Farmer Diaries

After an epic 9 month rise in prices, things seem to be cooling a little up in the great white north.  Obviously the Federal government enacted new mortgage provision in May of this year, it was always anticipated that it would eventually impact price/demand.  Maybe this is the first sign. The Teranet National Bank House Price Index was release this morning, the news for the country as a whole was that growth on a national basis has been slowing for several months -- in  July price rose by 1.5% (not annualized) and in August the number was 0.9%, so September 0% growth is a clear indication of slowing. Obviously, with a country like Canada the local picture is somewhat different.  Halifax (-1.1%), Calgary (-0.8%), Quebec City (-0.4%) were balance by increases in Winnipeg, Victoria and Toronto.  Interestingly other data points (from StatsCan) show that mortgage borrowing growth has "tempered" to 7% (it was as high as 16% in 2007), and construction fo...

Ok, so this morning walking by a very fancy hotel, there was a Maybach parked in front of the door.  That's that insanely expensive car Anyway, what was interesting was the "Canadian" aspect -- back seat was covered in Hockey gear, back window was open and there were at least two hockey bags on the back seat and a couple of sticks. Only in Canada -- you drive to your local hockey ring with your gear in the back, 'cause you may be able to afford a $400,000 car, but yous till play hockey with your mates! Canada is hockey mad!

Yesterday the Financial Time announces that the Euro had 10 more days, Moodys downgraded a bunch of banks, and this morning Global QE3 was jut announced (coordinated central bank action, Europe, Switzerland, USA, Canada England).  So borrowing dollars (swap rate) has just become a lot cheaper.  If past performance is any indication of how long this will push stock price, I would say December 31st 2011 for a high (S&P 500 could even breach the 1,300 level -- its at 1,225 this morning).  This is not a market for short players. Eventually, the world will realize that yes there's a liquidity problem, but there a more dramatic solvency issue here too.  The question is will this help?  Because although a cut int he borrowing cost is nice (in 2008/09 US banks generated $13 billion in profits from borrowing cheap (s/t) and the lending the government (l/t) and milking that zero cost yield curve, the fundamental problem is that if you don't trust the counterparty (i...

Rumsfeld famous quote "for there are things we know, there are things we know we don't know and then there are things we don't know we don't know" (better known as: Shit happens!).  Still, we've know for some time now that things in Iran were heading on a collision course.  Stuxnet was clearly part of a "dirty covert war" no one knows who started it all -- but there are only a few place were such a sophisticated worm program could have been written (and the delivery system was amusing -- apparently via peer to peer sites! you know these sites were you download movies illegally!).  Then not so subtle was death; for a time the world's most dangerous profession was Iranian nuclear scientist -- several died from bullets, other via bombs and one apparently from gas attack! No doubt this slowed down the Iranian's "peaceful" objective to gain nuclear technology, now buried in 20 different sites across the country.  Iran has been ...

Imagine that the entire world thinks that you are a fraud; to debunk these views you hire an independent group that will investigate your business, your assets and your suppliers/buyers.  Sino bought standing forest and then sold these forests to third parties (Authorized Intermediaries ) -- you give the names of these AI and their addressed to your crack team of investigators, these buyers are big firms BTW, the own truck, chain saws and possibly even processing plants (these are huge) then again this can be farmed out to other parties (still these plants must exists somewhere -- trust me transporting timber is not a small scale operation). Then your crack team goes to China and goes to meet with these companies.  Guess what happens in the case of Sino-forest's AI:  The independent investigator goes to the business addresses (supplied by Sino-Forest) but they can find no trace of the companies -- in fact they find other business t...

A friend of mine accused me of being too bearish; I'm not bearish, I'm selective in what I report on (like growth of derivatives).  Like this morning's successful Italian 10  5and 30 10 year bond auction at a yield of 7.6% and 7.2% respectively... Yeah, that's "winning" as Charlie Sheen would say! However, I had not seen Cramer of late, last night rant:  "Defcon 3" was truly bearish.  I only saw that this morning.  Have a look here  try that for pucker factor!  Unfortunately, I agree with Cramer, credit makes the world go round, and its in short supply with the European banks cutting everywhere -- think about it AMR declared bankruptcy this morning (American Airline's parent co), most probably because it cannot access credit (and thereby repay its current lenders). Now that's bearish

The indexes used by all investors as a barometer to the investment strategy is reviewed on an annual basis to make sure that it is representative. The TSX is doing its periodic review and several companies are looking to join the index (huge impact in terms of price as money managers will buy the underlying stock to "re balance" their index -- yeah that's why I pay my guy 1% a year in fees...), and who's about to get kicked-off.  Anyway of the two names on the list for getting kicked out:  Yellow Page Media and Air Canada stick out. The former is phone book companies that is discovering that the internet is a much quicker and useful search engine that their phone book... call it a technological shift.  The other, is Air Canada, the country's "National Carrier" -- it is still Canada's largest but not the most profitable (WestJet wins that one), and has gyrated from small profits to big losses throughout its existence.   Rem...

Looking at the action in Europe this morning, it is evident that something is going on.  First, these massive moves (more than 3% -- and financial institutions more than 4%) impact short positions, either forcing additional collateral posting, or liquidating and taking the hit!  Well, it looks that option two was selected (usually that's the way out), buy the underlying and get out of your short positions. The same is true for the U.S. BTW -- so now what.  Well the reality is still the same; there is no quick or easy fix for Europe -- and some rather hard things are occurring in Italy this week (a number of bond auctions).  Stories that the ECB has changed its mind (over Merkels cold dead body!), or that the IMF is putting in place a $600 billion facility for Italy (right because it makes sense for the rest of the world to "bail out Europe" when they don't have the balls to do anything!) have come and gone (official denial).  Right ...

Until a few days ago most of Canada's statistical output was "pay per view"  it made some sense that those who wanted the data should have to pay for the stuff.  On the other hand the amount payed was  fraction of the total cost of obtaining the data (like less the 2%), so Canadian paid to collect data (that they didn't get) and some guys paid a notional amount to get the information.  I'm sure that the initial idea was good, but Canada is so small and there are so few players (7 main banks, 6 large insurance companies), even if each paid a $100,000 a year  (they don't) it still would not come close to me meeting StatsCan's bill.  Enough with the insanity (my guess that the team that collected all these monies cost more than the government raised from selling the data).  So that means that the hoypoloi (BTW I though that was Yiddish, its actually Latin for "the many") gets the same data that the big boys get. So today's d...

I think the Italian story is make or break. Either this gets fixed or Italy defaults in less than six months. The default option is not really an option that policy makers would consider. If Italy can’t make it, then there will be a very big crashing sound. It would end up taking out most of the global lenders, a fair number of countries would follow into Italy’s vortex. In my opinion a default by Italy is certain to bring a global depression; one that would take many years to crawl out of. The policy makers are aware of this too . (Bruce Krasting) Italy has Euro 300 billion of maturing debt in 2012 -- interest rates have nearly doubled in the past 30 days.  There is no market solution for Italy.  Pick your poison; ECB or IMF -- otherwise is default.  Cannot wait to see how Ms. Merkel plays this card.  After all, she's worked very hard at painting herself in a corner "there will be no ECB bailout"  I would be surprised if she survives this.  In...

The eurozone really has only days to avoid collapse OECD warns of eurozone contagion risk Despite that markets are up nearly 3.5%.  Goes to show, it doesn't matter what the newspaper say, when the market decides to go higher, it goes higher.

On thursday, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) published the above figure. It represents the total value of all OTC derivatives outstanding, BTW global GDP is about $63,000 billion, so more than 10x global GDP. The most amazing thing here is that six months ago, total outstanding derivatives was $600,000 billion. In the space of 6 months, financial institution grew their OTC exposure by more than 10%. Picking up premium to make up their revenue shortfall, in the business we have another name for that; picking up dimes in front of a steam roller! Buffet called them weapons of mass destruction, the Europens were blaming derivatives for their current difficulties, they stopped when they found out that it was their central banks that were some of the biggest players... It remains that this development is serious.  In other news, the British foreign service is preparing for a rapid failure of the Euro, with the obvious dislocation that this would entail. ...

Ok, so 5 years ago, Canadian border agents finally got what they wanted: guns.  Gave them a feel of equality with their American counterparts...  total cost so far $214 million, and three shots fired (two by mistake, one to take out a moose). Now lets talk of the human toll.  A few years ago at the Quebec, NY border I had to go into the US immigration side, and things were slow (papers to process), I asked the agent how much his kit weighed, first off a handgun is rather heavy, but the total (gun, two clips, baton, and manacles) plus the leather belt was 25 pounds.  These guys wear that day in day out (even when sitting at their desks...) on top of that most wear bullet proof vests -- not heavy but constricting.  The result, back pain is chronic in the business. Still $214 million -- that's lots of cash for bagging one moose (FYI, the moose was hurt, it was a mercy killing).  Also there have been 10 "fire arm storage" infra...

Business insider has a series of slides -- 20th most exposed banks to the PIIGS default.  The winner is apparently Allied Irish, who has $129 billion in PIIGS exposure and only $2 billion in capital .  The other "winners" as Charlie Sheen would call them are: Banca MPS (Italy)  46x paid in equity Banco Popular (Spain) Intesa (Italy) EFG Eurobank (Greece) 16x paid in equity # 8 Unicredit (Italy) 10x #9 Santander (Spain) 9.5x #10 Dexia (Belgium) -- gives a sense of proportion, its already in bankruptcy because of its sovereign exposure After that its all the big French and German banks at between 5x and 8x their paid in equity. lets say an average of 30% hair cut, that means that basically the Commerzbank, BNP, Unicredit, Santander and BBVA are done! Their equity base is wiped out!  DB squeaks through (maybe) as do the British banks. SocGen too apparently.

There's an old saying in a panic don't sell what you want, sell what you can!  So when the solid hit the wall sometime in the next few days/weeks -- either Germany and France take a long walk and decide to dump the Euro, or the PIIGS decide that although separation will be painful, it's better than their current situation.  Either way, high quality liquid assets will fall in price, as those who need liquidity will sell assets they can (especially if they don't have to take a hair cut).  Gold and other metals that have often been bought at much lower prices will be liquidated. I would not be especially surprised if gold didn't hit the 1,500 level before Christmas -- it will go up afterwards as those with wealth will try to protect themselves. Fun times

A few weeks ago, I wrote that the European bond market for banks was frozen since June.  The consequence of this Euro 30,000 billion funding machine grinding to a halt was that financial institutions had to replace around $ 1,000 billion per month in funding.  First to go was new lending activity; lines of credit and loan facilities were made more difficult to obtain. Second, the Euro/USD curve went ballistic (1.39:1) as European financial institutions liquidated foreign assets  and streaming the cash "back to the mother ship".  Third stage is securitize and dump on the ECB their "less than prime" assets. European banks are now packaging their "non-core" assets and by over-collateralizing are trying to selling these portfolios to the ECB.  Rumors are that Europe's banks have "agreed" to reduce their combined assets by Euro 7,000 billion, so to improve their capital ratio. Again rumors are that things are not going wel...

Over the past 18 months, Canadian inflation has been rather higher than in the U.S., although both Canada (1%) and the U.S. (0.25%) have each very low director rates have been substantially below headline inflation -- around 3% for Canada and 2% for the U.S. Of course, and I have said this on a number of occasions, Canada's economy is fundamentally different to that of the U.S.  Services are a much larger percentage of US economic activity than in Canada, but still both economies are dominated by services.  The most important component of cost growth in a service economy is wages -- and whereas America has a huge (but slowly resorbing) unemployment problem (U3 at 9% and U6 at 16%), Canada has a much lower level of unemployment (on a like for like basis about 6% -- high still at this stage of the recovery but hedging closer to the BoC's "full employment" target range of 3%). As an economy moves closer to full employment labor market tightness causes wages to ...

Well now that's interesting Stratfor is reporting the a U.S. aircraft carrier is parked within striking distance from Syria.  Looks like we are going to get a Iran War proxy after all (America, Europe and the Arab league on one side, Syria and Iran on the other). What else on the news:  Feds ask banks to stress test a doomsday scenario, Europe Banks are on the verge of armageddon (funding,liquidity and solvency issues), China's economy is slowing (fast) -- now the world looks like military intervention is about to occur in Syria.  The only thing missing here is an alien invasion! O yeah, happy Thanksgiving America (my guess is that a few senior traders are going to hang around town this weekend).

Ok so its not like they get it right all the time, Goldman told investors that the Euro was going back up to 1.41 to the USD, instead it has dropped like a stone (now 1.34:1).  But JPM's missive does point to a real issue for investors that have been using commodities as a store of wealth.  The world is bulging with inventory, and once the infamous "Chinese Pig Farmers" start selling their copper -- all bets are off for commodities. This has a dramatic impact on Canada, already the flight to the USD is "hurting" the loonie -- not so long ago the CAD was above parity against the USD, now it trades around 0.94: 1 against a very strong USD (its strong against all currency -- back to 1997 level actually).  Which is another reason for commodity weakness since a vast majority of commodities are priced in USD. The impact on Canada is certain to be hard; first exports will drop (as will productivity -- since the price is part of the equation).  Already I ...

I'm no fan of the productivity numbers, especially since services is such an important percentage of the modern economy.  American productivity has always been better than Canada's there are a number of reasons for this, but my bet is that the guys who processed the mortgaged that polluted the CDO and CDO square cut corner and added to productivity -- somehow the mess that has to be taken apart today is not part of the "productivity equation".  Measuring productivity when you are making widgets is easy -- look at input costs and output, and if the ratio changes in the right direction: Voila!.  Measuring productivity when you offer services is a lot harder. Best example of how stupid the numbers are Nunavut (where 65,000 people live) saw an 11.5% increase in productivity, while the NWT saw productivity decline.... Anyway the table below says it all: Canada Productivity Gain 2009 - 2010   There you go, very exiting stuff, producti...

Capital market are going through a rough spot right now.  earlier this morning the Dow was down 120 points -- its only down 78 right now.  Europe continues to scare the crap out of everyone, and now the Feds have mandated 30 US financial institutions to conduct further stress test -- that assume rather cataclysmic breakdown:  Unemployment over 13%, European GDP 6.9% collapse. The banks are not too keen since they don't know if that will set their minimum capital level.  Anyway, another difficult week for the market.  The German had a terrible bond auction this morning (nearly 40% of the issuance was withdrawn -- for lack of buyers).  Contagion is spreading, France, Belgium bond markets are now suffering too. Rumors of a tighter core Europe is emerging with France and Germany (Maybe Benelux), but excluding just about everyone else.  Finally, China's PMI number this morning was terrible at 48 -- below 50 means contraction.  S...

It is tempting to say that, american alone are irresponsible consumer, ever increasing consumption despite very difficult economic conditions.  of course there are two America, the average Joe one where unemployment is high and wages have been stagnant for more than a decade, and the 1% that has seen an average increasing in income of about 10% per annum for over a decade -- that's how the 1% controls somewhere between 40% and 60% of all American wealth. Canada is different, first off, national income for all Canadians has been rising, and more Canadians are employed today than before the crisis in 2007 (of course population growth needs to be taken into consideration...).  However, by all measures the Canadian picture is good (or at the very least better than our southern neighbor...).   So stats come out day in and day out.  Retail sales for September (+1%) were released this morning; guess what they are up (virtually al...

Zukunftsangst’ - literally, fear of future insecurity.

The truth is that earnings have been very good (both in the US and in Canada), sales in the 3rd quarter (reported) have been softer than their profits (which exceeded expectation -- they always do) but the real kicker has been guidance -- where North American companies look at the future and don't see anything good. On the retail front one has to wonder, with Black Friday sales already in full swing --- a few days earlier than usual.  What is strange is that for America at least, the consumer has been pulling the economy, with savings falling to fund consumption.  But there is a bad feeling in the air! The gloom is based on a perception maybe that there are some big events out there -- but on the North American front there is nothing really threatening until after the election (Nov 2012) in fact any automatic budget cuts in the US federal budget will not take place before 2013 -- almost two years from now.  Europe has only limited impact on Nor...

Just for the sake of comparison: Spain:  3 month T-bill    5.11% Canada:  3 month T-Bill 0.91% U.S.A.: 3 month T-bill 0.05% Spain is not out of the woods by any measure, only a month ago Spain was paying 2.94%.  On top of all this, the ECB is buying the 3 and 6 months maturities like crazy.  Without intervention by the ECB, the T-Bill(3m) would have approached the 6% level.... Just saying!

I suspected that Montreal's mayor would not take any action  to evict OWS (Montreal edition) leaving that task to the weather!  We get lots of snow (none so far) in Montreal -- and tents are really not made for such weather.  Anyway, it turns out that those who organized the protest in Victoria Square are leaving.   The reason is that any loose movement such as OWS has a tendency to bring its share of problems - and whereas elsewhere in the city the police deals with these problems at OWS the cops stay well away.  Turns out that there is a very real problem with drugs/drink and mental illness (BTW I am not making fun of these people here), and so the organizers have had enough and are leaving.  Unfortunately, it doesn't solve the problem of the tent city -- but it gives an opportunity to the mayor to move in and remove the rest. Frankly, the OWS has gotten all it can expect -- it has changed the debate, the next stage requires something m...

Think about it, while wholesale sales rose (5th consecutive month), virtually all the growth came from the miscellaneous segment (BTW this is mostly an agricultural sector) -- too inconsequential to be enumerated, the melting pot of the the wholesale sector.  One sector is hurting, and it's a critical one:  machinery, equipment and supplies -- that's gone down (again). Wholesale Sales September 2011 (Source: StatsCan) Needless to say that since Misc. is mostly agricultural, the gains were mostly in Canada's Western provinces.  It's still a good report, although worrying for the rest of Canada -- the recent weakness of the CAD should help the manufacturing sector -- assuming that the world doesn't end (odds are good). Although this week should be fascinating.  Greece has a right wing government (we're not talking garden variety, but the extreme -- you know think of the more nutty element of the GOP), Spain has a new center rig...

After a committee of experts spend many years deliberating, the EU decree that water cannot be described as a way of quenching your thirst!  That this is now the "official position of the EU" speaks to this ability of this organisation to cover itself with ridicule. (for those who don't know a human body is 75% water). Granted its probably less stupid than the U.S. congress decreeing that pizza's are vegetable, that french fries should continue to be served in schools.  Proof, if any was needed that the U.S. Congress has been paid for by special interests. America is #1 -- ok I will have to stop laughing when I hear that -- my American friends think I'm insane.

A few months ago a research facility showed that neutrino could go faster than the speed of light, massive disbelief since virtually any modern cosmology is built on that stepping stone, that Einstein was right.  Imagine the nightmare, another laboratory also succeed  in breaching the speed of light. Oh, the nightmare, Einstein was wrong, gravity doesn't exist and little green men are for real....

The BoC can breath a sight of relief headline inflation (CPI) dropped from 3.3% to 2.9%, and there's been an equally large fall in the Core CPI from 1.9% to 1.5%.  Energy prices in the CPI were the primary reason for price drops.  So good new right! Not really, because on a seasonally adjusted basis CPI actually rose a bit (I like being a party pooper).  However, honestly even there the increase was minimal 0.1% and actually is more or less meaningless since its directionless (and the increase was smaller than last month) -- at one point over massaged data looses all significance. For now, Canadian inflation is heading lower -- which makes policy makers happy -- they've got enough trouble elsewhere.

It would seem that monetization of Europe's debt is now "on the table".  First off, it is the path of least resistance, but with the funding market frozen -- even the US (funding) market is starting to find the going tough.  The easiest solution is for the ECB to monetize, the the risk of inflation and hope for the best (I exaggerate, but not that much).  Europe's bank problem has reached such a catastrophic stage that now the only hope is to starve off the liquidity crisis by buying all the bonds it can, so that banks can access liquidity. A few days ago Unicredit, Italy's largest bank announced losses of Euro 10 billion -- market didn't move that much, but what is not widely accounted for is that two of Unicredit's biggest assets are its tax loss carry forward and goodwill -- yep, the excess price of acquisitions and the tax implication of making losses (with the potential for lowe...

The USD swap market is now "frozen".  Things are moving so fast that you cannot keep up.  The head of Citi's streategy (a dutch guy) said that Europe was weeks or months from implosion.  Maybe he was right, just got the timing wrong.  Banks don't trust each other anymore... This could end badly... I can only hope (I'm almost sure its the case) that the Bank of Canada is ready with the cash. When there is a crisis, its not what you want to sell that you sell, you sell what you can sell.  Canada money market,s overeign bonds can be sold. I expect the CAD to take a big hit over the next few days/weeks -- don't know if we will hit the 90/1.10 but we could get very close to that.

Another month and another $7.3 billion in foreign capital.  Composition has changed from bonds and stock to 99.5% in money market (a new trend).  This ultra hot money says less about Canada than it does about the worries foreigners have as to the global economy.   Capital inflow -- (incl September 2011) (Source: StatsCan) CAD is toying around the 0.97/1.03 range to the USD.  Despite WTI hitting a high of $103/bbl early this morning.

So the spread between WTI and Brent oil is "drying up" fast, the reason is simple Enbridge is buying a pipeline from Conoco and will reverse the flow. Long story short Conoco kept the pipeline in its current direction because low prices at Cushing help support Conoco's crack spread  (difference in price between raw oil and finished product). Conoco looks like the bad guy (a little actually) but the reality is that for years crack spreads have been too thin (actually making it hard to implement changes to refineries).  Still it means that the peak difference of $24 per bbl is gone for some time.  That's why WTI prices are up.  At the end it will not impact oil prices that much since a good chuck of the increase in WTI prices will result in lower crack spreads (elasticity there is unclear...). Now you know!

So two headlines this morning: The Euro 1.4 trillion EFSF will not be enough (Italian Prime Minister) The German debt level is already at dangerous level (Junker) The Feds state that they may have to help Europe (Rossengren) This is a problem, the truth shall make you free... but these are unexpected soruce of truth these days.  Also Italy has decided not to release  Q3/GDP numbers, in the same press release announced that they need to additional cash.  Just as the Italian treasury announces that new money requirements will be Euro 600 billion in 2012.... Blue or Red pill, at this stage watch the endgame.  It could be interesting.

last night, JP Morgan Chase revealed that they have sold a total of USD 5 trillion [for European readers US$ 5,000 billion] of sovereign credit protection.  That's a global number and doesn't break out the PIIGS -- but how much of that will be for Germany or France? lets be honest you hedge was you are concerned with! Put this in perspective, JPM has US$125 billion in market capitalization (TNW of US$ 182 billion), and total assets of USD 2.2 trillion.  Obviously, not all of this is to bad credits, but lets say that just 5% of JPM's book is to PIIGS, that folks is USD 250 billion, or 1.3x their tangible net worth and 14x their annual profits (2010).  Just saying that's a lot!

Well not according to this morning CPI numbers that came in at -0.1%, while core CPI was at +0.1% -- which gives an annualized rate of inflation of...drum roll... 1.2%.  So CPI was slightly below expectation and core CPI was exactly on expectation.  The fact that the Feds yesterday announced that its rates will stay at 0.25% until 2013 made these number a certainty.  BTW it kind of blows a massive hole in the Republican's world view that the Fed printing will lead to hyperinflation.  Of course eventually they could be right... like in 3 or 5 years! Ok so Canadian inflation is still much too high at 3.2%, but everyone is working on the assumption that rates will fall (they come out on Friday) to 2.5% to 2.8% [take your pick]

The past few days in Europe have been amazing.  It is hard to figure out what's the game!  There is a demonstrable liquidity crisis in Europe, with French bonds price falling (as interest rates rise), and even Finland bond price falling -- consider that Finland is the ONLY Maastricht  compliant country... Yet the ECB stands on the sideline waiting for something or someone.   The latest realpolitik "plot" is that the ECB is at the center of a fight between France and Germany, where France doesn't want the leveraged EFSF program installed (It would kill its AAA rating), and is trying to push Germany to act more unilaterally, while Germany (aka Angela Merkel) wants a more tightly wound Europe (read common fiscal policy with a parliament that has a right of veto on national budget).   The assumption here is that Merkel has an "evil plan" where she kills democracy (it is certainly the Daily Telegraph's contention -- see Abrose Evans-Pritchard lates...

So it would seem that DB has finally reached for the emergency parachute, and has contacted the ECB president with a presentation which can be summed up as:  Do nothing and the Europe ship goes down in flames, or print lots of money, delay the end of the Euro experiment and maybe end up with hyperinflation in a few years.  But at least you stand the chance of delaying the "end of the world as we know it". Don't believe me check this out, in living color thanks to DB here It speaks for the "moral bankruptcy of Europe's financial institution that they are ready to write, black on white (with lots of nice charts) that the ECB should abandon all caution to save the Euro (who cares) and the banks (I guess they care -- they have lots of vested shares). We are getting close to the end of the beginning!

Canada's manufacturing sales headlines were good again this month.  -- the third increase in so many months.  Source of growth was first oil and coal (+13.7%), followed by transportation equipment (+7.1%) which includes aerospace (+17%) -- a very volatile sector and motor vehicle (+6.2%) which is much more stable.  In fact, several vehicle manufacturing plants are now operating either at or near full capacity (restricting the scope for growth in that sector).  So the bottom line is not so good.  On a geographical basis the two biggest winners were Alberta (oil) and Quebec (Aerospace). Manufacturing Sales (Yes it includes Oil & Coal)  Inventories are rising in machinery (while sales are flat) and aerospace (sales are rising), but more importantly, the overall ration of Inventories/Sales is going down.  So the rise in inventory is a response to increase in sales. Inventories are Rising Inventory to Sales are ...

its about time, American airlines will not have to face reality.  I used to be in this business, and we always remember that at least 20 flights were scheduled to take-off at 13:30 (choose your major city airport).  Now, you know that in the best of conditions there is simply no way that 20 flights will take off on time, some will, be definition, be 15-20 minutes late!  This is in the best conditions, when the weather is perfect, and in reality add a bit of fog, rain or snow and all bets are off. There is no reason today for flights to take off (on the hour) you can schedule your flight dispersion much better without affecting the bank systems that airlines use in hubs (don't ask).  The joke was always that an airport such as La Guardia will have at least 75 days of bad weather per year (that's an average for the North East), doesn't include problem that will spill from other regions. Airlines have in the past not worried so much about this, and have threate...

Ok so this morning on CBC radio there was this outrage because one of the bosses at the Caisse de Depot & Placement du Quebec (You couldn't have a more francophone institution) is apparently uni-lingual anglophone.  What's worse is that he's lived in Quebec for many years (I just cannot remember how many years).  My assumption was that this was a storm in a tea cup, this guy is a specialist in some kind of exotic derivatives and there and therefore employing him was the right thing to do.   Guess what I was wrong, he's actually the head of human resources for the real estate arm of CDP.  This division has something like 3,000 employees about half of which are francophone (the real estate arm of CDP invests on a global basis).  This means that the entire HR department for this division runs in English (when the boss speaks English everyone else speaks English).  Turns out the head of HR cannot speak to ha...

OK so this morning at 7 am I was walking by OWS (Montreal version).  As I walk a guy walks out of his tent and starts pissing -- literally right there in front of me.  The worse part, there was a Porta-Cabine 10 feet away.  The site is increasingly gross with refuse everywhere -- despite the city installing large blue bins they are empty and the junk is on the ground (I know I saw a garbage truck going round all the bins and picking none of them -- empty). If nothing else, these guys should pick up their shit!  It makes the whole place look like a dump, and there is no reason for this just laziness.  Maybe the Montreal Mayor will tackle this issue (then again probably not -- more interesting in seeing the world that one). Finally, this morning the King of Jordan "encouraged" the President of Syria to resign!  

(Source:  ZeroHedge) First, look at the list of "true" debt and Canada is en enviable position at "only" 274%.  However, it is hardly doing great, and while it has the lowest number it is not that far from U.S., Germany and if looking only at the government debt Canada is no better than Spain (OK lots of dead stuff -- like bank recapitalization will end up on the Government's balance sheet in Spain). The kicker of course is the UK -- which lead toe world, of course no so much in sovereign debt but in banks and business debt... that too could eventually be socialized.  Still an ugly picture.  BTW, before anyone gets to happy about China, it is important to note that the Chinese government is heavily indebted too (and not taking into consideration the loans it has "guaranteed" to the SOEs...). The government debt for China is also in the 70% of GDP...   Maybe Rossenberg is right that we are in a massive depre...

Officials were stung by the implosion of Wall Street firm MF Global, which gambled and lost on European debt, and they are working on contingency plans for a worst-case scenario should another financial firm crumble. A senior U.S. Treasury official said regulators are contacting big U.S. financial institutions to make sure they are scaling back exposure to Europe and are ready for a potential worsening of the crisis.(Source: Reuters 11/14/11)  This cannot end well for Europe.  IF America, Asia are not only not considering reducing their current exposure, there is strong likelihood (certainty in fact) that they will not buy the new ECB (EFSF) Bonds.  Cannot say that I am surprised.  Speaking to several Canadian bank treasurers one theme has been consistent for the past 3 years -- reduce European bank exposure and monitor everything you hold, mark to market on a daily base and ask for collateral. Europe seems to be entering the endgame...

Because of political pressures (in my view largely warranted) the XL Keystone pipeline to the US is now off the table until 2013 -- a redesign to avoid the Western U.S. largest aquifer that feeds 4 or 5 states with all their drinking water (it is also very close to the surface -- so at great risk when there is a spill).  That TransCanada didn't first consider this route shows the serious lack of understanding of environmentalist's often very justified concerns.   The second error was to over-estimate the number of jobs created.  Reading some of the more "pro-oil" crew it was anywhere between 20,000 and 100,000 new jobs, would be created by the building of the pipeline.  How the highly automated construction of a pipeline could require 20,000 employee begged to be questioned.  XL Keystone has now admitted (on the record) that it's a few hundred jobs that will be created.  So the XL Keystone pipeline will not ...

I've often written that Canada and Australia are the two outliers in the OECD world, both economies not only survived the 2008 recession but have thrived since.  Well things in Australia are taken a turn for the worse.  Already, earlier this summer the red hot Australian real estate market seem to take a pause.  Now, we are seeing a massive swing in negative territory for discretionary expenditures, as Australian begin to address their debt burden. I must also point out that Australian house price are at multiple levels higher than Canada's.  From memory the House Price to income ratio in Sydney (the worse, but not the only one) is around 9x (it's only around this level in Vancouver). That leaves Canada as the last OECD country where house prices are still rising!

Seen this before, first time in such a lovely format

From a half billion trade deficit in August, Canada has swung to a $1.2 billion surplus, and its not only prices that are at the root cause of the increase in exports, volume were also up.  Energy lead the way +11.3%, of which 8% was price induced, the balance was volume.  Industrial goods were up 3.4% and agricultural and fishery was up 9.4% -- with the higher volume since 2008. On the other side of the equation imports were down (aerospace -- a very volatile segment -15%), but it remains that import volumes were down.  September is a place holder in view of the global market tensions.  The Financial Post this morning reports that the Bank of Canada could easily reduce interest rates next year. Overall a good report.

So as a short hand the world has been talking about club med as the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain).  What many fail to realize is that not all these pigs are equal [to continue the word play].  Italy is a systemic problem (Greece was a pimple).  Whereas the world can "write-off" Greece with impunity (it's only about Euro 350 billion -- lots of money but inconsequential on a global capital market scale).  Italy is a different game entirely.  The world's third largest bond market issuance, lots of banks "own" Italian debt.  The French banks hold about half a trillion (yeah that's real money). The issue has always been if Europe cannot deal with Greece (the EFSF is a demonstration of this half measure) it stand little chance to deal with Italy (Belgium is next on the list).  There's no real point in going into details, because the big picture part of the equation doesn't add up at all!  European leade...

That's the Reuter's headline this morning.  China is finding the going tough!  Finally, sales in Europe are starting to falter.  Reported elsewhere, Apple has reduce component orders by nearly 20% -- still very much a rumor, but it remains that a global recession seems to be on the cards. Short term I see the USD rising in value, as investors seek the safety of the US debt and equity market (I could be wrong), at least until the 23rd of November -- when the supercommittee on the deficit reveals that they could not agree on a USD1.2 trillion cut in expenses (that over 10 years). As I like to repeat Canada is a second derivative country, we should see some weakness in the price of some of our export goods.  Oil price (if there is a global recession) should drop, as should copper prices ("the" bell weather of global growth).  It goes without saying that everything else will be affected too.  Of course this is a worse care scenario, italy and Greece could ...

This morning StatsCan released new housing numbers for the country (it was down slightly) for a total of 208,000 for the full year.  Consider that the U.S. is working on the basis that new homes for 2011 will total something like 595,000.  America a country who's population is literally 10 time bigger (and 12 times richer) will only build slighly more than twice as many homes as are built in Canada. In fact, for the US you need to go to the 1960s (when America's population was was half of today's) to come close to the current level of new housing.  It is also about a third of what it was at its peak in 2006/7.  This creates a serious drag.  Part of the problem is aging population (true also in Canada) but also the slow formation of household.  Young people without a job cannot move out of their parent's basement.

Société Générale on Tuesday moved to calm jittery investors by announcing sharp cuts to the euro-zone sovereign-debt exposure that has weighed heavily on its stock in recent months, lifting its shares despite reporting lower-than-expected net profit for the third quarter. Net profit at the Paris-based lender fell 31% to €622 million ($856.9 million) from €896 million a year earlier, undershooting analyst forecasts of €732 million. It was hit by higher provisions against Greek sovereign bonds, and as volatile financial markets pressured its corporate and investment bank. (Wall Street Journal, 08/11/11) If any additional proof was needed, now the French banks are looking at "provisioning" or liquidating their European sovereign debt portfolio.  Taking the PIIGS + Belgium (country without a government for 2 years) total sovereign debt (including banks) is Euro 5 trillion, looking at a 30% to 50% hair cut the world is looking at a Euro1 to 2.5 trillion hole. Once...

Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, warned on Tuesday that the world was “on the cusp of another retrenchment” in liquidity, and urged careful management of European bank recapitalization to limit the effects ( Financial Post, 11/09/11 ).  As the new head of the FSB (Financial Stability Board) Carney carries lots a weight (he did before he got that gig too).  He also announce the name of the 29 institution that were systemically too big to fail -- these institution will be required to keep additional capital at hand.  if you consider that among them are all the major German and French banks (leveraged to the tune of 60:1) and the big four Americans (Leveraged at 12:1) you get a feeling that the "recapitalization" effort will require the support of governments. I'm not making any predictions, but my instinct tell me that as an investor it would be wise to steer clear of European banks -- ROE is about to drop!   [no position on any American or Europea...