Nov 242018
 
 November 24, 2018  Posted by at 10:33 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  12 Responses »


Joseph Mallord William Turner The Sun Rising over Water 1825-30

 

Britain’s Opposition Labour Party Plots Overthrow Of Capitalism (R.)
This Sell-Off is Just One Step in Methodical Unwind of Stock Prices (WS)
Oil Plunges More Than 6% Despite Potential OPEC Cut (R.)
Bitcoin Loses 25% Of Its Remaining Value During Thanksgiving Week (CNBC)
Trump Dismisses Report He Is Unhappy With Treasury’s Mnuchin (R.)
Holiday Doings and Undoings (Kunstler)
Rising Fuel Price Protests Should Serve As A Red Alert For Macron (I.ie)
Gibraltar Rocks Final Stages Of Brexit Negotiation (AFP)
Ecuador Ousts Its London Ambassador, ‘Last Diplomat Assange Knew’ (RT)
Prosecution of Julian Assange, America’s Betrayal of Its Own Ideals (CD)
Why You Should Care About the Julian Assange Case (Taibbi)
Anonymous Blows Lid Off Huge Psyop In Europe Funded By UK & US (RT)

 

 

You really think you can win an election saying this?

Britain’s Opposition Labour Party Plots Overthrow Of Capitalism (R.)

The British Labour Party’s would-be finance minister, John McDonnell, has a message for the world: he is deadly serious about overthrowing capitalism and building a socialist society. McDonnell, 67, who describes Karl Marx as one of his main influences, has been at the vanguard of a left-wing revival in Britain’s main opposition party under fellow socialist Jeremy Corbyn. He has promised sweeping nationalization, higher public spending and an overhaul of the banking system. Asked about his entry in the Who’s Who directory of influential people which lists his passion for “generally fermenting the overthrow of capitalism”, McDonnell said it was a joke about beer-making, but he agrees with the principle.

“I believe it. I am serious in my intent. I want to transform this economy,” McDonnell told Reuters in an interview. “That means evolving into a system which can achieve that equality, that democracy, that fairness, and tackles the major challenges that we are facing.” With PM Theresa May’s grip on power looking ever more vulnerable as she faces the most perilous crisis of her premiership struggling to win backing for her Brexit deal, Labour are increasingly confident that they will be the next guardians of the world’s fifth-largest economy. McDonnell’s gambit is that the social discontent in Britain which fueled the shock 2016 Brexit vote runs much deeper, and that voters who feel left behind by decades of unchecked capitalism and wounded by years of public spending cuts will rally to his call.

“(It was) like everyone’s grievance went into one vote,” McDonnell said. The polls show that is only part of the picture: voters are tired of economic austerity and unhappy with May’s Brexit negotiations, but Labour are only marginally ahead of the ruling Conservative Party. Some commentators have suggested they should be polling better against a government in disarray. Nevertheless, the combination of an unsated appetite for change and a Brexit-inspired political crisis which has trashed the centrist orthodoxy of British politics, has left Labour confident they will soon win power. McDonnell said his ambition is create the most radical government in modern British history even as the country is grappling with its exit from the EU, the most complex negotiations in Europe since the end of World War Two.

[..] McDonnell has outlined a program of nationalizing the railways, energy and water companies and the postal service, raising taxes on businesses and the wealthy. This would be combined with increased spending on education, skills training, and health care, and harnessing the financial sector to help fund a huge infrastructure investment. At his party’s annual conference two months ago, McDonnell did little to conceal the scale of his ambition. Businesses were stunned by his plan to force all large companies to hand over a tenth of their equity to their workforce.

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Possible.

This Sell-Off is Just One Step in Methodical Unwind of Stock Prices (WS)

It was an ugly Monday and Tuesday followed by a Wednesday that at first look like a real bounce but ended with the indices giving up their gains. This was followed, mercifully, by Thursday when markets were closed, which was followed unmercifully by Friday, during which the whole schmear came unglued again. The S&P 500 index dropped 0.7% on Friday to 2,632 and 3.8% for Thanksgiving week, though this week is usually – by calendar black-magic – a good week, according to the Wall Street Journal: During Thanksgiving weeks going back a decade, the S&P 500 rose on average 1.3%. This leaves the S&P 500 index 1.5% in the hole year-to-date. It’s now back where it had first been on November 30, 2017:

Clearly, when seen over the longer term, the sell-off for now still belongs to the small-fry among sell-offs, with S&P 500 down just 10.5% from its peak:

The Dow dropped 0.7% on Friday and 4.4% during Thanksgiving week, to 24,286. It’s 1.75% in the hole for the year. Technically speaking, it’s not even in a correction, being down only 9.9% from its peak. And the Nasdaq, dropped 0.5% on Friday and 4.3% during Thanksgiving week. According to the Wall Street Journal, during Thanksgiving week over the past 20 years, the Nasdaq rose on average 1.3%. So this is no good for calendar-black-magic aficionados. Where’s the free-wheeling holiday spirit? The Nasdaq is now down 14.7% from its peak at the end of August but remains up 0.5% year-to-date. The Russell 2000 small-caps index edged down today and is down 14.5% from its peak on August 31. It’s 3% in the hole year-to-date and right back where it had first been on September 27, 2017:

The seven FANGMAN stocks – Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google’s parent Alphabet, Microsoft, Apple, and NVIDIA – fell 1.3% on Friday in combined market cap. Over Thanksgiving week, they have now plunged 6.7%, or by $259 billion. Those are real dollars gone in four trading days with just seven stocks. Since their combined market-cap peak of $4.63 trillion at the end of August, nearly $1 trillion — $994 billion to be precise – has dissolved into ambient air, as their combined market cap has plunged 21.5% in ca. 12 weeks. But if you look at them as individual stocks, it’s even worse. The saving grace for the group as a whole was Microsoft, the second largest stock by market cap, which is threatening to become the largest stock shortly if Apple continues to fall at this pace. Three of the seven have already plunged by 38% to nearly 50%. Two more have plunged by 26% to 27%.

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What is it, 34% since the high this year?

Oil Plunges More Than 6% Despite Potential OPEC Cut (R.)

Oil prices slumped more than 6 percent on Friday, with Brent set for a 12-percent plunge this week, as fears that supply would overpower demand intensified, even as major producers considered cutting output. Oil supply, led by U.S. producers, is growing faster than demand and to prevent a build-up of unused fuel such as the one that emerged in 2015, OPEC is expected to start trimming output after a meeting on Dec. 6. But this has done little so far to prop up prices, which have dropped more than 20 percent so far in November, in a seven-week streak of losses. Deep trade disputes between the world’s two biggest economies and oil consumers, the United States and China, have weighed upon the market.

“The market is pricing in an economic slowdown – they are anticipating that the Chinese trade talks are not going to go well,” said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago. “The market doesn’t believe that OPEC is going to be able to act swiftly enough to offset the coming slowdown in demand.” [..] Market fears over weak demand intensified after China reported its lowest gasoline exports in more than a year amid a glut of the fuel in Asia and globally. Stockpiles of gasoline have surged across Asia, with inventories in Singapore, the regional refining hub, rising to a three-month high while Japanese stockpiles also climbed last week. Inventories in the United States are about 7 percent higher than a year ago.

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Starting to feel serious.

Bitcoin Loses 25% Of Its Remaining Value During Thanksgiving Week (CNBC)

Bitcoin continued its move lower Friday, struggling to find footing after a week of pain for the world’s largest cryptocurrency. The digital asset hit a low of $4,119 Friday, according to data from CoinDesk, bringing its seven-day losses to more than 25 percent. In dollar terms, bitcoin’s value dropped by about $1,400 over that time frame. Other cryptocurrencies didn’t hold up this week either. Not a single one in the top 28 by market capitalization was trading in the green Friday, according to CoinMarketCap.com. XRP, the second-largest by market capitalization, fell 6 percent Friday, bringing its one-week losses to 10 percent. Ether was down 7 percent in 24 hours and lost roughly 30 percent for the week.

The total market capitalization for cryptocurrencies fell to $138.6 billion Friday, according to CoinMarketCap data, its lowest level since September 2017. Since its peak, the market has lost about $700 billion in value, according to the data. The tumble for bitcoin started abruptly last week when it fell below $6,000 and hit a new low for the year. The plunge followed what had been a surprisingly calm few months for bitcoin and a break from the rest of its volatile trading year. Since then, prices have hit new 13-month lows and struggled to move out of the $4,300 range. The price dips are a stark contrast from last Thanksgiving when the cryptocurrency was entering a hot streak thanks to a wave of new retail investors. Since that holiday week last year, prices are down by more than 55 percent.

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“They never like to ask me for a quote b/c it would kill their story..”

Trump Dismisses Report He Is Unhappy With Treasury’s Mnuchin (R.)

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter on Friday that he was quite happy with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s performance, after The Wall Street Journal reported that the president was dissatisfied with Mnuchin. “I am extremely happy and proud of the job being done by @USTreasury Secretary @stevenmnuchin1,” Trump said in a tweet. The Journal reported that Trump blames Mnuchin for the appointment of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who has been steadily raising U.S. interest rates. Trump is concerned that higher rates could undercut economic gains ahead of his 2020 reelection bid, the newspaper reported.

Quoting unnamed sources, the Journal said Trump has also expressed displeasure with Mnuchin over stock market turbulence and the Treasury secretary’s skepticism about the White House trade actions against China. “The FAKE NEWS likes to write stories to the contrary, quoting phony sources or jealous people, but they aren’t true. They never like to ask me for a quote b/c it would kill their story,” Trump said on Twitter. Trump has repeatedly criticized the Fed’s rate increases under Powell. In October, he called the Fed “crazy,” “ridiculous” and “my biggest threat.”

A year ago when Trump picked Powell to head the Federal Reserve, Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker, was a strong advocate of his nomination. The Wall Street Journal, citing a person familiar with the matter, said Trump, in a conversation with someone who praised Mnuchin’s performance, mentioned stock market volatility and said: “If he’s so good, why is this happening?”

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“..Somehow I doubt that this Christmas will win the Bing Crosby star of approval.”

Holiday Doings and Undoings (Kunstler)

Somehow I doubt that this Christmas will win the Bing Crosby star of approval. Rather, we see the financial markets breaking under the strain of sustained institutionalized fraud, and the social fabric tearing from persistent systemic political dishonesty. It adds up to a nation that can’t navigate through reality, a nation too dependent on sure things, safe spaces, and happy outcomes. Every few decades a message comes from the Universe that faking it is not good enough. The main message from the financials is that the global debt barge has run aground, and with it, the global economy. That mighty engine has been chugging along on promises-to-pay and now the faith that sustained those promises is dissolving.

China, Euroland, and the USA can’t possibly meet their tangled obligations, and are running out of tricks for rigging, gaming, and jacking the bond markets, where all those promises are vested. It boils down to a whole lot of people not getting paid, one way or the other — and it’s really bad for business. Our President has taken full credit for the bubblicious markets, of course, and will be Hooverized as they gurgle around the drain. Given his chimerical personality, he may try to put on an FDR mask — perhaps even sit in a wheelchair — and try a few grand-scale policy tricks to escape the vortex. But the net effect will surely be to make matters worse — for instance, if he can hector the Federal Reserve to buy every bond that isn’t nailed to some deadly derivative booby-trap.

But then he’ll only succeed in crashing the dollar. Remember, there are two main ways you can go broke: You can run out of money; or you can have plenty of worthless money.

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Urban vs rural. Just like in America.

Rising Fuel Price Protests Should Serve As A Red Alert For Macron (I.ie)

Within the space of a week, the gilets jaunes have managed to tap into wider discontent with Macron’s presidency and policies, gaining opposition support and momentum as a result. These are not the usual protests or strikes co-ordinated by political parties or unions in France. With no official organisation, no identified leader and no political affiliation, the gilets jaunes phenomenon has been almost completely co-ordinated on social media where it declares “[This] comes about only from the French people”. [..] one thing is certain: their actions have chimed with the public. This despite chaos across France last weekend with roads blocked by protesters at some 2,000 locations. Two people were killed – one when a driver panicked and accidentally accelerated their car into the crowd – in the protests and hundreds reported injured.

Nevertheless, a number of polls have shown that almost three-quarters of French voters approve of the demonstrations, one survey found that more than half of those who voted for Macron support them. The planned tax increases – the price of diesel is due to go up another 6.5 cents per litre and petrol by 2.9 cents – are to come into force in January. They follow a 23pc rise in the cost of diesel and 15pc in petrol in the past year. Internationally, Macron has made much of his commitment to battling climate change and these hikes are part of his domestic policies on that front. His ministers have also argued that the higher price of crude globally also necessitates a rise but protesters complain that fuel taxes have been increasing steadily over the past four years.

One survey this week found that 82pc believe Macron should drop the plans. It also showed that particular demographics – the self-employed and business leaders, plus pensioners and low-income households – were most supportive of the gilets jaunes. The episode also highlights the rift between France’s urban elite and those in its poor rural peripheries. Workers who rely on their cars to get to their jobs in the countryside are particularly aggrieved by the planned tax increases.

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One more topic they try to push into the limitless future.

Gibraltar Rocks Final Stages Of Brexit Negotiation (AFP)

Preparations for a summit to endorse Britain’s deal to quit the European Union risked running aground on the rock of Gibraltar Friday, as Spain defended its veto over the fate of the tiny territory. Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May and leaders of the other 27 EU member states are to meet Sunday to approve their divorce agreement and set a course for negotiating their future post-Brexit relationship. But Spanish officials emerged from talks Friday warning that Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez might not attend unless it is guaranteed that no future accord on EU relations involving Gibraltar will be signed without Madrid’s specific assent.

Visiting Cuba, Sanchez said that if the Gibraltar row is not resolved, he might not go to Brussels on Sunday, warning: “If there’s no agreement, it’s very clear hat will happen, there very probably won’t be a European Council.” In Brussels, Luis Marco Aguiriano Nalda, Spain’s secretary of state for European affairs, said Madrid wanted London to put in writing that it shared Madrid’s interpretation of the negotiated Brexit deal regarding Gibraltar. “We have demanded that it be published by the British authorities before the European Council on Sunday,” he said. In London, however, a Downing Street source said he did not know what document Aguiriano could be referring to and added: “We have negotiated on behalf of the whole of the UK family. That includes Gibraltar and the overseas territories.”

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The torture never stops.

Ecuador Ousts Its London Ambassador, ‘Last Diplomat Assange Knew’ (RT)

Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno has terminated the credentials of his UK ambassador, who has been at the center of negotiating the fate of WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, as concerns mount over the whistleblower’s safety. The decree, with which Moreno effectively sacked Ecuador’s London ambassador Abad Ortiz, was published by WikiLeaks on Wednesday. The document does not offer any explanation as to why Ortiz, who had been his country’s ambassador to the UK since 2015, is now being permanently recalled. Nor does it name a successor for the outgoing diplomat. The decree is effective immediately.

WikiLeaks tweeted that Abad, appointed to the office under President Rafael Correa, was the last diplomat the long-term self-exiled editor knew in the embassy. “All diplomats known to Assange have now been transferred away from the embassy,” the whistleblowing site claimed. This new and sudden twist in the Assange saga has been met with concern by his supporters, with some suggesting that Moreno is doing Washington’s bidding by removing people who might have stood by Assange and opposed his potential handover to the British police – which is expected to bring about a swift extradition to the US. The dismissal has been called “a silent pro-US coup.”

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Best piece on Assange in a while, from Nozomi Hayase.

Prosecution of Julian Assange, America’s Betrayal of Its Own Ideals (CD)

Just as the Founding Fathers of the United States, by revolting against the autocratic rule of King George were regarded as traitors, by aiding ordinary people expose and defy unjust secret law, WikiLeaks too has been branded as an enemy of the state. Trump’s Secretary of State and the former CIA director, Mike Pompeo calls WikiLeaks a non-state hostile intelligence agency, claiming that the organization threatens American values and needs to be shut down. Members of the US Congress urged the Ecuadorian President to persecute Assange, calling him a “dangerous criminal” and a “threat to global security”. While all these vicious verbal attacks are thrown at him, Assange remains in confinement, over the past months, being completely shut out from the outside, being continually deprived of fresh air, access to medical care and sunlight by the UK government in violation of UN rulings.

All wars start and are fueled by lies and propaganda. Once it was the Vietnam War, where under the command of the US President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Gulf of Tonkin lies unleashed military forces into Southeast Asia. Then came the invasion of Iraq with the former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech at the UN, falsely claiming Iraq had ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’. This battle against free speech is another secret war of this empire. It now has become a fog of war, where with the hype of Russia Gate that was created out of thin air, the public was prevented from seeing who the real enemies are.

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Taibbi’s piece is okay, and he says some good things, but he doesn’t appear to like Assange, and fails to hide that.

Valid point he makes: The -secret- charges vs Assange have nothing to do with Trump, they pre-date his presidency by years.

Why You Should Care About the Julian Assange Case (Taibbi)

It always seemed that Assange viewed his primary role as being a pain in the ass to this increasingly illegitimate system of secrets, a pure iconoclast who took satisfaction in sticking it to the very powerful. I didn’t always agree with its decisions, but Wikileaks was an understandable human response to an increasingly arbitrary, intractable, bureaucratic political system. That it even had to exist spoke to a fundamental flaw in modern Western democracies — i.e. that our world is now so complex and choked with secrets that even releasing hundreds of thousands of documents at a time, we can never be truly informed about the nature of our own societies. Moreover, as the Snowden episode showed, it isn’t clear that knowing unpleasant secrets is the same as being able to change them.

In any case, the institutions Wikileaks perhaps naively took on once upon a time are getting ready to hit back. Frankly it’s surprising it’s taken this long. I’m surprised Assange is still alive, to be honest. If Assange ends up on trial, he’ll be villainized by most of the press, which stopped seeing the “lulz” in his behavior for good once Donald Trump was elected. The perception that Assange worked with Vladimir Putin to achieve his ends has further hardened responses among his former media allies. As to the latter, Assange denies cooperating with the Russians, insisting his source for the DNC leak was not a “state actor.” It doesn’t matter. That PR battle has already been decided.

Courts have held reporters cannot be held liable for illegal behavior of sources. [..] It’s always been the source’s responsibility to deal with that civil or criminal risk. The press traditionally had to decide whether or not leaked material was newsworthy, and make sure it was true. The government has been searching for a way to change that equation. The Holy Grail would be a precedent that forces reporters to share risk of jail with sources. Separate from Assange, prosecutions of leakers have sharply escalated in the last decade. The government has steadily tiptoed toward describing publishers as criminal conspirators.

It’s impossible to know exactly what recent news about an indictment means until we see it (the Reporters’ Committee for the Freedom of the Press has already filed a motion to unseal the charges). If there is a case, it could be anything in the federal criminal code, perhaps even unrelated to leaks. Who knows? But the more likely eventuality is a prosecution that uses the unpopularity of Assange to shut one of the last loopholes in our expanding secrecy bureaucracy. Americans seem not to grasp what might be at stake. Wikileaks briefly opened a window into the uglier side of our society, and if publication of such leaks is criminalized, it probably won’t open again.

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Europe needs an enemy. Or rather, NATO does.

Anonymous Blows Lid Off Huge Psyop In Europe Funded By UK & US (RT)

Anonymous has published documents which it claims have unearthed a massive UK-led psyop to create a “large-scale information secret service” in Europe – all under the guise of countering “Russian propaganda.” In a document dump on November 5, the group exposed the UK-based ‘Integrity Initiative’, said to have been established by the ominously titled Institute for Statecraft in 2015. The main objective is “to provide a coordinated Western response to Russian disinformation and other elements of hybrid warfare.” The Institute for Statecraft is affiliated with the NATO HQ Public Diplomacy Division and the Home Office-funded ‘Prevent’ program, so objectivity is, of course, at the forefront of their work.

Operating on a budget of £1.9 million (US$2.4 million), the secretive Integrity Initiative consists of “clusters” of local politicians, journalists, military personnel, scientists and academics. The team is dedicated to searching for and publishing “evidence” of Russian interference in European affairs, while themselves influencing leadership behind the scenes, the documents claim. The UK establishment appears to be conducting the very activities of which it and its allies have long-accused the Kremlin, with little or no corroborating evidence. The program also aims to “change attitudes in Russia itself” as well as influencing Russian speakers in the EU and North America, one of the leaked documents states.

At present, the vast network allegedly has clusters for Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Norway, Serbia, and Montenegro… but there’s more! According to the Anonymous leak, major plans to expand the sphere of influence throughout eastern Europe, the US, and Canada, as well as the MENA region, are allegedly underway. The clusters’ work is apparently done under absolute secrecy via concealed contacts embedded throughout British embassies, the leak claims, some of which are listed as part of the documentation.

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Nov 202018
 


Henri Rousseau The waterfall 1910

 

China’s Next Crisis: Companies Guaranteeing Each Other’s Debt (ZH)
Another Volatility Spike May Be Ahead (Colombo)
FANGMAN Stocks Plunge 4.4%, Down $905 Billion, or 20%, since Aug. 31 (WS)
Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi Chief Ghosn Arrested Over Financial Misconduct (AFP)
Dozens In Saudi Royal Family Turn Against Crown Prince (R.)
Germany Bans 18 Saudis Linked To Khashoggi Murder From Schengen Zone (AP)
France Says To Decide Soon On Sanctions Over Khashoggi Killing (R.)
Saudis, Houthis Agree To Yemen Peace Talks (ZH)
A Revote Is Necessary After Brenda Snipes Resigns (Vos)
White House Restores Acosta’s Press Pass, Issues News Conference Rules (MW)
Britain’s Enemy Is Not Russia But Its Own Ruling Class (Wight)
Surge In Marine Refuges Brings World Close To Protected Areas Goal (G.)
Fishing Nations Fail In Bid To Cut Quotas For Depleted Bigeye Tuna (AFP)

 

 

Simple and direct swindle. I’ll guarantee your debt if you guarantee mine, it doesn’t matter if we’re both broke. Beijing has known about this for years, but like with the shadow banks, decided to let it flourish because that meets its goals. Both are examples of how China can ‘grow’ its debt, without this showing up in its books. Don’t let the PBOC do it, people can see that.

China’s Next Crisis: Companies Guaranteeing Each Other’s Debt (ZH)

[..] the province of Shandong has emerged as the potential epicenter for the next debt crisis: here, at least 20 private firms provide guarantees that account for at least 10% of their total net assets – a ratio surpassing all other regions, according to Lv Pin, an analyst from CITIC Securities. “Private firms in Shandong have been exposed to more risks as they are caught up in the cross-guarantee trap, with bonds being dumped on the secondary market,” said Chen Su, bond portfolio manager at Qingdao Rural Commercial Bank Co. And, as noted above, local companies started suffering more financing difficulties as banks cut lending to this region earlier this year, Su said.

What makes this particular problem especially vexing is that, like a loose thread, once one company with cross-guarantees finds itself unable to fund its debt obligations, a cross-guarantee cascade is sprung, and dozens of other firms may end up unable to either satisfy their “guaranteed” commitments to the original debtor, until – ultimately – they are unable repay their own creditors. Bloomberg notes that cross-guarantee troubles have been cropping up for a while: “When a disclosure last year showed that Shandong Yuhuang Chemical Co. had guaranteed 1.35 billion yuan of obligations tied to Hongye Chemical Group, yields on Yuhuang’s 2020 dollar note shot up more than 2.30 percentage points in a week.”

For now, there hasn’t been a default serious enough to drag down numerous firms at the same time, although that may soon change. However, to make sure it doesn’t, China is engaging in what it does best to avoid a credit crisis: government funded bailouts. Sure enough, the province of Shandong is making efforts to avert any credit collapse. Its state assets regulator said a government-backed 10 billion yuan fund will be set up to address liquidity risks at listed companies, the China Securities Journal reported on Friday. More broadly, as we reported two weeks ago, China’s central bank has launched initiatives to aid credit to small and medium enterprises, and support bond issuance.

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The spike is guaranteed, it’s only the timing that’s not.

Another Volatility Spike May Be Ahead (Colombo)

The chart below shows the VIX Volatility Index, which appears to be forming a triangle pattern that may indicate that another big move is ahead. If the VIX breaks out of this pattern in a convincing manner, it would likely lead to even higher volatility and fear (which would correspond with another leg down in the stock market). On the other hand, if the VIX breaks down from this pattern, it could be the sign of a more extended market bounce or Santa Claus rally ahead.

In my early-October volatility warning, one of the charts I showed was the inverted 10-year/2-year Treasury spread and how it leads the VIX by approximately three years. According to this logic, the January and October volatility spikes were only the beginning of a much larger bullish volatility cycle (ie., one that accompanies a full-blown bear market).

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Easy money, easy losses.

FANGMAN Stocks Plunge 4.4%, Down $905 Billion, or 20%, since Aug. 31 (WS)

Folks who went through the wholesale Nasdaq destruction of 2000-2002 will just smile mildly because that’s when the Nasdaq, as the dotcom bubble imploded, lost 78%. Given our Everything Bubble is even bigger and crazier, the Nasdaq’s current sell-off barely registers on my own Richter scale, so to speak. The Dow fell 1.6%, is down just 7.2% from its peak, and for the year is clinging to a 1.2% gain. And the S&P 500 dropped 1.7% today and is down 8.5% from the peak. It too remains, if by the thinnest margin, in the green for the year. Nevertheless, real sums have started to evaporate. And much of it happened with the biggest stocks in so-called tech.

The seven FANGMAN stocks – Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google’s parent Alphabet, Microsoft, Apple, and NVIDIA – got hosed today. Again. Their combined market cap dropped 4.4% today, giving up $170 billion without breaking into a sweat. Since their combined market-cap peak of $4.63 trillion at the end of August, $905 billion have dissolved into ambient air. Down 19.6% in ca. 11 weeks. Despite the sell-off, the FANGMAN as a whole are still green for the year, and are back where they’d first been on January 11. So, from that perspective, this $905 billion that disappeared isn’t any kind of big deal unless it’s your money that disappeared along with it:

Let’s start by blaming Apple due to its number 1 mega-cap status. Its shares dropped nearly 4% today and are down 20.4% from their peak at the beginning of October. Once upon a time, the company was worth $1.12 trillion. It ended the day at $882 billion. $238 billion gone in ca. eight weeks. Not a day goes by when we don’t hear from an Apple supplier blaming an unnamed huge customer that can only be Apple for having to slash their revenue forecasts – apparently because three iPhone models are not selling very well. Apple’s principle that it can always make up for falling sales of devices by raising prices even further on the fewer devices it sells can only succeed for so long. At some point, consumers switch to something else or just refuse to “upgrade” at an ever faster rate, as Apple has to raise prices at an ever faster rate…. You know where this is going.

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Making tens of millions a year wasn’t enough.

Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi Chief Ghosn Arrested Over Financial Misconduct (AFP)

Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn faces being fired this week after being arrested in Japan over allegations of financial misconduct, the firm said Monday, in a stunning fall from grace for one of the world’s best-known businessmen. Ghosn’s arrest and his likely dismissal from Nissan, as well as possibly from Mitsubishi and Renault, sent shockwaves through the auto industry, where he is a towering figure, credited with turning around several major manufacturers. Besides being chairman of Nissan, the 64-year-old is also CEO of Renault and leads the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi alliance.

Nissan’s board will meet Thursday to decide his fate, and Mitsubishi said it would propose he be dismissed as chairman “promptly.” Renault said its board would meet “shortly”, after Ghosn was detained over allegations including underreporting his income. At a hastily organised press conference, Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa expressed “despair,” but also suggested that Ghosn had accrued too much power and eluded proper oversight. “Too much authority was given to one person in terms of governance,” he told reporters at Nissan’s headquarters in Yokohama. “I have to say that this is a dark side of the Ghosn era which lasted for a long time.”

The news of Ghosn’s downfall emerged unexpectedly on Monday evening, with local media first reporting he was being questioned by prosecutors and that Nissan’s headquarters was being raided. Shortly afterwards, Nissan said in a statement that it had been investigating Ghosn and Representative Director Greg Kelly for months after a whistleblower report. “These two gentleman are arrested this evening, that’s what I understand,” Saikawa said at the press conference. He said the company had uncovered years of financial misconduct including under-reporting of income and inappropriate personal use of company assets.

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Waiting for the King to die. Then let the war games begin. Meanwhile, can Trump afford to contradict the CIA? If he follows the CIA conclusion that MbS did it, what risk is that to the petrodollar? Shouldn’t Congress speak out on this?

Dozens In Saudi Royal Family Turn Against Crown Prince (R.)

Amid international uproar over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, some members of Saudi Arabia’s ruling family are agitating to prevent Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from becoming king, three sources close to the royal court said. Dozens of princes and cousins from powerful branches of the Al Saud family want to see a change in the line of succession but would not act while King Salman – the crown prince’s 82-year-old father – is still alive, the sources said. They recognize that the king is unlikely to turn against his favorite son, known in the West as MbS. Rather, they are discussing the possibility with other family members that after the king’s death, Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, 76, a younger full brother of King Salman and uncle of the crown prince, could take the throne, according to the sources.

Prince Ahmed, King Salman’s only surviving full brother, would have the support of family members, the security apparatus and some Western powers, one of the Saudi sources said. Prince Ahmed returned to Riyadh in October after 2-1/2 months abroad. During the trip, he appeared to criticize the Saudi leadership while responding to protesters outside a London residence chanting for the downfall of the Al Saud dynasty. He was one of only three people on the Allegiance Council, made up of the ruling family’s senior members, who opposed MbS becoming crown prince in 2017, two Saudi sources said at the time.

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Germany decides for 26 other sovereign nations who they can let in (yeah, they talked to France and UK). Can Hungary do the same? If not, that’s a really big problem for the EU. Some more equal than others.

Germany Bans 18 Saudis Linked To Khashoggi Murder From Schengen Zone (AP)

Germany’s foreign minister says Berlin has banned 18 Saudi nationals from entering Europe’s border-free Schengen zone because they are believed to be connected to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Heiko Maas told reporters in Brussels on Monday that Germany issued the ban for the 26-country zone in close co-ordination with France, which is part of the Schengen area, and Britain, which is not. “There are more questions than answers in this case, with the crime itself and who is behind it,” he said. Turkish and Saudi authorities say that Khashoggi was killed on Oct. 2 in Istanbul by a team from the kingdom, after he went to the Saudi Consulate to get marriage documents.

Maas said the 18 Saudis are “allegedly connected to this crime” but gave no further information. His Berlin office said they can’t release the names due to German privacy protections. The move comes a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said there was no reason for him to listen to a recording of the “very violent, very vicious” killing of Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post who had been critical of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

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They won’t do anything, other than banning a few people pointed out by the Saudi’s themselves: “..we don’t intend to meddle in how the Saudi authorities are going to resolve this.”

France Says To Decide Soon On Sanctions Over Khashoggi Killing (R.)

France will decide very soon to impose sanctions on individuals linked to the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Monday. “We are working very closely with Germany at this moment … and we will decide ourselves a certain number of sanctions very quickly over what we know (about the murder),” Le Drian told Europe 1 radio when asked whether Paris would follow Germany in imposing travel bans on Saudi individuals. “But we believe that we need to go beyond that, because the whole truth needs to be known.” “We want all the truth to be established and today it’s not the case. When I say all the truth, I mean the circumstances, those responsible need to be designated and once we’ve decided ourselves on the subject then we’ll take the necessary sanctions.”

French reaction has been relatively guarded given it is keen to retain its influence with Riyadh and protect commercial relations spanning energy, finance and military weapons sales. Asked about a CIA assessment blaming Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) for the killing and whether he could stay in his position, Le Drian said Paris had no intention of meddling in Saudi affairs. “He took some very strong initiatives that nobody was expecting … very significant initiatives and a modernization project that everyone appreciated,” Le Drian said. “What we’re seeing today is that it’s more complicated than that, but we don’t intend to meddle in how the Saudi authorities are going to resolve this.”

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Look like this might be what he US gets from the Khashoggi killing.

Saudis, Houthis Agree To Yemen Peace Talks (ZH)

The prospect for peace – or at least a lasting ceasefire – is advancing rapidly following a surprise weekend proposal by Yemen’s Houghis to halt all attacks on Saudi coalition forces. On Sunday the head of Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi Supreme Revolutionary Committee Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, said “We are willing to freeze and stop military operations” — something which now appears to have taken effect, according to a breaking Reuters report. In the biggest turning point in the war which has raged since 2015, Reuters confirms: “Houthi rebels in Yemen said on Monday they were halting drone and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and their Yemeni allies, responding to a demand from the United Nations.”

“We announce our initiative…to halt missile and drone strikes on the countries of aggression,” an official Houthi statement reads. Crucially, it appears this halt in fighting was precipitated by a Saudi agreement to the Houthi extension of an olive branch as according to the AFP Yemen’s internationally recognized Saudi-backed government says it has informed UN envoy Martin Griffiths it is ready to take part in proposed peace talks with Houthi rebels to be held in Sweden. “The [Saudi-backed Yemen] government has informed the UN envoy to Yemen … that it will send a government delegation to the talks with the aim of reaching a political solution,” Yemen’s pro-Saudi foreign ministry said, quoted by the official Saba news agency.

[..] On Monday Saudi King Salman told his country’s top advisory body, the Shura Council: “our support for Yemen was not an option but a duty… to help the Yemeni people confront the Iran-backed militias” — choosing to frame the ceasefire as if Riyadh has been on the side of “the people” the whole time. The King agreed there should be a “political solution” and a “comprehensive national dialogue” in Yemen, according to Reuters.

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Tech progress has bypassed the US. It can’t even organize an election.

A Revote Is Necessary After Brenda Snipes Resigns (Vos)

Recent press reports indicated that Brenda Snipes submitted her resignation from her position as Broward County Supervisor of Elections. The news does little to ameliorate the devastating corruption riddling Broward County politics. In the eyes of many observers, Snipes and her associates should rightfully be serving prison sentences for repeated election rigging that became colloquially known as the ‘Brenda Snipes Process.’ Shortly after the news was announced, Tim Canova called for the resignation of Snipes’s Director, Dozel Spencer. Likewise, many point out that Brenda Snipes is simply the public face of a deeply corrupt political system, and without real change, business will most likely continue as usual in the Southern Florida county.

In this writer’s opinion, two steps are as necessary as they are unlikely to be implemented: invalidation of the congressional race in the 23rd Congressional district, and prosecution of those involved in election rigging, including Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. As readers may recall, Brenda Snipes and former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz have been responsible for multiple instances actual election interference and actual data breaches that may have benefitted foreign interests. While the entire beltway establishment collectively lost its mind over fictitious allegations of Russian hacking and election interference, the real culprits have escaped both punishment and press scrutiny. It was Wasserman-Schultz who infamously worked to tip the scale in favor of Hillary Clinton’s campaign during the 2016 Democratic Primary.

She is the only defendant named personally in the ongoing DNC Fraud lawsuit, in which lawyers for the defense infamously argued that the DNC has the right to favor one primary candidate over another, later claiming that such practice is protected by the first amendment, despite the fact that it runs contrary to the party’s charter. Shortly before this year’s midterms, Donald Trump’s Department of Justice announced it would not prosecute the Awan scandal, in which Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was also personally embroiled. Disobedient Media’s Kenneth Whittle reported on concerns that the Awan brothers may have passed sensitive material stolen from Congress members to countries including Israel, Saudi Arabia, and China via Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI.

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He gets a single question.

White House Restores Acosta’s Press Pass, Issues News Conference Rules (MW)

The White House said Monday it restored CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s press pass, as well as instituted a set of rules to govern future news conferences. Acosta’s pass had been revoked — then temporarily restored by a judge — following a testy news conference with President Donald Trump. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said the administration notified Acosta his pass was restored, but also that he and other reporters would need to abide by four rules. The rules direct a journalist to ask a single question; permit journalists follow-up questions at the discretion of the president or other officials; require journalists to give up a microphone to other journalists; and threaten the revocation of journalists’ passes for not respecting the rules.

Sanders also hinted at the possibility more rules could be forthcoming. “It would be a great loss for all if, instead of relying on the professionalism of White House journalists, we were compelled to devise a lengthy and detailed code of conduct for White House events,” she said in a statement. Acosta and Trump sparred at a Nov. 7 news conference. Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, later temporarily restored Acosta’s credentials. The rules and restoration of his pass come after the administration initially indicated it planned to try to keep excluding the CNN reporter from the White House.

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Not a lot of shame left there. Straight back to the days of Marx and Dickens.

Britain’s Enemy Is Not Russia But Its Own Ruling Class (Wight)

As the UK political establishment rips itself to pieces over Brexit, a far greater crisis continues to afflict millions of victims of Tory austerity. A devastating UN report into poverty in the UK provides incontrovertible evidence that the enemy of the British people is the very ruling class that has gone out of its way these past few years to convince them it is Russia. Professor Philip Alston, in his capacity as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, spent two weeks touring the United Kingdom. He did so investigating the impact of eight years of one of the most extreme austerity programs among advanced G20 economies in response to the 2008 financial crash and subsequent global recession.

What he found was evidence of a systematic, wilful, concerted and brutal economic war unleashed by the country’s right-wing Tory establishment against the poorest and most vulnerable section of British society – upending the lives of millions of people who were not responsible for the aforementioned financial crash and recession but who have been forced to pay the price. From the report’s introduction: “It…seems patently unjust and contrary to British values that so many people are living in poverty. This is obvious to anyone who opens their eyes to see the immense growth in foodbanks and the queues waiting outside them, the people sleeping rough in the streets, the growth of homelessness, the sense of deep despair that leads even the Government to appoint a Minister for Suicide Prevention and civil society to report in depth on unheard of levels of loneliness and isolation.”

Though as a citizen of the UK I respectfully beg to differ with the professor’s claim that such social and economic carnage seems “contrary to British values,”(on the contrary it is entirely in keeping with the values of the country’s Tory establishment, an establishment for whom the dehumanization of the poor and working class is central to its ideology), the point he makes about it being “obvious to anyone who opens their eyes,” is well made. For it is now the case that in every town and city centre in Britain, it is impossible to walk in any direction for more than a minute before coming across homeless people begging in the street. And the fact that some 13,000 of them are former soldiers, casualties of the country’s various military adventures in recent years, undertaken in service to Washington, exposes the pious platitudes peddled by politicians and the government as reverence for the troops and their ‘sacrifice,’ as insincere garbage.

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Oh yeah, we’re doing just great. Paper parks don’t protect a thing.

Surge In Marine Refuges Brings World Close To Protected Areas Goal (G.)

A record surge in the creation of marine protected areas has taken the international community close to its goal of creating nature refuges on 17% of the world’s land and 10% of seas by 2020, according to a new UN report. Protected regions now cover more than five times the territory of the US, but the authors said this good news was often undermined by poor enforcement. Some reserves are little more than “paper parks” with little value to nature conservation. At least one has been turned into an industrial zone. More than 27m square kilometres of seas (7% of the total) and 20m sq km of land (15% of the total) now have protected status, according to the Protected Planet report, which was released on Sunday at the UN biodiversity conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

Almost all of the growth has been in marine regions, most notably with the creation last year of the world’s biggest protected area: the 2m sq km Ross Sea reserve, one-fifth of which is in the Antarctic. The no-fishing zone will be managed by New Zealand and the US. “We have seen an enormous expansion in the past two years. There is now more marine protected area than terrestrial, which nobody would have predicted,” said Kathy McKinnon of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. “I think we’ll continue to see a substantial increase, I’d guess, to at least 10% in the near future.” The UN convention on biological diversity says it has received national commitments for an additional 4.5m sq km of land and 16m sq km of oceans to be given protected status in the next two years.

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I have an idea how this is going to end. Jellyfish sandwiches.

Fishing Nations Fail In Bid To Cut Quotas For Depleted Bigeye Tuna (AFP)

Dozens of nations on Monday failed to agree on measures to preserve one of the planet’s most valuable fish: the bigeye tuna, backbone of a billion-dollar business that is severely overfished. Some 50 countries as well as European Union member states wrapped up a meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) in the Croatian seaside city of Dubrovnik without reaching a consensus on quotas. “It’s a setback and it’s bad news,” said Javier Garat Perez, secretary general of the Spanish fishing confederation Cepesca. Scientists shocked many in the industry last month when they warned that unless catch levels are sharply reduced, stocks of the fatty, fast-swimming predator could crash within a decade or two.

They warned that populations had fallen to less than 20 percent of historic levels. Less iconic than Atlantic bluefin but more valuable as an industry, bigeye (Thunnus obesus) – one of several so-called tropical tunas – is prized for sashimi in Japan and canned for supermarket sales worldwide. Three years ago, ICCAT introduced a 65,000-tonne catch limit for the seven largest fishers of bigeye, and a moratorium in certain areas of ocean. But other countries are not bound by the quotas, and bigeye hauls last year topped 80,000 tonnes – far too high to begin replenishing stocks.

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