Overnight

Earlier we mentioned the OPEC energy cut deal, financialspuds.blogspot.com/2016/09/energy-cut.

Well, the news of a possible November limit on production though it's not known yet which countries will be cutting what spilled over into Asian markets overnight.

The Nikkei was up 1.4%, the Kospi gained  0.7%, with Hong Kong up 0.3% and the Shanghai Composite Index rallying 0.6%. According to the WSJ, Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said late Wednesday they had proposed cutting their collective output to between 32.5 million barrels a day and 33 million barrels a day, down from August levels of 33.2 million barrels a day. The group, however, deferred the task of finalizing a plan to make those cuts until November. Overnight, oil prices surged 5.3%, their biggest gain in more than five months. In early Asian trade, the Nymex crude price was up 31 cents at $47.35 a barrel, while Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, added 34 cents at $49.03 a barrel.
Reuters described the cut this way.

Asian crude oil buyers remained cautious, eyeing details of an OPEC deal after the oil-producers group agreed for the first time since 2008 to reduce output in an oversupplied market.

Global oil prices held onto gains on Thursday after soaring 6 percent in the previous session as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed on Wednesday to reduce output to a range of 32.5-33.0 million barrels per day.


However, how much each country will produce is to be decided at the next formal OPEC meeting in November, when an invitation to join cuts could also be extended to non-OPEC countries such as Russia.

In the currency markets a weaker yen punched investor sentiment higher and the dollar rose 0.6 percent against the Japanese currency to 101.34 yen, pulling away from Tuesday's one-month low of 100.085. The euro added 0.8 percent to 113.79 yen. Other currencies also traded higher as the Indonesian rupiah was up marginally, while the Malaysian ringgit gained 0.6% against the dollar. The New Taiwan Dollar was also higher against the dollar, ahead of a central bank rate decision later Thursday. Citi said it expects the currency to strengthen further following a likely rate cut—U.S. firm expects the central bank to cut policy rates by another 0.125 percentage point,the Journal reported.

In other news,thopugh muc of it seemed absorbed by the OPEC U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen told Congress on Wednesday the central bank did not have a "fixed timetable" for removing the current interest rate posture.. Her testimony followed the Fed's decision last week to hold steady on the federal funds rate at 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent. Gold edged higher to 1325.06.

Not Bunker Hill

 
Years ago there was Archie Bunker. Now it's LA bunkers. And we're not talking Bunker Hill.

Though we doubt there is any less PC. We've been telling you for some time now something is up. And here it is, though we have brought it up before.

Oscar winners, sports stars and Bill Gates are building lavish bunkers — with amenities ranging from a swimming pool to a bowling alley — as global anxiety fuels sales and owners "could be the next Adam and Eve."

Given the increased frequency of terrorist bombings and mass shootings and an under-lying sense of havoc fed by divisive election politics, it's no surprise that home security is going over the top and hitting luxurious new heights. Or, rather, new lows, as the average depth of a new breed of safe haven that occupies thousands of square feet is 10 feet under or more. Those who can afford to pull out all the stops for so-called self-preservation are doing so — in a fashion that goes way beyond the submerged corrugated metal units adopted by reality show "preppers" — to prepare for anything from nuclear bombings to drastic climate-change events. Gary Lynch, GM at Rising S Bunkers, a Texas-based company that specializes in underground bunkers and services scores of Los Angeles residences, says that sales at the most upscale end of the market — mainly to actors, pro athletes and politicians (who require signed NDAs) — have increased 700 percent this year compared with 2015, and overall sales have risen 150 percent. "Any time there is a turbulent political landscape, we see a spike in our sales. Given this election is as turbulent as it is, we are gearing up for an even bigger spike," says marketing director Brad Roberson of sales of bunkers that start at $39,000 and can run $8.35 million or more (FYI, a 12-stall horse shelter is $98,500).

Adds Mike Peters, owner of Utah-based Ultimate Bunker, which builds high-end versions in California, Texas and Minnesota: "People are going for luxury [to] live underground because they see the future is going to be rough. Everyone I've talked to thinks we are doomed, no matter who is elected." Robert Vicino, founder of Del Mar, Calif.-based Vivos, which constructs upscale community bunkers in Indiana (he believes coastal flooding scenarios preclude bunkers being safely built west of the Rockies), says, "Bill Gates has huge shelters under every one of his homes, in Rancho Santa Fe and Washington. His head of security visited with us a couple years ago, and for these multibillionaires, a few million is nothing. It's really just the newest form of insurance."

Read More...

blacklistednews.com/Luxury_Bunkers_for_L.A.%E2%80%99s_Superrich/

When Is Weasel A Weasel?

If you like a good party.

James Comey soon to be ex-director of the FBI has a problem with a certain appellation.

During a further airing out about Clinton's destroying emails from her time as Secretary of State, Comey wants the American public to swallow his bizarre definition of privacy versus out and out criminal action by a high ranking public official and perhaps members of her staff at her behest breaking the law on the public's dime.

Perhaps Comey funniest but most pathetic line was: "...regarding misuse of classified emails – and in the process told members that once the politics stopped circulating, the FBI would again be seen as the institution “you know and love.” Perhaps nobody ever told Mr. Comey politics is what Washington is all about. 

The truth is Comey--and his cohorts and we don't yet know who they are--have delivered a further serious blow to America's biggest and perhaps once most revered institutions. That's a deficit that will live a lot longer in infamy than mere mortals, insiders or not, will ever comprehend. If the general public opinion limits itself to calling him and his fellow travelers weasels, he will be getting off lucky. Criminal prosecution if it can be established is the more appropriate term here.

Perhaps there are some enterprising young legal beagles out there willing to pursue real justice. Funds perhaps to finance such could come from public donations of those who feel Mr. Comey should be prosecuted for negligence and incompetence to carry out his fiducary duties. Take this responsibility out of the hands of state and federal fiduciaries who continue to fail to prosecute the law. 

If the likes a of George Soros can use his money privately to create public havoc without fear of an investigation or prosecution, certainly the public can legally publicly create it own brand of havoc through the judicial system.

That could add up to good party once it gets started.

thedailybell.com/news-analysis/madness-swirls-at-house-judiciary-committee-as-comey-attempts-to-justify-hillary-innocence

Energy Cut

OPEC agreed to a preliminary deal that will cut production for the first time in eight years. Oil prices gained more than 6 percent as Saudi Arabia and Iran surprised traders who expected a continuation of the pump-at-will policy the group adopted in 2014.

The group agreed to drop production to a range of 32.5 to 33 million barrels per day, said Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, following a meeting in Algiers. While some members of OPEC will have to cut output, Iran won’t have to freeze production, he said. Many of the details remain to be worked out and the group won’t decide on targets for each country until its next meeting at the end of November.

The lower end of the production target equates to a nearly 750,000 barrels-a-day drop from what OPEC said it pumped in August.

The deal will reverberate beyond the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. It will brighten the prospects for the energy industry, from giants like Exxon Mobil Corp. to small U.S. shale firms, and boost the economies of oil-rich countries such as Russia and Saudi Arabia. For consumers, however, it will mean higher prices at the pump.

"The cut is clearly bullish," said Mike Wittner, head of oil-market research at Societe Generale SA in New York. "What’s much more important is that the Saudis appear to be returning to a period of market management."

bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-28/opec-said-to-agree-on-first-oil-output-cut-in-eight-years

Four Words

The pundits are at it again.

Given the debate results many are describing is a victory for Hillary, certain investments like gold, oil and the like have dropped in price while others like the dollar and the prospect for a rate hike soon from the Fed have rallied. Such a rate hike would be essentially bad for long bonds and gold and good for the dollar and such.

The smell emanating from all this is not that of victory but of opportunity. There is no victory in either of these candidates. It's simply a question of how much more of how much of the same are this nation's subjects willing to put up with. The unexpected is most likely to stick its ever-lurking head up early next year if not sooner once this travesty called an election in a semi-free country hell-bound for becoming less semi-free is over.

Four words should come to mind: You're on your own. And that's where the opportunity is. On any weakness we would be buyers of those things that are noted enemies of the status quo, like gold and energy. They desperately need  you to continue to believe and stake your future, what little choice yo actually have in determining it, in the fiat-based currency world that is now in clear disarray.

Raising interest rates by 25 or 50 basis points is being marketed as necessary to give the gaggle of global incompetent central bankers a margin of safety to lower than again in the name of liquidity should their timing be wrong. And what happens to yo if it is wrong? There is something called a track record otherwise known as a profile. It's still for now permissible to apply to many things, but just don't try to apply it at your local airport, police station or next political election.

 Systemic is a word to keep in your investing lexicon. Just today one European source declared: "European banks are in a “very fragile situation” and are “not really investable as a sector" according to Credit Suisse." A couple of days ago ECB President Mario Draghi, the EU's version of Janet Yellen, urged his buddies in Brussels to take a hard line with those villainous Brexit traitors. Hard line here is code for austerity, a ploy only they get the privilege of deciding its meaning and its use. These people love code language. It's their stock in trade.

In the current U.S. election one billionaire wag offered $10 million for anyone who could produce a copy of Trump's tax forms. Someone should tell this elitist jaw boner the money would be better spend trying to figure out the Bank of Japan or how in the hell Janet Yellen came to head up the Fed.

If you need to be hit over the head here to buy what these pundits are trying to get the world to sell to keep their empires going, that's your problem. Look into NFL helmets.

Most recognize good news. But the trick is to recognize bad news about to change. Rocked by fall in oil-and-gas prices, some energy funds are pleading with their investors for more time and money, WSJ (9-28-16)

Now about those four words. 

How Much Room Left

Ray Dalio is the founder of Bridgewater Associates, the "world's largest macro hedge fund" company with US$122 billion in assets under management," according to Wikipedia. In the news lately for announcing a big layoff at his firm of around 1,200 employees, Dalio recently raised some interesting questions about a couple of central banks, the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank, and unlike many, answered his own questions.

One of the key themes that have emerged in the past year is that, having loaded up their balance sheets with tens of trillions in various assets, central banks are "running out of road." While it is a topic extensively discussed on these pages, going all the way back to 2014, a good summary of the practical limitations on central banks comes from the following series of charts from Deutsche Bank.

The first slide looks at the bond transmission mechanism, namely that central banks have become increasingly aware of the adverse impact of low bond yields on financial sector profitability; another aspect is that European pension liabilities as a % of market cap are at a 10-year high – and above the levels they reached in 2008, when the European market cap was at half the current level. This means that absent an independent rise in inflation expectations, central banks’ attempts to push up nominal bond yields (via less QE or faster hikes) risks leading to higher real bond yields as well; the implication is that equities tend to de-rate when real bond yields rise (i.e. the discount rate increases).


Read more: zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-27/bridgewater-calculates-how-much-time-central-banks-have-left

Overnight

A strong yen led the early morning trading overnight as the Nikkei fell 1.8%, roughly 286 points, to trade at 16,388.61 putting further pressure on Japanese exporters. The dollar/yen ratio is important ot manufacturers since many were calculating the dollar  to trade at 105 instead of below that level now for nearly two months. Banks and insurance companies also fell. Wednesday morning the dollar was at 100.470 yen.

The WSJ reported Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was unchanged, but Korea’s Kospi was 0.4% lower. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index slipped 0.5%, while the Shanghai Composite declined by 0.1%. Taiwan’s markets were shut due to a typhoon. Oil prices recovered in early Asia trade, with Nymex up 27 cents at $44.94 a barrel and the international benchmark Brent higher by 34 cents at $46.31 a barrel. “Crude oil is in focus today as the U.S. API [American Petroleum Institute] will release its inventory figures and the OPEC meeting is expected to conclude,” said Alex Wijaya, a senior sales trader at CMC Markets.

Back in the U.S. the Conference Board’s consumer-confidence index rose in September to its highest level in nine years, data showed Tuesday, putting what some say is the"final domestic nail" the Fed needs to seal its case for raising interest rates. It was its highest level since August 2007, the start of the financial crisis that led to the 2007-09 recession. Meanwhile, the dollar declined 0.5% and gold pushed 1.0% lower on that bit of  news and what many are calling a Clinton debate win that hiked her poll ratings Tuesday.

A Quick Quiz

Here is a a quick quiz for you. Name a currency in 2016 that has appreciated against gold?

Don't feel bad if you can't. Take what you can from it and put it to use. We've have written extensively about central banks having shot their wad and are now impotent despite what anyone tries to tell you, especially MSM. This is not about our being correct. It's about your protecting yourself from the coming economic chaos.

The bad news is that, on present “steady-as-she goes” monthly gold accruals, it will take China and Russia — No. 6 and 7 in the world ranking of global gold reserves — about six years to draw level with the fourth- and fifth-placed countries, France and Italy.
Beijing and Moscow are building up gold stocks for a variety of reasons, ranging from unease about undue dependence on the dollar BUXX, +0.10%  — particularly acute in Russia’s case, in view of U.S.-led sanctions over the invasion of Crimea — to distaste at the low or negative returns on Europe currency holdings, especially the euro.

marketwatch.com/story/why-china-and-russia-are-buying-so-much-gold-2016-08-01.

The author left out one of the most important reasons they've been buying gold, maybe by default or maybe on purpose, to hedge against the end of the dollar as the instrument of international trade and the rise of a basket of currencies with gold in it. So now back to the quiz. Name a currency in 2016 that has appreciated against gold? Chart below from: marketslant.com.

                      

Housing Bubbles

Couple of interesting charts here to look at. What a difference, as pointed out, a year can make.

What a difference a year makes, because in the latest report by UBS wealth Management, which compiles the bank's Global Real Estate Bubble Index, it found a new champion for the title of "world's biggest housing bubble", namely a familiar name, Vancouver, but also that as many as six cities had made the "bubble" category, up from last year's two. Of last year's two "winners", London has been knocked into second place this year, and Hong Kong sixth, but both are still in bubble-risk territory.

zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-27/global-housing-bubble-biggest-these-six-cities


Looking at soaring home prices across the globe, UBS has concluded that low interest rates have now created a new global housing bubble in major cities around the world, with Vancouver and London most at risk. Not surprisingly, the Swiss bank notes that ultralow interest rates at global central banks have contributed to overheating in the housing market in recent years. 

The Big Debate

 
It was a debate that settled little other than most commentators as expected divided along their party  lines. Those who saw a Hillary advantage are hard line MSM supporters; the same holds for Trump.

One would expect the next to be much better in emphasizing their differences if anyone is going  to be actually persuaded to change their opinion. the pone wild card in all this is how voters react to Trump. He has looked this way in the past and come out stronger in follow-up pols, jus tmaybe putting the lie to all the political pundits and MSM talking heads who tend to look at what is a very nontraditional election traditionally.

Friday's VP debate might actually steal the show if  one or the other can score any points. Meanwhile, here's one summary of the big debate.

From "big, fat, ugly bubbles" to "trumped-up trickle-down" economics, tonight's debate had something for everyone. One-liners and soundbites were dropped like confetti with strange facial gestures, delicate coughs, and direct jabs flying left, right, and center. As far as the results go, it's anyone's guess: Lester Holt was soundly beaten by everyone online; the markets (S&P Futs and the Mexican Peso) both suggested a Trump loss, Trump won Twitter, online (and unscientific) polls were undecided with a slight nod to a Trump victory, as commentators were mixed, most siding with their ideological bias.

As Bloomberg reports, after a little more than 90 minutes of debate (full transcript here), here are the key takeaways from tonight's event:

The candidates spent a good deal of time on stop-and-frisk, racial issues, Obama birther matter, ISIS and nuclear weapons.

Trump appeared to be rambling on a number of questions, especially on foreign policy.

Clinton made points on the tax returns, with Trump not ending questions about whether he failed to pay any federal income taxes -- an not offering a clear reason as to why he's not releasing his tax returns.

Clinton's answers often were recitations of her campaign statements.

It was difficult for Holt, as moderator, to keep the candidates focused on the questions. At times, it appeared he'd lost control of the debate.

zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-26/debate-post-mortem-rematch-required-commentators-split-debate- winner-markets-give-hi