OFFICIAL NEWS LEFT STREET NEWS RIGHT

Official news is different from news on the street.

Official news aided by their MSM friends paints a pretty portrait. 

The battle is going well. We suffered only 20,000 casualties today, but the good news is more supplies reached the front uninterrupted. There was, however, one slightly disturbing development: Nobody was there to receive them. Other than that officials feel....under control.

News on the street today is saying what many of us have believed for a while, inflation is back and rising.

Sentiment on the ground isn't meshing with the official data when it comes to inflation.
Despite government numbers showing that inflation remains tame, companies increasingly are expressing worry that it is in the pipeline and posing a threat to profits. 

"Inflation remains a key concern for management," Goldman Sachs strategist David J. Kostin and others wrote in a research note. "Companies noted the potential long-term impact of rising costs on margins despite hedges that reduce the near-term impact on profits." 

Data show that overall, inflation pressures are largely absent from the current economic picture.
The consumer price index rose just 0.3 percent in June, the latest month, while the personal consumption expenditures index has been gaining at just a 1.6 percent pace, both considerably below the targets before the Federal Reserve would begin raising interest rates. There also are few wage pressures, with labor costs up just 0.6 percent in the second quarter and wages tracking at a 2 percent annualized increase.

Luke Sharrett | Bloomberg | Getty Images

A Walgreens store is shown in Louisville, Ky.

But companies are saying that overhead costs like labor and supplies are increasing and putting pressure on margin expectations. That in turn could be concerning for stock market investors, who have relied on margin expansion as the key to the 190 growth in equities since the March 2009 lows. 

 

"Firms in the consumer sectors have already experienced inflationary pressures due to rising input costs," Kostin said. "Conflicting opinions exist as to whether boosting prices on the consumer will help mitigate the effect of rising costs."
In the analysis, the Goldman team cite a variety of companies within the firm's coverage space and their view on inflation. 

There was McDonald's, which has seen food increasing at a 3 percent clip and expects that could rise to 3.5 percent. Big-box retailer Costco reported hikes in seafood, produce and beef. 

Pharmacy chain Walgreen reported "a shift from historical patterns of deflation in generic drug cost to inflation." It noted "cost increases on a subset of of generic drugs, and in some cases, these increases have been significant. Both reimbursement pressure and generic inflation are having an adverse effect on margin." 

Dow Chemical noted that "cost inflation on the U.S. Golf Coast is real" but said it was sufficiently hedged. 
http://www.cnbc.com/id

ANIMAL SPIRITS TAKE ONE

So much silly stuff and so little time to laugh at it all.

We're talking MSM here.

Starting with a story in today's Financial Times, "Without prudence as a value we are all at risk," the author, William R. Rhodes, CEO of  Rhodes Global Advisers and former Citibank executive, opens with:

Financial groups are dialing up risk in their search for yield because of the extraordinary amounts liquidity created by central banks and the prolonged rate environment. This is often not being done prudently. The key cause of past financial crises are being forgotten at many financial institutions.

It should be noted one of the main financial institutions Rhodes apparently leave out is central banks. Rhodes goes on to name such things as something we've mentioned before, subprime auto loans, non-investment grade syndicated loans and corporate emerging market debt.

All soaring and all true. All also occurring in the absence of  very little real growth. He then cites the EU, Japan and the U.S. where "growth over the past 12 months has been less than 2 percent, yet in the same period the S&P 500 stock market index gained about 17 percent."

There is China on the other hand, perhaps the only bright spot if one can digest those statist-controlled economic figures without getting dyspeptic, hitting the government's 7.5% objective, much of it, however, owing to increased credit growth.

End result surfacing bubbles in real estate and an unregulated, increasingly shadowy shadow banking system while mainstream banks continue their lending to government entities.

Rhodes next takes on global money runners in perhaps the funniest sentence in his whole article: "To some degree, they feel the competitive pressures to produce better quarterly results consistently."

We don't know if the well-meaning chap smokes or imbibes much but pressure to produce consistent better quarterly results is hardly new. And boards that don't mind occasionally looking the other direction aren't either. Desperate times don't always lead to quiet desperation. In fact, it can get quite noisy, Janet Yellen pun intended.

Part of Rhodes' solution is he wants central banks to pay more attention to risk behavior. Sounds like more of the usually intrusive, Big Brother approach. Calling for the Fed to use its influence--as if it has any left--to promote "prudence in risk taking as a core cultural value" would get a big laugh in most Comedy Clubs.

This sounds like excellent material for one of those proposed MBA ethics classes once the guffaws quiet down.

Next Rhodes proposes putting the old bureaucratic fox in charge of the financial hen house.

Jointly, leaders of  financial institutions and their regulators in the US, UK, Japan, the eurozone and in China, should emphasise the importance of risk management and risk culture. They should come together to exchange views candidly and explore ways to channel risk activities onto a surer course.

With all due respect, someone needs to ask Rhodes this question: When animals get hungry, what do they want to do? 
t.man hatter

OUR VIEW

A lot of people, to use a kind term, probably don't like billionaire fund manager Paul Singer.

And it's a fairly safe bet he won't be booking passage to Argentina anytime soon. Or for that matter the Republic of the Congo or Peru.

Singer, using his middle name, is the founder of the now $24 billion Elliott Management. His recent protracted fight with default-loving Argentina over some so-called sovereign bonds put him centerfold in the hedge fund world of late. It wasn't his first financial rodeo and if if he lives long enough it most likely won't be his last.

It's a long, twisted and complicated story that has nothing to do with the good people of Argentina and everything to do with staggeringly incompetent leadership, the kind most Americans are becoming more and more familiar with as the days dwindle down to November.

Here are some quotes from the nearly 70-year old fund manager we not only like but fully endorse.

"Resentment is not morally superior to making money," he said during the Occupy Wall Street charade.

On the Federal Reserve he wrote it was run by "a group of inbred academics." who have "lost any semblance, any wispy remnant of humility."

On the U.S. and Europe he noted both are 'headed for mass poverty and degradation of freedom." That's an argument Singer won't get much push back on today in many quarters.

In the 1930s FDR confiscated gold. And over the years via various and often nefarious ruses like eminent domain rules government has confiscated lots of properties. Singer noted "It's not out of the realm of possibility" today either.

It's not just so-called Third World banana republics, though some believe that's the real next stop on America's future ride once the Piper gets fully paid for all the incompetent leadership and bureaucratic nonsense fostered by academics trying to swim in waters way over their heads.  

To borrow a couple of words made famous more than 40-years ago and remain so today by the late writer William Manchester, these are the "nattering nabobs" of academe. Trust them at you're own peril. When they finally grow up, if they ever do, most hope to find real jobs.

Earlier this year he wrote that society itself might be undermined by a nation "disdaining the rule of law and paying whatever it wants to pay." If that reminds anyone of Argentina's recent attempted scam, someone say, Hello!

To be sure, the Singer haters periodically come out in force, most of them academics. Much of Singer's apparent ideas because they center on individual responsibility and economic choice grate against the equal outcomes crowd.

You recognize these folks. They either teach, become bureaucrats or run for public office.

That's our view. We hope you know yours.
t. man hatter

AROUND THE WEB

1. Another thing we cannot necessarily count on is the remarkable geopolitical stability that the world experienced for two long stretches during the fossil fuel age. The first one lasted from the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 to the beginning of World War I in 1914 (interrupted only by the brief Franco-Prussian War). The second lasted from the end of World War II in 1945 until now.
http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2014/08/bubble-time-friends-and-relatives-act.html

2. In his announcement to the world of the latest round of US sanctions against Russia, President Barack Obama attempted to sooth business fears by stating categorically that the spill-over on U.S. companies and those of its allies would be “limited.”
http://wolfstreet.com/2014/08/07/the-old-continents-road-to-ruin-through-moscow/

3. Barack Obama has authorised military airstrikes over northern Iraq in order to “prevent genocide” carried out by Islamist extremists against Christians and other minorities.
http://www.blacklistednews.com/Barack_Obama_approves_airstrikes_in_Iraq/

4. The only thing that can stop it is oil prices,” according to the CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources referring to what he called would be “a tremendous turndown” or collapse in prices.

Speaking at a meeting this week in Denver, Scott Sheffield, told the conference the real peak owing to technological advancements could be around 14 million barrels a day. That's a significant difference from the 9.5 million barrels a day that government forecasters have suggested about U.S. oil production in 2016.
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2014/08/06/pioneer-ceo-us-oil-production-could-hit-14-million-barrelsday/

5. A new study from the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, argues that using solar and wind energy may be the most expensive alternatives to carbon-based electricity generation, even though they require no expenditures for fuel.

The paper, by economist Charles Frank, compares the benefits and costs of renewable energy. The benefits range from the lack of emissions to the savings in expenditures for fuels. The costs include the construction and maintenance of these plants, and the drop in power generated when winds are calm or the Sun doesn’t shine. http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Solar-And-Wind-Power-More-Expensive-Than-Thought.html

6. Steve Forbes: One is the economics profession knows less about money than it did a hundred years ago. And they and others have a vested interest in currency instability. Currency trading, now the volume on a daily basis, is over three trillion dollars.

BGG: Currency trading?

Steve Forbes: Currency trading.

BGG: Wow. Just people changing money back and forth trying to get an edge. It’s a huge, huge business. But it’s not really a business.

Steve Forbes: No, gold would put it out of business. They could do something useful, like medical research.
http://www.mining.com/web/sinning-federal-reserve-undermining-the-dollar-steve-forbes/

A LOOK AHEAD

One of the hot stories making the financial page rounds today involves billionaire bond guru Jeffery Gundlach.

Gundlach was one of the few bond fund managers who called ahead of time the falling interest rate scenario that caught many off guard this year.

But Gundlach in an interview with the Financial Times wasn't looking back singing his own praises. He was scouting out 2020. 

"A lot of things seem to be pointing to the year 2020 as an interesting time-frame," the Times quoted the founder of Double Line, the fund he started in five years ago from scratch that now controls $50 billion.

In short, what Gundlach apparently sees, given all the economic overhangs, from soaring federal deficits to aging populations to the Fed's maturing bond holdings, is what some might label as the second resurrection. In other words, a second round of more QE.

"It seems like one of the consequences of this zero interest rate policy is you've pushed out the problem of refinancing, of rolling over, but you've really compounded the magnitude of it and it seems to be focused around 2020."

In case you don't recognize it, in our view, this is another metaphor for the Piper. Kick the can is a great game, but the Piper has to be paid, one way or the other.

Another one Gundlach's points is the recent 4% second quarter number for the U.S. that MSM, as is their wont, went back-flipping over was bloated "by inventory stocking."

He noted he'd be surprised if 2014 U.S. GDP exceeded 2%
t. man hatter

THREE TIMES BUT NO CHARM

 
 t. man hatter
The formal definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative gross domestic product growth.

Well, say hello to the European Union's third largest economy, Italy. The country's national statistics office yesterday announced the Italian economy in the second quarter shrank by 0.2%. That figure followed a contraction in GDP of 0.1% in the first quarter.

More bad news came with the report that German factory orders declined at the fastest rate in three years and German 10 year bond yields dropped to a record low of 1.1% in the EU's largest economy. 

Toss in the the counter sanctions former German Chancellor Erhard Schroeder's buddy, Vladimir Putin, just winged toward the EU and the U.S. and one could postulate the squeeze is on.  

Two people this news hit hardest are European Central Bank President Mario the Dragster Draghi and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. Recall earlier this year Renzi was pushing for easing regulations that would call for more structural repairs to the infrastructure of the weaker EU members, one of which is Italy.

When you paint the building and don't repair any of the structural defects it's called a superficial face lift. In a nutshell that's been the message of reluctant European leaders all along, just paint over the blemishes with easy money and maybe they will somehow magically disappear.

Renzi's critics--and the list is growing--accuse him of political grandstanding "...instead of implementing  a critical overhaul of the  labor market and the Italian bureaucracy," according to the Financial Times. One economist noted: "Italy has been stuck in stagnation for a year after eight quarters of recession. This raises the urgency for Renzi....to deliver on the economy side and make real reforms."

This is Italy's third recession since 2008.

COLORADO FRACKING FOLLOW UP

When is politics not politics?  

Never.

A follow up to our recent post "Fractured Fracking" in Colorado where two anti-fracking measures were set to go on the November ballot have come under question by two of the state's most powerful Democrats, Governor John Hickenlooper (D) and Representative Jared Polis (D).

The possible deal is about re-election not about the environment or energy independence. As we noted in our earlier post both Hickenlooper and U.S. Senator Mark Udal (D) face re-elections. And fracking for all its suspected ills has helped drive economic growth, according to today's Wall Street Journal. 

That's another way of saying jobs, consumer consumption and all those things that make folks feel better and get in incumbents re-elected. 

For his part Rep. Polis aligned with the anti-fracking environmental crowd. So it's a political game of Hickenlooper-Udal versus Polis-environmentlists. The issue is not lost on Hickenlooper's and Udal's opponents. 

The pro-fracking people countered with their own ballot initiative, "which would withhold oil and gas revenue from communities that tried to limit energy development." So the drill bit, as one might put it, has been honed. This is a pocketbook issue, most likely the only one that ever gets the attention of political hacks.

Fracking in Colorado in the last few years has increased more than 20% and oil production more than doubled, no small items to the state coffer. Now Hickenlooper--supposedly a supporter of fracking, at least during election season-- is pressuring Polis to drop his anti-fracking measures if the industry and its backers would do likewise.

It's a nice feud, one that can expose elected officials for the hypocrites they are. This is about leverage, the winds of change. Pro-fracking people would be wise not to agree to the offer. If they do so now, it will be to their chagrin later.

Once re-elected it will be open season on the fracking industry. You might not want to trust in a higher deity, but putting any trust in politicians is a first-degree fool's errand.

IT"S YOUR TROUGH

Talk about big hogs slopping at the public taxpayer trough.

Multi-giant industrial conglomerate GE is at it again, tossing its considerable weight around in the Export-Import Bank controversy.

Just to refresh, EXIM was originally created to help US small and medium sized businesses sell their products overseas by extending credit to foreign buyers. Now what part of  behemoths like GE and Boeing do you consider small or medium sized?

If you detest crony capitalism, you got to detest this handout. What's caused some of the controversy is a recent study at George Mason University showing that just "10 US companies receive three-quarters of ExIm financing, with GE among the main beneficiaries."

Still another part of the controversy this week stems from what we mentioned last week about US-African trade. The US apparently has fallen behind India, China, Brazil and others in investing there. As we pointed out much of this problem can be placed at the door stoop of the current administration

A question we've posed before and will again: Is there any party this administration isn't late to?

That's just one of the ironies of the tale. Another is GE and it CEO Jeffery Immelt who are one of the 'biggest participants," according to the Financial Times,  '"in the Obama administration's Power Africa initiative to provide $7bn backing for energy projects there over the next five years."

Energy is GE's business. Big power wields big influence. Just last month Standard & Poor's issued a warning that killing off ExIm would negatively effect another big slopper at the trough, Boeing, "the commercial aircraft maker that receives more than a third of the bank's credit."

Now this is just an idling question, you don't suppose GE ever floats any of its paper debt assets through the big rating agency do you? We didn't think so, either.

MSM and the administration is trying to color this as a hate-based, radical idea from conservatives and Tea Party folks. We don't know anyone in the TP, have never met one and have little or no inclination to do so to know this deal is a crony capitalism ringer of the first degree.

If you have an opinion don't let it just idle.
t. man hatter

INTERESTING CHARTS

 
t. man hatter

Two interesting charts.

The opposite of calm is chaos. So what's the opposite of low volatility, violence? MSM likes to poke fun at so-called gold bugs as they run interference for the Fed. But they never mention paper asset hogs.

To us the Fed is nothing more than a coterie of  paper asset hog farmers. They'll toss the slop to anyone and everyone willing to swallow it.

We are among those who think--and we're not shy about saying it, either--inflation will be a bigger problem than currently perceived by many. Reserving the right to be incorrect doesn't disturb us in the least. 

It's part of the reward-risk ratio bureaucrats and politicians are always trying to legislate away. You do your homework and then your take your risks.

We have written about gold before, most recently last month in "Don't Need Your-Well-Thought-Out Advice" and "Gold."

Here is a quote from the source of the above charts.

If we assume inflationary risks are not transitory in the short term, then that means the Fed may ultimately be behind the curve and be considerably lagging in terms of responding to inflation (which I personally do not believe is a real threat just yet). Gold tends to do well in negative real-rate environments, whereby inflation is higher than interest rates. 

We may be on the verge of that happening again, which in turn explains some of the more recent strength in commodities generally. Our equity-sector ATAC Beta Rotation Fund BROTX +0.39%  is currently overweight materials relative to the S&P 500 as momentum persists there, consistent with the idea that inflation expectations are altering. 

So while the Golden Age never actually happened, the Age of Gold still might for those interested in diversifying away from the honey-badger U.S. stock market, which doesn't seem to care about risk until it actually does. I don't know about you, but when I look at a chart of Newmont Mining NEM +1.43% ,  that sure does seem like an interesting spot to position in.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-may-be-entering-a-golden-age-2014-08-04