PPCC: Pisitófilos Creditófagos. Invierno 2019

[CHOSEN]

Después de tantos años algunos todavía estais en el guindo.
Los cisnes negros son los padres.

La "crisis" de la nueva gripe, que apenas ha contagiado a 100.000 personas en todo el mundo (hay 80 millones con SIDA) está siendo utilizado como cisne negro para deshacer las posiciones alcanzadas los últimos años por aquellos mismos que las han tomado.
¿Para qué reconocer mala praxis, pudiendo culpar a un fenómeno aleatorio, socialmente reconocible y fácilmente señalable?

Si no fuese la gripe del murciélago sería cualquier otra cosa, como la muerte de la reina de Inglaterra (oh, sorpresa!) o un maremoto en Nueva Zelanda.
¿Que pasa, que la gripe aviar es un cisne negro y el terrorismo global no?

Antiguamente, los sacerdotes sabían que se acercaba un eclipse.
Éste era vinculado a un hecho cierto e inexcusable, como la siembra, la recogida o el inicio de una guerra. Simplemente se esperaba al momento idóneo para dar la noticia, separarla del interés propio, y vincularla a un fenómeno fácilmente señalable, con ganacia máxima para los intereses privados. ¿Alguien se acuerda HOY del high frecuency trading?  Con la de veces que algunos habéis discutido sobre su esencia mágico-esotérica!!!

Sería ridículo reconocer que hemos quemado toda la cera mientras dormíamos, pudiendo echarle la culpa a cualquier cosa que haga las veces de deus-ex-machina, como es este caso.

No niego la incidencia del coronavirus chino, siempre que sea tomado como lo que es realmente, una vía de escape propuesta "a la fuerza" por China y aceptada por consenso globalmente. Nadie lo reconoce pero todos sabemos lo que es: omertá global.

Como dice el maestro PPCC, no nos da ninguna pena de nadie.
Al fin podemos ver un nuevo amanecer tras el que nos fue robado hace unos años.

[CHOSEN]

PD: la prensa, es decir, los medios de información y comunicación, dirán lo que les digan que tienen que decir. Como cuando proclamaban que las primaveras árabes eran ansia democrática cuando se sabía que eran filiales de Al-Qaeda e ISIS financiadas para la guerra externalizada.

Si alguien a estas alturas y que lea habitualmente a PPCC, sigue creyendo que el Coronavirus es culpable de pérdidas de BILLONES de dólares en la bolsa norteamericana, de verdad, que se lo haga mirar.

edit: Lo que a mi me preocupa es que al final las cifras de mortalidad se queden escasas (como ya se empieza a intuir) y la operación quede abortada a medias.
Entonces si sería gracioso explicar porqué se han volatilizado cientos de miles de millones de dólares por la muerte de veinte ancianos de 80 años con dolencias cardíacas previas, a 12.000Kms de distancia 

[Spheratu]

Si alguien a estas alturas y que lea habitualmente a PPCC, sigue creyendo que el Coronavirus es culpable de pérdidas de BILLONES de dólares en la bolsa norteamericana, de verdad, que se lo haga mirar.

Pero el problema no es ese. Claro que se usa al pobre virus para bajar cotizaciones. El problema es que tan facil como usan al virus, pueden usar su contrario (vacuna, estacionalidad, estancamiento de infectados) y deshacer la corrección en pocas semanas. De que habrá servido entonces todo esto? Ha cambiado algo de fondo? No. Unos cuantos vuelven a forrarse y el status quo sigue intacto. No me sirve que caiga la bolsa si el capitalismo popular sigue intacto. Esperemos que esta vez SI se llegue a la tesitura de tener que hacer cambios profundos.

[teuton]

Imaginemos que el coronavirus es algo estacional. En ese caso, sus efectos dependerán del impacto que haya tenido a todos los niveles. Si su impacto en la economía es menor de lo esperado, entonces el que suba la bolsa dependerá del líquido que haya disponible para esa subida - sea directo (recogido de las ventas que se estén realizando en este momento), o indirecto (sea de magia contable cortesía de las diversas entidades y bancos centrales); y el impacto sobre la población no causará un efecto en cascada que lleve a una recesión (simplemente estaremos con el agua aún mas cerca de nuestras vias respiratorias). Pero si el impacto es prolongado, entonces personalmente no creo que importe mucho si la bolsa pega un super-rebote o no: el agua habrá llegado a las vías respiratorias de la gente corriente, y el efecto en cascada estará servido.

Esto será pasajero, además como dice ppcc interesa que así sea, interesa que se produzca el rebote y que dé la impresión que tú dices, de la vuelta a la tercera recuperación y que nunca va a caer. En realidad será una ilusión, esta es la primera onda creo, si no contamos el rebotillo del gato muerto que hubo, el rebote será la onda 2, cuando cese el coronavirus y luego vendrá la onda 3 de esta onda impulsiva bajista, que será posiblemente la peor.

Cuando cese el coronavirus, las malas noticias seguirán con un retraso, ya que los malos datos macro habrán empeorado considerablemente, pero se darán después, esto ya lo están viendo los bajistas y abrirán cortos en su momento, por lo que otro factor más a tener en cuenta que va a alimentar el arranque de esa tercera onda bajista.

[senslev]

https://blog.smartmoneytrackerpremium.com/2020/03/crash-update-didnt-see-the-oil-price-war.html

Sólo corrección, no mercado bajista y subida hasta los xxxxx miles en el Nasdaq (tipo crash 1987). Puede ser porque el VIX ha llegado a 62, igual otro petardazo con un VIX cerca de 100 y listo.

[Derby]

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/09/stock-market-today-live.html

Stock market live updates: Trump blames oil price war as Dow falls 1,500 points

President Donald Trump said in a series of tweets Monday that falling oil prices were good for consumers, while he blamed the media and Russia and Saudi Arabia “arguing over the price and flow of oil” for the massive sell-off in stocks.

[Derby]

https://edition.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-03-09-20-intl-hnk/index.html

Why US stock trading took a 15-minute break this morning

Stocks resumed trading at 9:49 a.m. ET, after the New York Stock Exchange halted activity for 15 minutes.

What this is about: The NYSE has a series of “circuit breakers” that will kick in to halt market trading if we see severe declines in the S&P 500 index. It's basically an automatic breather to try and calm market.

There are three levels:

Level 1, when there's a 7% decrease – 15 minute halt
Level 2, when there's a 13% decrease – 15 minute halt
Level 3, when there's a 20% decrease – the market closes for the day

[CHOSEN]

El problema es que tan facil como usan al virus, pueden usar su contrario (vacuna, estacionalidad, estancamiento de infectados) y deshacer la corrección en pocas semanas.

No. Si la Historia fuese fácilmente reversible a placer, todavía habría esclavos como en la antigua Roma.

Lo que está desapareciendo es "valoración bursátil", es decir, un dinero que se pagó en su día al comprar una acción, pero que ya no es recuperable. Ya no está, y no va a estar. Nadie te dará lo que pagaste, y ahora no tienes el dinero sino una acción.

Follow the money.
Para que el proceso fuera reversible el precio ascendente de ese "nuevo paradigma" debería ser consignado por alguien, es decir, alguien debería pagarlo, el dinero que no está en la valoración actual y que alguien recibió, debería volver al circuito.
Y eso no va a pasar!!! Porque quien tiene el dinero ahora, a quien le compraron las acciones los que hoy están perdiendo, ese sabía de sobra de que iba este juego. Sabía que tocaba eclipse. Dejó pasar el último dolar.
¿Quien en su sano juicio mantendría acciones cotizadas viendo la serpiencameljirafante?

Ahora quien tiene la acción en caída libre es una gacela. Gacela que como vengo diciendo desde hace tiempo, es "estadísticamente" una triunfador de la burbuja, que metió su dinero sucio en bolsa... y ahora tiene una acción en vez de dinero.

Ya no hay necesidad para el sistema de volver a montar un rally alcista que dure una generación, de la misma forma que los esclavos son menos valiosos para el sistema que los consumidores.
Por eso no es reversible.

[Derby]

https://www.ft.com/content/fe6ad16e-620d-11ea-b3f3-fe4680ea68b5

The oil market just entered uncharted waters

It will be hard if not impossible for Opec to walk back, having started down this path

In one of the biggest ever pivots in the behaviour of oil producers, a failure to agree new cuts led to a breakdown in talks and a decision to end all supply restrictions, thus flooding the market with oil. Brent’s 30 per cent decline as trading started this week will have been viewed with horror in Opec oil ministries.

The cartel’s failure of diplomacy means that more oil supply will be hitting markets just as the coronavirus undermines demand. Saudi Arabia has clearly indicated that while it does not believe it started the fight, it intends to win it. The surge in oil production that is probably coming is a recipe for collapsing oil prices that will in turn undermine the stability of oil-producing economies.

It was Moscow that prompted the volte face. Since it started co-operating with Opec in 2016, Russia has always played hardball, winning concessions for its oil companies and contributing only nominal amounts to collective cuts in output, despite being the world’s second-largest oil producer.

In strategic terms, the Kremlin and Russian firms have always focused more on market share, or volumes sold, than price — even though they, like Opec producers, have benefited from higher oil prices during the years of co-operation. But last week the Russians realised something that has also been haunting oil officials in Saudi Arabia: that the unintended consequence of output cuts has been the higher prices that have kept the US shale oil explosion on track.

Russia could see US oil exports hurting its own markets in Europe and the Mediterranean, as well as the much-coveted, higher-growth markets in Asia. Moscow decided that now was the time to strike, aware that US oil producers required high oil prices to remain going concerns, and observing a general reluctance on Wall Street to put further investment into many of these expanding but dividend-free enterprises.

By ending output cuts, prompting Saudi Arabia and Opec to do the same, Russia has effectively sent its tanks on to the White House lawn.

US oil output increased by 3.4m barrels a day in the three years to 2019, but this growth will now come to a shuddering halt. By plunging the US oil patch into heavy losses that will spark a wave of bankruptcies and consolidation, Moscow has taken aim at President Trump’s much-vaunted US energy independence. This is an economic smash-and-grab and a monumental takedown of US prestige.

As for Saudi Arabia, the kingdom will have another go at prioritising market share over price, as it did in late 2014, when veteran former oil minister Ali al-Naimi opted for a similar strategy. But how long can it survive with Brent crude at $30 a barrel or lower?

Saudi budgets require oil close to $80 to balance. Riyadh can meet its funding requirements by dipping into reserves and by issuing debt, but this is not sustainable over the long term. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s transformation programme — known as Vision 2030 — envisages a diversification away from oil, but achieving that in itself requires revenue from oil. With political and social pressures always bubbling beneath the surface, at some point the kingdom will have to cut its coat according to its cloth.

And what about Opec? As in 2014, it has taken its hand off the tiller. Already the group had just a dwindling band of countries able and willing to restrain oil production. Many of them have seen collapses in oil output due to sanctions (Iran and Venezuela), civil war (Libya), weak governance and security (Nigeria) and over-pumped geology (Angola).

Over the past year this coalition of cutters had effectively shrunk to comprise Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies, Kuwait and the UAE. Iraq, much to the frustration of others within the group, has continued to expand its oil sector and production capacity, in defiance of the Opec agreements it has made.

From a game theory perspective, this moment was always going to come. The prospect of plateauing global oil demand, and then retreat in the face of competing green energy alternatives, has been on the horizon for some time. But the inevitable response from Opec and Russia was not expected to spark such a price vortex so soon.

Having started down this path, it will be difficult if not impossible for Opec to now walk back. It can also bid farewell to the fractious alliance it had built with Russia and others. Oil is far from finished — the global economy still consumes nearly 100m barrels a day. But it is now entering uncharted waters.

[Derby]

https://www.bloombergquint.com/gadfly/saudi-s-oil-crash-will-backfire-as-putin-s-russia-doubles-down

Saudi Arabia’s Oil Crash Has No Quick End





Saudi Arabia’s aggressive price cuts and preparations for a production surge are its attempt to show Russia that it can’t take for granted the kingdom’s role as swing producer. The risk, though, is that just like the Houthis in Yemen, Russia and other big oil producers absorb the pain and cling on, dragging the kingdom into a long oil price war that neither can afford. But the kingdom clearly feel it needs to show it’s a force to be reckoned with — no matter the cost.

[Derby]

https://www.ft.com/content/ef3539ec-5f96-11ea-b0ab-339c2307bcd4

US economy is dangerously dependent on Wall Street whims

The Federal Reserve faces pressure to keep cutting rates to keep asset prices high

Central bankers are clever people. They know that they cannot fix pandemics or political dysfunction with monetary stimulus. But in the US more than anywhere, they have found themselves in an unenviable position: managing an economy that has, over the last several decades, and particularly since 2008, depended on low interest rates to push up asset prices. That in turn has made it less obvious to consumers (and voters) that average real weekly earnings for the bottom 80 per cent are at about the level they were in 1974, and that the things that make people middle class — healthcare, education, and housing — have become unaffordable.

Seen in this light, President Donald Trump’s disingenuous attempts to equate the fortunes of Wall Street with those of the country at large make a kind of grim sense. The value of the S&P 500 is less a gauge of the broad health of US corporations or consumers than it is of the wealth of a few tech firms and value of the 2017 tax cuts. The latter accounted for two-thirds of the aggregate rise in corporate profits between 2012 and today.

But share price increases represent a disproportionate amount of the income tax paid by the top 5 per cent of earners, who pay 60 per cent of income tax receipts. Given the importance of asset price increases in both tax receipts and GDP growth, it is hard to imagine a world in which the Fed won’t keep cutting rates indefinitely. Live by the market, die by the market.
It did not have to be this way, and this situation did not develop overnight. The US built an economy that is dangerously dependent on the whims of Wall Street little by little, since the 1970s onwards. It is the result of policy changes driven by both Democrats and Republicans.

Among them was the 1982 rule that allowed share buybacks in specific conditions, even though this had once been considered market manipulation; and the decision to provide favourable tax treatment to stock options, which allowed already fortunate people to profit from the rising valuations of companies they worked for. The most fundamental change was the shift from defined benefit pensions to defined contribution 401(k) plans, which has linked the future of so many Americans, in a Faustian way, to the fickle fortunes of the market.

All of it was supported by the myth that share prices are the ultimate indicator of what was happening inside a company, and ultimately, an economy.

I don’t think that’s really been true for a long time, something underscored by last week’s death of former General Electric chief executive Jack Welch. He came to represent the rise, and ultimately, the fall of shareholder focused capitalism. After the 2008 crisis it became clear that GE’s share price under Welch had been artificially bolstered by debt and leverage.

Welch eventually rejected shareholder “value” as the “dumbest idea in the world”. I can only hope that this market downturn will force more people to come to the same conclusion. How much longer can we run an economy driven so disproportionately by financially engineered asset bubbles? The next few weeks and months may give us the answer.

[PastorMesetario]

Madre mía qué lluvia de ventas está entrando ahora. Asusta. 

[torre01]

El coronavirus mata ancianos (pensionistas y propietarios de viviendas) y respeta niños (futuros cotizantes y herederos de viviendas).

Curiosamente efectos semejantes a una ley de eutanasia a la medida del Ladrillariado, pero sin el inconveniente de la votación parlamentaria que divide generacionalmente al Ladrillariado entre pensionistas tenedores sin deuda y herederos (casapapis, alquilados o hipotecados periféricos).

Parece un diorama dinámico del ortograma.

Saludos.
_______
P.S.: el coronavirus también es 'eraceroísta' por sus efectos en reducción de emisiones contaminantes, utilización de viviendas-dormitorio antes semivacías (teletrabajo) y por cebarse 'selectivamente' en paralizar emporios de la producción automovilística contaminante (Wuhan y Turín) o en productores petroleros (Irán).

Saludos.

El Coronavirus no es sólo cosa de ancianos

Coronavirus, prof. Aldo Morrone: "È falso dire che colpisce solo gli anziani"
https://www.la7.it/tagada/video/coronavirus-prof-aldo-morrone-e-falso-dire-che-colpisce-solo-gli-anziani-09-03-2020-312173

[Derby]

https://theweek.com/articles/900847

How the oil crash could turn into a much bigger economic shock

Unfortunately for the president, this could also turn into a very concrete lesson in how, given the world's interlinking financial markets and economic webs, a price drop like this can never be written off as simply "good for the consumer." In fact, the economic impact from the coronavirus leading to an oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia is exactly the sort of out-of-left-field chain of events that could cause the unexploded bomb of U.S. corporate debt to finally go off.

These days, the global oil market is probably best understood as a three-way standoff between Saudi Arabian, Russian, and American producers. The first two are state-run oil industries, in which central planners decide how much oil to produce based on political and geostrategic considerations. American oil producers, by contrast, are a scattered and decentralized bunch of market-based actors, who primarily make their decisions based on profits and shareholder payouts. That means there's no one on the U.S. side that Saudi Arabia and Russia can "talk to" and cooperate with on production plans.

The other thing to understand is the colossal amount of debt U.S. producers had to take on to become big global players. The boom in American oil production over the last decade was astounding, but it came along with tons of borrowing to finance the capital-intensive task of shale drilling. U.S. oil and gas producers owe roughly $86 billion, all of which is coming due over the next four years, and plenty of which is due in 2020. A lot of that debt is also very low-quality: American corporations have a significant overleverage problem — companies that already owe a lot of debt taking on even more, making their overall financial position even more precarious — and American oil producers are among the worst offenders. At this point, energy sector debt accounts for 11 percent of America's most popular junk bond trading.

This is where coronavirus, Saudi Arabia, and Russia enter the picture. The COVID-19 outbreaks around the world, and the resulting shutdowns of economic activity and supply chains, have already put a major dent in oil demand. Saudi Arabia wanted to work with Russia to cut production and make sure prices didn't collapse from supply outpacing demand, but Russia didn't want to cooperate, because protecting oil prices would benefit U.S. producers, who couldn't be relied upon to restrain their own production. "Russia has been dropping hints that the real target is the U.S. shale oil producers, because it is fed up with cutting output and just leaving them with space," the energy consulting firm FGE wrote to clients on Sunday.

Oil prices dropped 10 percent on Friday, when talks between Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the rest of the OPEC nations that work with Saudi Arabia ended without an agreement. But then Saudi Arabia really threw down the gauntlet over the weekend: With Russia insisting that every country should just do what it thinks is best, Saudi Arabia reversed course and jacked its oil production up, while cutting its selling prices. The country currently rolls out 9.7 million barrels of oil per day, it's reportedly aiming for 10 million, and it has the ability to go as high as 12.5 million.

Basically, Saudi Arabia called Russia's bluff. "This has turned into a scorched Earth approach by Saudi Arabia, in particular, to deal with the problem of chronic overproduction," Again Capital's John Kilduff told CNBC. Since "the Saudis are the lowest cost producer by far," they can presumably survive a price drop longer than the Russians or the U.S. producers.

More to the point, a price collapse will make it very hard for American producers to repay their debt. And if a lot of them start going bankrupt at once, they could start dragging down the banks that made the loans, widening the shocks throughout the financial markets and seizing up the credit that's available to the rest of the economy as well, including the other overleveraged sectors. One market measure of corporate debt risk saw its biggest jump in almost a decade.

The question now is how low oil prices go, and how long they stay there. The U.S. oil industry has survived major price crashes before, in 2008 and 2014. But it also wasn't facing down a pile of debt like this. West Texas crude just saw its worst single-day drop since the start of the 1991 Iraq War, and its second worst day since trading began in 1983. As of now, its price was still in the low $30s, and analysts seem to think it would have to fall into the $20s for in-the-ground reserves to no longer be valuable enough to serve as collateral for bank loans.

As mentioned, Russia may well knuckle under the cost pressures pretty quickly and return to the bargaining table to hike prices. And even Saudi Arabia itself can only sustain ultra-low prices for so long, as the government's finances and much of the national economy depend on oil revenue. Finally, interest rate cuts by the Fed will allow oil producers and other indebted sectors to refinance at least some of their old debt obligations with newer and cheaper credit. But the Fed's target rate is already pretty close to zero: It only has so much breathing room it can offer, and there's no guarantee it will be enough.

Ultimately, there's just no way of knowing how long either Russia or Saudi Arabia can continue their oil spat, or how much of a revenue collapse the U.S. oil sector can endure, or how much of a fall off in debt payments the larger U.S. financial system can take, or how much additional damage the coronavirus itself will pile onto the whole system. It might be enough to pitch the American economy over the brink, it might not.

We'll find out soon.

[Derby]

https://wolfstreet.com/2020/03/08/good-morning-america-all-heck-broke-loose-in-the-markets-overnight/

Good Morning America, All Heck Broke Loose in the Markets Overnight



The primary target of this price war, however, are the investors in the US shale oil sector. These investors – chasing yield and looking for deals – have been fueling the shale oil sector’s relentless and highly efficient cash-burn machines with hundreds of billions of dollars over the years. And the sector keeps ramping up production not matter how much money they lose and how much cash they burn.

By crushing these investors and sending a bunch of these shale-oil companies into bankruptcy, Saudi Arabia and Russia might hope that new money will refuse to flow into the US shale oil sector, and that the companies will run out of cash to burn, and that production in the US will finally decline and take some pressure off the market.

The timing is impeccable. US shale oil production is still hitting records, flooding the market with crude oil and petroleum products, even as OPEC and Russia were trying to agree to lower production to prop up prices in face of declining global and US oil consumption, now driven by plunging demand from airlines globally and from drivers in China and other countries that have been hit hard by the coronavirus.

If OPEC and Russia increase production in the second quarter, with US production still ramping up and demand globally in steep decline due to the efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus, then global markets will be awash in oil. And the expected collapse in prices is now being priced into crude oil futures.