Knuckles Obama vs. Pit Bull Palin. This is getting good! Both of these young guns can give a speech cant they? They better – we could be facing the largest cross currents of global economic and geopolitical hurricanes since 1930.
The US market’s short term “Trade” correlation remains in the Republican corner of the ring. As Palin’s pre-speech ratings fell, so did the US market. If her bouncing off the ropes last night finds Obama’s jaw in the polls today, the US market could very well stop going down. Last night’s speech was good enough to have me cover my S&P Futures short position in the ‘Hedgeye Portfolio’ at 5:30AM this morning. Top to bottom, the S&P 500 has dropped 35 points in the last 48 hours of trading. This remains a market to be rented, not owned.
Card carrying Republicans and Democrats alike are now officially amped up for an old fashioned partisan hockey brawl. In the end, there will undoubtedly be a winner and a loser. All the while, those of us surveying the world are going to be dancing with a growling Bear – the Global Economy. Unfortunately, neither of these American political brain-trusts get that, yet. My hope is that someone with a spine steps up and goes after Wall Street the way that both parties are rhetorically going after “Washington”. Hope however, is not an investment process.
Economic reality versus political rhetoric is an important distinction to make, so let’s slap our lipstick and fact finding pants on and take a walk down that global path this morning. Asian stock markets continue to get pummeled, and European markets continue to trade lower. Global cost of capital continues to rise, while access to it continues to tighten. In Europe, the Riksbank in Sweden is raising rates to 4.75% this morning, and in Asia, the central bank of Indonesia raised rates to +9.25%. Both the European Central Bank and the Bank of England refused an American call to arms to cut interest rates. As the US Fed and Treasury keep the Japanese style government bailout pails in place, the rest of the world is starting to take on water. Emerging market currencies are drowning, and their import costs are inflating.
Condi Rice might want to slap some lipstick on that other VP, Dick Cheney, this morning. He’s going to be in Georgia, assuring their conquered population that the Bush administration has their back. Ole Dick isn’t big on the transparency thing, so maybe he should wear one of them CNN hurricane reporter rain jackets so the Russian know he’s there. Russia’s currency epitomizes the aforementioned point concerning economic flooding. The Russian Ruble lost -7.5 of its value in August alone, and is currently having its biggest down day since 2005. The Russians are taking on inflation water-gate style, on two 1970’s like US fronts: prices and wages. Their stock market is getting crushed as a result. The Russian Index has lost -28% of its value since mid-July, in the face of an up +9% move in the US Dollar, and +6% move in the S&P500. America is winning. The Russians are losing.
Japan is losing too. Economic stagflation would be too kind of a description of their current domestic situation. There is no Botox or hair spray that we can put on this economic piggly wiggly to disguise it. Japan is the world’s 2nd largest economy, so this matters. The Nikkei lost another -1% last night, closing at 12,557, taking its loss since the mid July rally in the US began to -7.7%. Across Asia, the de-leveraging “Trend” remains. Hong Kong hit new year to date lows last night, and has lost -11.9% since its dead cat bounce in early July. The Asian contagion associated with growth slowing continues to spread.
This morning’s American hope is as rightly placed as it was last week when we heard a great speech. My Mom is a small town hockey mom too, but John McCain isn’t, and he’ll take the stage tonight. The bipartisan economic call here is to get rid of all of the tired old veterans on this hockey bench. Biden, Bush, Clinton, and McCain – none of these career politicians have proactively prepared this economy for the global economic tsunami that weighs in the balance. We need wholesale changes to this hockey club. No more Hanson Brothers – it’s time to rebuild the country. Let’s start by giving the young guns, Knuckles and Pit Bull, some time on the power play.
Best of luck out there today,
KM
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