Armageddon économique ?

[Hayek's plosive]

Soros attaque le renminbi.

[FabriceM]

Soros attaque le renminbi.

 

 

George Soros may have broken the BOE and may well have been at least partially to blame for the Asian Financial Crisis, but he will not win an FX battle with the PBoC. At least that’s Beijing’s message to the billionaire, as conveyed via a characteristically hilarious “op-ed” in the People’s Daily entitled “Declaring war on China’s currency? Ha ha [16]”

 

Yes, “ha, ha.” Although there’s nothing funny about the $1 trillion in capital that fled the country [17] in 2015 on the heels of the PBoC’s bungled effort to “manage” a controlled devaluation of the yuan.

 

Although Soros didn’t specifically mention either the RMB or the HKD, he did indicate he is betting against Asian currencies in an interview with Bloomberg TV last week and that, apparently, was cause for Beijing to issue a stern warning

“Soros’s war on the renminbi and the Hong Kong dollar cannot possibly succeed — about this there can be no doubt,” the People’s Daily says, after calling Soros “the financial crocodile,” and blaming the billionaire for “increasing volatility in already unstable financial markets.”

 

Soros, quel que soit son levier, est trop petit pour briser la PBoC a lui tout seul.

Il est forcément la (futur) tête de pont d'une coalition.

Coalition qui pourrait être dans une stratégie type : pile tu perds, face je gagne.

Pile : la PBoC plie, je remporte mon pari.

Face : la PBoC résiste, je perds de ce côté, mais de l'autre la liquidation de bons US et le bordel générés donnent une justification et la possibilité technique d'un QE4. Le reste de mes actifs remontent.

[Tortue joviale]

Pour ceux qui s'interessent au transport maritime et dry baltic index:

Une enquete sur la situation actuelle de la part des journalistes de Bloomberg

 

The Shipping News Says the World Economy Is Toast

 

In October 2008, as the repercussions of the financial crisis were starting to ripple through the global economy, I noticed a press release from Swedish truckmaker Volvo saying that its European order book had fallen by more than 99 percent between the third quarters of 2007 and 2008 -- to just 155 from 41,970. That prompted me to study various other real-world activity measures ranging from shipping to air freight, and to conclude that "the news is all bad and getting worse, fast." The same exercise today, I'm afraid to say, leads me to a similar conclusion about the growth outlook.

Here's a chart showing what's happening to the volume of goods being shipped in containers from China's ports, one for the country and one for Shanghai. Both indexes are compiled by the Shanghai Shipping Exchange, and cover shipments to the rest of the world including Europe, the U.S. and Africa; activity is down more than 40 percent from its peak in mid-2012:

SOURCE: SHANGHAI SHIPPING EXCHANGE VIA BLOOMBERG

The traditional global shipping measure is called the Baltic Dry Index. Shipping purists (who rival gold bugs in their dedication to minutiae) will tell you it mostly reflects how many vessels are afloat on the world's oceans; a glut of shipbuilding means more boats available, which drives down the cost of shipping bulk raw materials such as iron ore, steel and coal. But given the fragile state of the global economy, it's hard to shake the feeling that the index has been trying to tell us something important about global demand in recent years:

 

SOURCE: BLOOMBERG

There's a similarly contractionary pattern in the available data on air freight. Here's a chart showing tons of goods shipped per mile across U.S. skies since the start of the decade:

And here's the equivalent chart for Europe, this time in tons per kilometer:

While neither chart shows the volume of airborne freight falling off a cliff, both are drifting lower -- which is not what you want to see at this point in what is supposed to be a nascent global economic recovery.

So what about Volvo's order book? In the third quarter of 2015, the company had orders for just 42,648 trucks, a 30 percent slump from the end of 2014 and the lowest level in two years:

While that's nowhere near as dramatic as the 2008 decline, it does suggest that companies who are in the business of moving goods by road from A to B aren't investing in any expansion of their fleets.  

There's a scene in the film adaptation of Annie Proulx's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Shipping News": An old newshound explains to newbie journalist Kevin Spacey how dark clouds on the horizon justify the hyperbolic headline "Imminent Storm Threatens Village."

"But what if no storm comes?" Spacey asks. The veteran replies with a second-day headline: "Village Spared From Deadly Storm." Unfortunately, having survived the storm fanned by subprime mortgages and the credit crisis, the clouds are gathering again over the global village we live in; they are getting darker every day.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

 

[FabriceM]

Note : Pour la lisibilité du message et du fil en général, ça vaut le coup de planquer ces grands graphiques et autres images derrière des balises

.

[poney]

Tiens, les CDS sont en train d'exploser depuis janvier.

Ça me rappelle un truc.

[Neomatix]

Dans le pétrole particulièrement ou partout pareil ?

[poney]

https://next.ft.com/content/449516ce-cebd-11e5-831d-09f7778e7377

A la Deutsche Bank qui se fait de grosses réserves de cash

[POE]

Le CAC sous les 4000, ça c'est un signe.

[Cugieran]

La prod industrielle française en recul de 1.6% en décembre.

[Nigel]

[Tortue joviale]

Les mauvaises dettes des banques Chinoises pourraient causer des pertes de 400% le niveau de la crise des subprime. 

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-10/bass-says-china-s-banking-losses-may-top-400-of-subprime-crisis

 

Sinon, une entreprise Americaine sur quatre (parmis celles presentes en Chine) annonce des plans pour quitter le pays, d'apres la Chambre de Commerce Americaine en Chine.

 

[Rusty]

Le CAC sous les 4000, ça c'est un signe.

 

Et sous les 3900 à l'instant. Je ne sais pas où on va mais on y va à grande vitesse en tout cas.

[Mathieu_D]

Et pourtant ça repart assez fort apparemment pour l'emploi des cadres.

[Nigel]

 La bourse est tendue, mais bon, ça veut rien dire en soi Cf ma vidéo sur Doze.

[POE]

Les 4000 c'est soit plancher soit plafond, on verra dans les jours prochains !

[Hayek's plosive]

J'ai vu The Big Short hier soir.

 

Ca me rappelle cet article du NYT de 1999:

 

 

 

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending By STEVEN A. HOLMES Published: September 30, 1999

 

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29— In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

Under Fannie Mae's pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 -- a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.

Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.

Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among minorities during the economic boom of the 1990's. The number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. During that same period the number of African Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per cent and the number of Asian Americans by 46.3 per cent.

In contrast, the number of non-Hispanic whites who received loans for homes increased by 31.2 per cent.

Despite these gains, home ownership rates for minorities continue to lag behind non-Hispanic whites, in part because blacks and Hispanics in particular tend to have on average worse credit ratings.

In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.

The change in policy also comes at the same time that HUD is investigating allegations of racial discrimination in the automated underwriting systems used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to determine the credit-worthiness of credit applicants.

 

 

 

 

[Stephdumas]

Désolé si j'ai posté cette nouvelle dans ce fil au cas que ça ne serai pas le bon sujet. ZeroHedge a posté un article où une ligne de personnes à Londres fait la queue pour acheter de l'or. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-11/lines-around-block-buy-gold-london-banks-placing-unusually-large-orders-physical

[Hayek's plosive]

En meme temps les chinois qui ont acheté de l'or en 2013, pas sur qu'ils y gagnent, meme avec la devaluation du RMB. Et l'or a tellement perdu depuis son pic que ca devient beaucoup plus interessant maintenant.

[Fadior]

Ca me rappelle cet article du NYT de 1999:

 

Quelle mémoire

 

[h16]

En tout cas, c'est tendu. Notamment à cause de ceci, dont on a très peu entendu parler :

 

https://www.superstation95.com/index.php/world/875

 

En gros, le London Metal Exchange a perdu 10% de ses membres en moins de 2 mois. Les minières se sont cassées, excédées par la manipulation des cours. Tout ceci est parfaitement normal. Circulez. Rien à voir.

 

[Fadior]

Des bruits de bottes se font aussi entendre dans le nord de l'Arabie Saoudite qui aurait rassemblé 350.000 soldats, à en croire cette news. Rien de très rassurant.

https://www.superstation95.com/index.php/world/884

[José]

...l'Arabie Saoudite qui aurait rassemblé 350.000 soldats...

 

Gnié !?

D'après wiki anglais, l'armée de terre saoudite compterait 175 000 hommes d'active.

[0100011]

Gnié !?

D'après wiki anglais, l'armée de terre saoudite compterait 175 000 hommes d'active.

 

L'article ne donne pas vraiment de sources mais il s'agirait d'une coalition. Ca sent un peu le doomporn cependant... Ce sont des manoeuvres militaires entre les alliés sunnites du golfe : http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/saudi-arabia/21-countries-in-thunder-of-the-north-drill-in-saudi-arabia-1.1670564

 

 

Russia will have no choice but to use Tactical (Battlefield) Nuclear Weapons to defend Syria once a ground invasion begins within 18 days, as 350,000 troops, 20,000 Tanks, 2,450 military planes  and 460 Helicopters from 25 countries are massing in northern Saudi Arabia.

[poney]

20.000 tanks ?????

En prenant en compte les t34 ?

[0100011]

50 000 tanks c'était le pacte de varsovie à son max dans les années 80. Ca parait beaucoup 20 000...

[José]

L'Arabie saoudite a quelques 1 000 tanks.

 

Bref, du gros caca de taureau cet "article".

[poney]

50 000 tanks c'était le pacte de varsovie à son max dans les années 80. Ca parait beaucoup 20 000...

Oui, les t34 donc...

Ça les faire marrer en face

[0100011]

L'Arabie saoudite a quelques 1 000 tanks.

 

Bref, du gros caca de taureau cet "article".

 

  Oui et les chiffres ne vont pas ensemble : pour 50 000 tanks les soviétiques avaient un peu moins de 2 millions de soldat. Là dans les chiffres de l'article je suppose qu'il n'y a même pas de quoi faire physiquement bouger les tanks+les avions+les hélicoptères (la guerre c'est de la logistique avant tout : pièces de rechange, combustible, bouffe etc.). Pour 20 000 tanks faut au moins un million de gus qui tournent autour (rien que 5 par tanks ça fait 100 000 donc un tiers de la force totale : ça ne tient pas debout).

[0100011]

Oui, les t34 donc...

Ça les faire marrer en face

 

  Même quand tu as une division de 150 t34 qui te fonce dessus tu vas pouvoir faire des cartons avec des TOW mais tu as quoi ? 3-4 min avant qu'ils te roulent dessus (au sens physique du terme) et se faire rouler dessus par plusieurs tonnes que ce soit un vieux modèle ou pas ça fait mal.

 

  Ca demande une supériorité aérienne sans faille (avec des hélicoptères ou des A10 qui font à peu près ce qu'ils veulent comme dans les guerres Irak-US) si tu veux les arrêter ou du nucléaire tactique sinon ça reste difficile même si les chars ne sont pas tip top. Avec les progrès des missiles sol-air la supériorité aérienne absolue est un rêve contre une armée  un peu moderne.

[Tramp]

C'était la grande peur occidentale : l'impossibilité de contrer une attaque conventionnelle soviétique de par leur masse et du coup l'obligation de recourir au feu nucléaire le premier.