Sound Of A Bubble Popping Up North—Toronto Homeowners Suddenly in A Rush To Sell
Toronto’s hot housing market has entered a new phase: jittery. After a double whammy of government intervention and the near-collapse of Home Capital Group Inc., sellers are rushing to list their homes to avoid missing out on the recent price gains. The new dynamic has buyers rethinking purchases and sellers asking why they aren’t attracting the bidding wars their neighbors saw just a few weeks ago in Canada’s largest city…..“We are seeing people who paid those crazy prices over the last few months walking away from their deposits,” said Carissa Turnbull, a Royal LePage broker in the Toronto suburb of Oakville, who didn’t get a single visitor to an open house on the weekend. “They don’t want to close anymore.”
‘Getting Trump’ with the New McCarthyism
Yes, I get it. A lot of people want to remove Donald Trump from the presidency for a lot of understandable reasons: his breathtaking incompetence, his relentless narcissism, his destructive policies, etc. But he was elected under the U.S. constitutional system. He may have lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by nearly three million ballots but he did prevail in the Electoral College……Whatever the hurt feelings of the editors at The New York Times and The Washington Post, whatever snarky jokes are told on late-night TV, whatever connect-the-dots conspiracy theories are popular on MSNBC, the idea of telling 63 million Americans that their votes don’t count, that the elites know best, that the President who won under the rules of the game must be ridden out of Washington on a rail will not go down as easily as some people think.
Red Ponzi Pumping—-China’s “National Team” Rescues Stocks After Moody’s Downgrade
Iron ore led a slump in industrial commodities after Moody’s Investor Service downgraded China’s credit rating and warned that the country’s debt position will worsen as its economic expansion slows. However, one glance at the divergence between industrial metals’ collapse and the sudden buying panic in Chinese stocks confirms what Asher Edelman noted yesterday about the US markets, China’s so-called “National Team” was clearly intervening…
Draghi Monetary Madness Update—–For The First Time Ever, European Equities Yield More Than Junk Bonds
Last week, when looking at the the distortion and absurdity unleashed by the ECB’s asset purchase program upon European capital markets, we showed the unprecedented collapse in European junk bond yields as captured by the effective yield of the BofA/ML Euro High Yield Index, which is now trading just shy of all time lows, having dropped below 3% at the end of April, and printed at 2.79% on May 23, within bps of record lows…
Why An Uber-Bear Remains Stubbornly Bearish
It was over half a year ago that many predicted, this site included, that Crispin Odey’s double down, all in bet on central bank failure would be his “make it or break it” swan song, which if incorrect would also lead to the shuttering of his hedge fund. Well, rumors of Odey’s demise appear to have been greatly exaggerated again, because despite being down 9.9% YTD and down 31.1% LTM in his Odey Mac fund, not only is Crispin Odey still around, but he is bearish as ever, as he explains in his latest April letter to clients.
The Other Bubbles—–Wine, Art And Ferraris
The Bernanke-Yellen bubble is impacting many sectors of the economy. Agriculture land, motor vehicles and auto loans, banking, bonds, contemporary art, corporate stocks, higher education and student loans, mergers and acquisitions, ocean shipping and cruise lines, social media, technology, housing, real estate, and land markets have been noticeably affected.
Catalonia Threatens Spain with “Financial Bloodbath”
On Monday El Pais published leaked excerpts from what it claims to be the Catalonian regional government’s road map to independence. The secret document includes a plan for the region to unilaterally break away from Spain should its citizens be prevented from holding a referendum on independence in the fall. It provoked a fierce backlash from Madrid. “This proposal is an unacceptable attempt to blackmail the state,” Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said in a hastily convened press conference. Spain’s defense minister María Dolores de Cospedal likened the plot to a coup d’état. In the meantime, Madrid continues to refuse to even entertain the idea of allowing a referendum on Catalan independence, despite the fact that in just about every survey of the last few years 80% of Catalans, including many unionists, have requested one.
Brennan’s RussiaGate Testimony—-Another Big Fat Zero
John Brennan really screwed the fake news pooch.The former CIA Director told Congress on Tuesday that he has no knowledge of the Trump administration trying to strong-arm intelligence officials into dropping or “pushing back” against the Flynn investigation. This was a major blow to the Washington Post and its juicy scoop about how “President Trump asked two of the nation’s top intelligence officials in March to help him push back against an FBI investigation into possible coordination between his campaign and the Russian government”.
China Downgrade Could Slam Firms Hooked On Dollar Debt
China’s first credit rating downgrade by Moody’s Investors Service since 1989 couldn’t have come at a worse time for the nation’s companies, which have never been more reliant on the overseas bond market for funding……While Chinese companies’ foreign-currency debt is only a fraction of the $9 trillion local bond market, China Inc. is on pace for record dollar bond sales this year after the authorities’ crackdown on financial leverage drove up borrowing costs at home. Overseas borrowing has also been part of the government’s strategy to encourage capital inflows in a bid to ease the depreciation pressure on the yuan.
The $110 Billion Myth of Supporting Saudi Arabia’s Defense Needs
Amidst a range of domestic controversies and the pushback against his agenda and actions, President Trump went back to one of his default personas, that of a self-proclaimed dealmaker “strongly protecting American interests.” During his trip to Saudi Arabia, President Trump signed an almost $ 110 billion arms deal supposedly in support of Saudi Arabia’s defense. How $110 billion worth of killing machinery such as tanks, artillery, helicopters, combatant ships, and other weapons systems reflect the State Department’s slogan “Diplomacy in Action” is a mythological stretch of imagination. More importantly though, this deal is the continuation of global arms trade practices that are sustained by several myths which are driven by a militarist consensus and acceptance of war profiteering regardless of who is President…..
