are an important target of the Dodd Frank push-out. In addition, over the past 6 months banks were unable to unload a substantial portion of the junk debt originated and so it remained on bank balance sheets. That debt is now substantially underwater and, potentially, facing default. To hedge or hide the losses, banks are using credit default swaps. Hedge funds are actively shorting these junk debt financed energy companies using credit default swaps.

The Dodd-Frank Act was supposed to get the banks out of that derivatives business in 2015, but if the banks had to mark to market on those CLOs today, it would likely lead to big losses. And so they are asking the politicians to delay implementation of the Volker Rule, so they have more time to sell off their bad CLOs, or maybe for the market to rebound. The reason to expect such heavy concentration of energy debt in CLOs is that energy debt has made a big increase in its total share of the junk bond market, up from 4% ten years ago to 16% now. 16% might not seem like a big deal until you realize that the real increase in energy credit issuance happened in the last few years, so the proportion of energy borrowing to total risky borrowing was vastly higher of late so as to move the averages so much in a short time.

We don’t know exactly how much bad energy debt is bundled into CLOs. Some estimates peg it around $200 billion, but that doesn’t mean everything will go into default. But here is where CLOs are dangerous; they take good energy debt and bad energy debt and other types of debt and they smash it all together. It’s kind of like taking a bunch of apples, and making apple sauce. And once you smash the good apples with the bad apples, you can’t unmake the apple sauce.

The opacity of the banks’ situation is creating a mindset on Wall Street to sell first and ask questions later. On days when oil is plunging in price, big bank stocks are getting hit across the board. Institutional investors with large bank positions who can’t readily dump shares are trying to hedge their exposure by buying puts on Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) which track the financial services sector. Wholesale dumping of shares could come later if more negative news emerges.