"...that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard at the Telegraph:
Kudos to Kyle Bass at Hayman Advisers for warning that the Bank of Japan would lose control of its ¥70 trillion bond buying blitz. The spike in the 10-year yield to 1pc on Thursday was certainly shocking to behold.
His point is that the BoJ faces a “rational investor paradox”. The authorities are trying to drive up the inflation to 2pc and therefore to devalue Japanese government bonds (JGBs), so why on earth would you want to own them?
“If JGB investors begin to believe that Abenomics will be successful, they will ‘rationally’ sell JGBs to buy foreign bonds or equities,” he told Bloomberg
He says the scramble to sell has “overwhelmed” buying by the BoJ. Governor Kuroda will now have double down with a huge increase in the scale of QE.
The argument is similar to warnings by Nomura’s Richard Koo, Japan’s most famous economist and an arch-Keynesian. The two men reach the same conclusion coming from diametrically opposed theoretical starting points.
As I reported last night, Mr Koo thinks the Abenomics plan of monetary reflation is madness. “Once inflation concerns start to emerge the BoJ will be unable to restrain a rise in yields no matter how many bonds it buys.” This could lead a “loss of faith in the Japanese government” and the “beginning of the end” for Japan’s economy.
Mr Koo said the BoJ faces a “time inconsistency problem”, a variant of Mr Bass’s paradox. Markets react more quickly to events than the economy. “The Japanese authorities are trying to generate inflation first and then hope for recovery, which means debt service costs will increase before tax revenues do.”...MUCH MORE
From Systematic Relative Strength:
The chart below shows performance of US sectors and capitalizations over the trailing 12, 6, and 1 month(s). Performance updated through 5/23/2013.
Who knew?
From Chris Blattman:
I’m not sure how I missed this.
It’s called The Merchant Princes series, by author Charles Stross. He’s been nominated for the Hugo 12 times and won it twice.
The short story: there are parallel Americas/earths, which differ from our own after historical events went differently there (critical juncture theory, anyone?). In one world, a few people have figured out how to move back and forth and they use the power early on to become crime lords, and basically run America like an impoverished rentier state.
One of the protagonists is a development economist (I kid you not) who wants to industrialize the rentier state.
While this doesn’t sound like a recipe for a pageturner, the first book is pretty good, even if the prose and dialogue are a bit clunky....MORE
From the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland:
HT: Real Time EconomicsTo some, the term “economic historian” conjures up images of an academic whose only interests lie deep in the past; an armchair scholar who holds forth on days long ago but has no insights about the present. Barry Eichengreen provides a useful corrective to that stereotype. For, as much as Eichengreen has studied episodes in economic history, he seems more attuned to connecting the past to the present. At the same time, he is mindful that “lessons” have a way of taking on lives of their own. What’s taken as given among economic historians today may be wholly rejected in the future.Barry Eichengreen is the George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor of Economics and Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, his hometown. He is known as an expert on monetary systems and global finance. He has authored more than a dozen books and many more academic papers on topics from the Great Depression to the recent financial crisis.Eichengreen was a keynote speaker at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s research conference, Current Policy under the Lens of Economic History, in December 2012. Mark Sniderman, the Cleveland Fed’s executive vice president and chief policy officer, interviewed Eichengreen during his visit. An edited transcript follows.Sniderman: It’s an honor to talk with you. You’re here at this conference to discuss the uses and misuses of economic history. Can you give us an example of how people inaccurately apply lessons from the past to the recent financial crisis?Eichengreen: The honor is mine.
Whenever I say “lessons,” please understand the word to be surrounded by quotation marks. My point is that “lessons” when drawn mechanically have considerable capacity to mislead. For example, one “lesson” from the literature on the Great Depression was how disruptive serious banking crises can be. That, in a nutshell, is why the Fed and its fellow regulators paid such close attention to the banking system in the run-up to the recent crisis. But that “lesson” of history was, in part, what allowed them to overlook what was happening in the shadow banking system, as our system of lightly regulated near-banks is known.
What did they miss it? One answer is that there was effectively no shadow banking system to speak of in the 1930s. We learned to pay close attention to what was going on in the banking system, narrowly defined. That bias may have been part of what led policymakers to miss what was going on in other parts of the financial system.
Another example, this one from Europe, is the “lesson” that there is necessarily such a thing as expansionary fiscal consolidation. Europeans, when arguing that such a thing exists, look to the experience of the Netherlands and Ireland in the 1980s, when those countries cut their budget deficits without experiencing extended recessions. Both countries were able to consolidate but continue to grow, leading contemporary observers to argue that the same should be true in Europe today. But reasoning from that historical case to today misleads because the circumstances at both the country and global level were very different. Ireland and the Netherlands were small. They were consolidating in a period when the world economy was growing.
These facts allowed them to substitute external demand for domestic demand. In addition, unlike European countries today they had their own monetary policies, allowing them step down the exchange rate, enhancing the competitiveness of their exports at one fell swoop, and avoid extended recessions. But it does not follow from their experience that the same is necessarily possible today. Everyone in Europe is consolidating simultaneously. Most nations lack their own independent exchange rate and monetary policies. And the world economy is not growing robustly.
A third “lesson” of history capable equally of informing and misinforming policy would be the belief in Germany that hyperinflation is always and everywhere just around the corner. Whenever the European Central Bank does something unconventional, like its program of Outright Monetary Transactions, there are warnings in German press that this is about to unleash the hounds of inflation. This presumption reflects from the “lesson” of history, taught in German schools, that there is no such thing as a little inflation. It reflects the searing impact of the hyperinflation of the 1920s, in other words. From a distance, it’s interesting and more than a little peculiar that those textbooks fail to mention the high unemployment rate in the 1930s and how that also had highly damaging political and social consequences.
The larger question is whether it is productive to think in terms of “history lessons.” Economic theory has no lessons; instead, it simply offers a way of systematically structuring how we think about the world. The same is true of history....MUCH MORE
A macro look at inflation. We'll be back with another 'Inflation and P/E's' piece in a bit.
One of the scariest scenario's is an exogenous shock causing a recession before we have recovered from 2008-2009. At that point the central banks would pretty much be impotent and the game would be up.
From VoxEU:
Since the double-digit inflation of the 1970s, central banks have sought to reduce inflation and keep it low. This column argues that recent history teaches us that inflation has fallen too low. Raising inflation targets to 4% would have little cost, and it would make it easier for central banks to end future recessions.HT: FT Alphaville
Many central banks have adopted a common policy – an inflation target near 2%. These central banks include the Fed (which calls it a ‘long run goal’), the ECB (which targets inflation ‘below, but close to 2%’) and the central banks of most other advanced economies.
A number of economists, such as Blanchard et al. (2010), have suggested a higher inflation target – typically 4%. Yet this idea is anathema to central bankers. According to Ben Bernanke (2010a), the Federal Open Market Committee unanimously opposes an increase in its inflation goal, which ‘would likely entail much greater costs than benefits’.
I examine the case for a 4% inflation target in a recent essay (Ball 2013) and reach the opposite conclusions to those of Chairman Bernanke:
A lesson from the Great Recession Recent history has demonstrated the problem of the zero bound. In response to the US financial crisis and recession, the Fed reduced its target for the federal funds rate from 5.25% in August 2007 to a range of 0 to 0.25% in December 2008. The target remains in that range today. Yet this sharp monetary easing has not restored full employment. The unemployment rate peaked at 10% in 2009 and then stayed high; in April 2013, it was 7.6%. Unemployment of 5% – widely considered the natural rate just a few years ago – is nowhere in sight.
- A 4% target would ease the constraints on monetary policy arising from the zero bound on interest rates, with the result that economic downturns would be less severe.
- This important benefit would come at minimal cost, because 4% inflation does not harm an economy significantly.
During past recessions, the Fed has reduced interest rates and kept reducing them until unemployment fell to an acceptable level. But cutting interest rates has not been feasible since 2008. With nominal rates already near zero, they cannot fall farther. Nobody would lend at a negative interest rate because one can do better by holding cash.
As the US recession spread around the world, many other central banks reduced interest rates to 1% or less. Like the US, their economies are stuck in the ‘liquidity trap’ described by Keynes (1936). Unemployment is high and policymakers cannot reduce it with interest-rate cuts.
In general, a higher inflation target reduces the zero-bound problem. In long run equilibrium, a higher inflation rate implies that nominal-interest rates are also higher – the Fisher effect. When a recession occurs, rates can fall by more before hitting zero, making it more likely that policymakers can restore full employment.
Suppose that central banks had been targeting 4% inflation in the early 2000s rather than 2%. Nominal-interest rates would have been two percentage points higher, allowing rates to fall by an extra two points before hitting zero. I estimate that this extra stimulus would have reduced average unemployment over 2010-2013 by two percentage points (Ball 2013).
Future risks from the zero bound
Looking forward, the case for a higher inflation target depends on the risk that interest rates will hit zero in future recessions. Some economists believe that this risk is low. Mishkin (2011), for example, argues:
“Although [the zero bound] has surely been a major problem in this recent episode, it must be remembered that episodes like this do not come very often. Indeed, we have not experienced a negative shock to the economy of this magnitude for over seventy years. If shocks of this magnitude are rare, then the benefits to a higher inflation target will not be very large because the benefits will only be available infrequently.”In my view, Mishkin understates the risk of the zero bound. If we look beyond the US, the crisis of 2007-2009 is not unique in recent history. A completely separate financial crisis pushed Japanese interest rates to zero in 1997. It was only around 1990 that central banks began to target inflation rates of 2% or less. The two largest economies that adopted this policy both hit the zero bound within 20 years....MORE
LME $7300/t, COMEX $3.3030/lb.
From ZeroHedge:
The Bronze Swan Arrives: Is The End Of Copper Financing China's "Lehman Event"?
In all the hoopla over Japan's stock market crash and China's PMI miss last night, the biggest news of the day was largely ignored: copper, and the fact that copper's ubiquitous arbitrage and rehypothecation role in China's economy through the use of Chinese Copper Financing Deals (CCFD) is coming to an end....MUCH MORE
Copper, as China pundits may know, is the key shadow interest rate arbitrage tool, through the use of financing deals that use commodities with high value-to-density ratios such as gold, copper, nickel, which in turn are used as collateral against which USD-denominated China-domestic Letters of Credit are pleged, in what can often result in a seemingly infinite rehypothecation loop (see explanation below) between related onshore and offshore entities, allowing loop participants to pick up virtually risk-free arbitrage (i.e., profits), which however boosts China's FX lending and leads to upward pressure on the CNY.
Since the end result of this arbitrage hits China's current account directly, and is the reason for the recent aberrations in Chinese export data that have made a mockery of China's economic data reporting, China's State Administration on Foreign Exchange (SAFE) on May 5 finally passed new regulations which will effectively end such financing deals.
The impact of this development can not be overstated: according to independent observers, as well as firms like Goldman, this will not only impact the copper market (very adversely) as copper will suddenly go from a positive return/carry asset to a negative carry asset leading to wholesale dumping from bonded warehouses, but will likely take out a substantial chunk of synthetic shadow leverage out of the Chinese market and economy.
Naturally, for an economy in which credit creation is of utmost importance, the loss of one such key financing channel will have very unintended consequences at best, and could potentially lead to a significant "credit event" in the world's fastest growing large economy at worst.
But before we get into the nuts and bolts of how such CCF deals operate, and what this means for systemic leverage, we bring you this friendly note released by Goldman's Roger Yuan overnight, in which Goldman not only quietly cut their long Copper trading recommendation established on March 1 (at a substantial loss), but implicitly went short the metal with a 12 month horizon: a huge shift for a bank that has been, on the surface, calling for a global renaissance in the global economy, and in which Dr. Copper is a very leading indicator of overall economic health and end demand.
From Goldman:
Closing: Long LME copper September 2013 contract at $7,482/t, a $236/t (3.1%) loss
Following the initial sell-off in copper prices in the second half of February 2013, we established a long copper position at $7,718/t in the September contract (on March 1, 2013). We believed that the fall in copper prices, reflecting in part concerns about Chinese activity, was overdone. We reiterated this view on April 22, post further substantial price declines. Since then, prices have rebounded strongly, with the September contract closing at $7,482/t on May 22, up by 10% from the May 1 low of $6,808/t.
The emergence of the risk that CCFDs unwind over the next 3 months – we had assumed that deals would continue indefinitely – has complicated our near-term bullish copper view (from current prices). On the one hand, our fundamental short-term thesis is playing out – copper inventories are drawing, copper’s main end-use markets in China are growing solidly (property sales +39% yoy, completions +7% yoy, auto’s output +14% yoy Jan-April 2013), seasonal factors are currently supportive, Chinese scrap availability is tight, positioning also remains short, and policy risks are, arguably, mildly skewed to the upside.
Set against this is the likely near-term unwind in CCFDs and, critically, our view that copper is headed into surplus in 2014 (the window for higher copper prices is shortening). On net, we now see the risks to our 6-mo forecast of $8,000/t as skewed to the downside, and, in this context, we unwind our September long copper position at $7,482/t, a $236/t (3.1%) loss, given the recent strong rally in LME prices to near our 3-mo target of $7,500/t. Additionally, we believe that a further rally in copper prices in the near term would be a good selling opportunity taking a 12-month view [ZH: translated: short it]....
Our readers probably know Weiner for his work in cognitive science and for pretty much creating the field of cybernetics.
From Motherboard:
For decades we humans have been certain that in the future, robots would either bring about a utopian society wherein machines do all the work and we cool our heels (Kevin Drum’s provocative Mother Jones article predicted this robot paradise will arrive as soon as 2040), or rise up against us, a la countless science fiction stories.
In fact, The New York Times pointed out that “even in 1920, when the playwright Karel Capek gave English speakers the Czech word "robot" (laborer) in his play "R.U.R.," the androids at Rossum's Universal Robots were bent on wiping out the human race.” And according to Motherboard's Ben Richmond, who recently saw "R.U.R." performed, the machine future may not be too far off.
Back in 1949—around the time the industrial age was giving way to a high tech era—the legendary MIT mathematician Norbert Wiener theorized that the direction the scale would tip would ultimately depend on how stupid or not stupid humans behaved during the rise of intelligent machines. He should know; Wiener was the founder of cybernetics, the scientific study of the relationship between humans and machines, which heavily influenced robotic engineers.
A half century ago Wiener famously wrote "The world of the future will not be a comfortable hammock in which we can lie down to be waited upon by our robot slaves.” This week The New York Times dug up an earlier essay titled “The Machine Age” in which he elaborates on this warning....MORE
From Global Times:
Manufacturing group to build 3D printing innovation centers
A Beijing-based trade body told the Global Times Monday that industrial 3D printing will play a "very positive role" in upgrading Chinese manufacturing, echoing a survey of global executives who believe that the Chinese government needs to encourage more innovation to enhance its manufacturing base against the background of a global economic recovery.See also last month's Economist article linked at:
Industrial 3D printing can easily create highly complex designs that are too difficult for traditional manufacturing technology, but it is not as good at mass production. So 3D printing will complement traditional manufacturing, not replace it, Luo Jun, CEO of the Asian Manufacturing Association (AMA), told the Global Times Monday.
"Over the past 30 years, 3D printing technology has already been applied in the aerospace, automotive and biomedical industries, and now the conditions are ripe for it to scale up," said Luo, who is also executive secretary-general of the China 3D Printing Technology Industry Alliance, formed by China's leading research entities and enterprises in the field.
The alliance plans to build 10 innovation centers for 3D printing technology in 10 cities in China in the near future, with a planned investment of 20 million yuan ($3.3 million) for each center. The centers mainly aim to serve manufacturers, and the AMA is calling for fiscal policy support from the government....MORE
Ya think this may have some far-flung implications? It's not just robots the Chinese are going after, it's the additive manufacturing end of the 3D biz, metal not plastic.Our second of three posts from The Economist today:
Additive manufacturing is growing apace in China
ALTHOUGH it is the weekend, a small factory in the Haidian district of Beijing is hard at work. Eight machines, the biggest the size of a delivery van, are busy making things. Yet the factory, owned by Beijing Longyuan Automated Fabrication System (known as AFS), appears almost deserted. This is because it is using additive-manufacturing machines, popularly known as three-dimensional (3D) printers, which run unattended day and night, seven days a week....
From the Capital Spectator:
The US stock market and inflation expectations have been going their separate ways for the past two months, which is something new by the standard of the last five years. Is this a sign that marks a break from the past, when higher the outlook for higher inflation was generally cheered by the market? Or perhaps it's only a temporary divergence, in which case a correction on or both sides of this relationship will soon revive the new abnormal?
The new abnormal is how I refer to the positive link in recent years between stocks and inflation expectations (based on the yield spread between the nominal 10-year Treasury and its inflation-indexed counterpart). These two data sets have been positively correlated since the global economy had a near-death experience. The correlation is unusual in the grand sweep of market history, but it's become the norm in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession. The key driver: worries about disinflation/deflation at a time when the economy can't escape the gravitational pull of slow growth. The result is that higher inflation is considered helpful, at least from the perspective of the stock market.
That's been true for several years, as implied by the tight connection between stock prices and inflation expectations. But the connection has come apart rather conspicuously over the past two months. The market's outlook for inflation has dropped and equity prices have increased to a degree that we haven't seen for some time.
From VICE:
Get Rich or High Trying
Image collage by Courtney Nicholas.
At this moment in history, you've got to choose between being in favor of legalization, or being against 'the system.'”
Mason Tvert is leading a quick tour of what he irreverently describes as the Marijuana Manor—a genteel, three-story, historically-registered, 1880s-era brick and stained-glass building in downtown Denver that was recently converted into permanent office space for a consortium of do-gooders fighting to make legal cannabis work in America. The building houses four separate activist organizations, a trade association, and a law firm. Tvert is clad in a conservative suit jacket and tie worn above a pair of faded blue-jeans—an ensemble compiled in deference to a remote television appearance earlier in the day that shot him from the waist up. His clashing outfit offers an unintended statement on the split-personality of the pot world right now: Business in the front, party in the back.
Last November, Tvert certainly had plenty of reason to celebrate, after heading a historic campaign that saw voters in Colorado approve Amendment 64 by a wide margin, ushering in a new era of state-legal commercial cannabis cultivation and retail sales of up to an ounce for all adults 21 and over. A similar ballot initiative in Washington State also passed easily on the unforgettable night when pot outperformed the president, while making headlines around the world.
To date, lawmakers in both states continue to work out exactly how to implement the herb-friendly will of their citizenry, ever-mindful that a miraculous crop that can't kill you, won't hurt you, and just might heal you remains fully illegal under federal law, even if you've got terminal cancer and floor seats to see Phish. Despite the fact that smoking a joint remains a lot less dangerous than swilling booze. Not to mention that the same federales imposing cannabis prohibition ultimately answer to a guy best known in his youth for “roof hits,” “interceptions,” and sharing some righteous Maui Wowie with the Choom Gang.
Tvert has made such hypocrisy at the highest levels the centerpiece of his messaging ever since co-founding Safer Alternatives for Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER) in 2005. From erecting billboards declaring “Marijuana: No Hangovers. No Violence. No Carbs," to publicly calling brewpub pioneer turned Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper a “drug dealer,” SAFER never misses a chance to challenge cultural norms that have us blithely cheering on a Jack Daniels-sponsored NASCAR team, while kicking down the doors of otherwise law-abiding ganja smokers.
So, I wonder, now that the good guys finally won big, how long until the Denver Nuggets (pun abstained) start offering an officially-licensed glass bong alongside the collectible beer mugs and shot glasses they already sell to basketball fans of all ages?
Well, don't hold your breath, but with the smart money increasingly looking to marijuana as the nation's biggest new business boom since the internet, don't look away either.
THE SILICON VALLEY OF CANNABIS“The Silicon Valley of cannabis is already happening,” Troy Dayton, co-founder of the Arcview Group, assures me as his angel investor network prepares to gather venture capitalists and pot entrepreneurs together in Seattle for the second time in three months. Attendees from both camps pay Arcview a sizable fee to participate....MUCH MORE
From Foreign Policy:
During a speech on Tuesday in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden told his audience that the Jews "have contributed greatly to America. No group has had such an outsized influence per capita," inspiring the New York magazine headline, "Biden Praises Jews, Goes Too Far, Accidentally Thrills Anti-Semites."
But cringe-inducing philo-Semitism is not just a U.S. phenomenon. In a recently published memoir, titled A Collection of Works Written During Leisure Time, Wu Guanzheng, who from 2002 to 2007 was China's top anti-corruption official, reminisces about his time in Israel. "I bought some books on the Jewish people," he writes. One, which he cites later, is written by someone with the name "Abraham" and called --- you guessed it! -- Why Are Jews Intelligent.
Wu notes how Jews "attach extreme importance to study" and how they see scholars "as their spiritual leaders." Somewhat ironically for the man who was once the seventh-highest-ranking figure in an authoritarian system, Wu also praises Jews' ability to "speak truth to power" and "freely express different opinions."
Chinese are notoriously philo-Semitic. Jewish visitors are often greeted with the platitude, "Ah, Jews, you so easily make money" (no joke), and there are dozens of Chinese-language books promising insight into Jewish secrets like raising smart children, succeeding in business, or unlocking the moneymaking secrets of the Talmud....MORE
Lifted in toto from ElectEcon:
Academic economists make their way by demonstrating their mathematical prowess in top-ranked journals. Anyone who denies this is a fool or a knave.From the Project Syndicate link:
And here is a similar, more fleshed-out condemnation of what we do, this time from Dani Rodrik titled, "What Use Are Economists?". The conclusion:
There is one other thing that the public should know about economists: It is cleverness, not wisdom, that advances academic economists’ careers. Professors at the top universities distinguish themselves today not by being right about the real world, but by devising imaginative theoretical twists or developing novel evidence. If these skills also render them perceptive observers of real societies and provide them with sound judgment, it is hardly by design.
Dani Rodrik is Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a leading scholar of globalization and economic development....
MoneyBeat is thinking along the same lines as Alphaville was in "Nikkei Down 1,143: Where the Hell is Mrs. Watanabe?".
From the Wall Street Journal:
The Nikkei stock rally has increasingly been fueled by retail investors. On Thursday, heavy selling from Japan’s new small investor class appears to have been a major factor behind the sharp drop in share prices, raising questions about the bull market’s sustainability.
Traders reported that the institutional selling amid the 7% plunge in stocks was actually not that busy, despite the record volume, and that hedge funds and individual traders were largely behind the trades. The two highest volume stocks were Mitsubishi Motors Corp. 7211.TO -12.57% and Tokyo Electric Power Co. 9501.TO -13.84%, two stocks considered speculative and off-limits to institutions.
Together the pair traded 1.135 billion shares, or 15% of the entire TOPIX turnover.
“The retail segment can no longer be discounted,” said CLSA equity strategist Nicholas Smith.
After years of relative inactivity, retail investors have become a major influence on the Japanese stock market. Data released Thursday by the Tokyo Stock Exchange showed that for the week ended May 17, individual investors made up 39% of trades by value. That was up from 31% at the end of March and just 20% last October, before the current rally began....MORE
As the Enron guys used to tell the analysts, "I don't care what you think the number is, I want to know what everyone else thinks the number is". Earlier today the folks that we are finding to be most accurate among the public prognosticators, Energy Metro Desk (hosted on the CME's 'puters no less) came out with their estimate:
Each week, we poll 40 professional storage forecasts for our
weekly Natural-Gas Storage Box Scores (as seen in each bi-weekly issue
of Energy Metro Desk*). This is North America's biggest and most
comprehensive natural-gas storage survey and report.
Energy Metro Desk editors forecast this week: +88 BcfThe EIA reported an injection of 89 Bcf , not a bad estimate eh? Well here's what the algos did with the report:
Average: +90 Bcf
Median: +91 Bcf
Range: +82 to 101 Bcf
| Working gas in underground storage, lower 48 states Summary text CSV JSN | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Historical Comparisons | |||||||||||||||
| Stocks billion cubic feet (Bcf) |
Year ago (05/17/12) |
5-Year average (2008-2012) |
|||||||||||||
| Region | 05/17/13 | 05/10/13 | change | (Bcf) | % change | (Bcf) | % change | ||||||||
| East | 857 | 811 | 46 | 1,275 | -32.8 | 968 | -11.5 | ||||||||
| West | 368 | 357 | 11 | 397 | -7.3 | 319 | 15.4 | ||||||||
| Producing | 828 | 796 | 32 | 1,061 | -22.0 | 850 | -2.6 | ||||||||
| Salt | 239 | 228 | 11 | 254 | -5.9 | 160 | 49.4 | ||||||||
| Nonsalt | 589 | 569 | 20 | 807 | -27.0 | 690 | -14.6 | ||||||||
| Total | 2,053 | 1,964 | 89 | 2,733 | -24.9 | 2,137 | -3.9 | ||||||||
Current Storage Level: 1,964 Bcf
Surplus under 2012: 694 Bcf (26%)
Surplus over 5 Yr Avg: 83 Bcf (4%)
Natural Gas Storage Tealeaves
For the past three weeks EIA has come in on the high side of the market consensus. We're of the mind that we won't see a fourth straight week of high-side risk. The range of forecasts is around 20 Bcf, which isn't anything extrordinary. The range between the three categories we track is tiny -- 1.3 Bcf. Demand and supply looks a lot like last week or at least the various categories seem to balance each other out nicely, the temps and the nuke outages and so on. The free radical in this week's sweeps is more about past EIA misfires and true-ups, than anything else. Folks seem convinced we'll not see a report to the high-side of the market four weeks in a row -- it's something we've not seen before. We tend to agree. We see risk slightly to the low side of things this week. Our Consensus is slightly lower than most of the other big surveys; we're at 90 Bcf; Reuters came in at 91; Bloomie at 92; PLatts at 92 and SNL at 93 Bcf. The lowballer among surveys is DJ at 89 Bcf. Our editor is even lower at 88 Bcf. We think 86-90 Bcf will be right on the money this week. Check out the CME charts below -- some wild pre-report and post-report action last year--really crazy stuff. Judging from the volumes, we say it was HFT's gone wild yet again. Bet we see the same thing this week. For whatever reason, this particular week in history (the last 6 years) has produced some nutty volitility. Just saying. -- the editor
Weather Tealeaves
Thought of the day: Stronger Summer Start.
"The start of meteorological summer is next Saturday, and the latest dynamic models show building consensus that we will be engaging in another widespread heat event from the Plains to the Midwest and East Coast. The Deep South should also partake in the heat, but there are still signs of cooler risks below the main core ridge especially along the Gulf Coast. Given the calendar and coverage offered by the pattern type, this should be the strongest heat event so far this season with potential for more 90s into parts of especially the southern Midwest to lower Mid-Atlantic, but potentially farther north as well. By late in the 11- 15 day, trends continue to build new heat ridging toward the Western U.S. which allow the Eastern heat ridge to deteriorate and set up a possible cooler...MORE
From Gawker:
Hackers, protesters, and more than 70 Chinese celebrities, including Yao Ming, are opposing an initial public offering made by a Chinese company called Guizhentang Pharmaceutical, whose key ingredient is bear bile. The bile is cruelly "milked" by inserting tubes in the animals abdomens three times a day, "sometimes for years," reports The New York Times.The bears’ teeth are invariably worn down from gnawing on the bars of their cages and their feet are often in pitiful shape because few of the animals have ever walked on the ground. “The catalog of abuse they’ve endured is appalling,” Ms. Field said.If you haven't already hopped a plane to Shenzen sporting a bear suit and a heavy heart, here's the backstory: The bile is used in traditional remedies said to "shrink gallstones, reduce fevers and sooth the aftereffects of excessive drinking." To sell more hangover cures, Guizhentang wanted to use the IPO money to increase its stock of captive bears from 400 up to 1,200....MORE
...Supporters of bear bile farming are even running a "pro-bile public relations campaign," suggesting that animal welfare advocates are in the pocket of Western medicine....
So if you think you are going to do a little run-and-gun* you just might be looking at an involuntary commitment, which seems a dastardly way to break a corner (although not as dastardly has having the exchange go "liquidation only").
From Yahoo News:
Hoarding disorder gets spotlight in DSM-5
Regular viewers of reality shows about hoarding are used to being stunned by someone's clutter. But behind the sensationalistic stories of rooms buried in trash, kitchens filled with rotting food, and yards overrun by goats are people suffering from a serious mental illness –hoarding–that for many years was misdiagnosed.*See also:
The upcoming fifth version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) aims to change that. The highly influential DSM-5 will classify hoarding as a distinct disorder within the chapter about obsessive-compulsive and related disorders. Before the DSM-5, hoarding could be misdiagnosed as a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder....MORE
| A bogus takeover offer for the Dayton Hudson Corporation caused the
retailer's stock to shoot up $9 a share yesterday, but skepticism
quickly deflated the gain, inflicting a $15 million loss on investors.The
chain of events began yesterday morning with a telephone call from a
Cincinnati securities analyst, Paul David Herrlinger, to the Dow Jones
News Service, in which the offer was made on behalf of ''Stone Inc.'' It
ended five hours later with an announcement by the Herrlinger family's
attorney that ''this was not a bona fide offer and there is no such
company as Stone Inc.'' He said Mr. Herrlinger had a nervous condition
and had apparently been hospitalized. In the interim, 5.2 million shares of Dayton Hudson's common stock changed hands, much of it in the early afternoon, before the credibility of the $70-a-share offer was shattered. Rumors of a Takeover Bid At 9:49 in the morning, 19 minutes after the New York Stock Exchange opened, the Dow Jones ticker printed its first story on the purported offer. At 9:53 A.M., the New York Stock Exchange halted trading in Dayton Hudson stock to allow the news to be disseminated....MORE | ||
Update: "Will Japan’s Retail Investors Stay or Flee?"
Original post:
You may have noticed a dearth of posts on the Japanese markets the last couple weeks, the last one being May 15th's "The Latest Chapter in Japan's Amazing Market Drama" and before that "Hayman Capital's Kyle Bass: Predicting the Next Financial Collapse" (and no this isn't the collapse moment).
It's not because of any black-box wizardry or deep insight, rather it was because the story was getting boring. Talk about jaded.
The linked post, "The Nikkei: a market abducted by retail" nails the participation of the round-eyes but the Japanese investors were notable by their absence. Here's part I of the story, from FT Alphaville:
The Nikkei: a market abducted by retail
Blame Bernanke, China or the BoJ but this Nikkei rout has apparently been led by the little guys. From the FT:
Over the past few weeks, individual investors’ share of trading had risen steadily, to a record 35 per cent last week. Brokers say their share was almost certainly higher over the past few days, judging by huge volumes in popular stocks such as Fast Retailing, owner of Uniqlo, and Mitsubishi Motors [...]
...MOREI'm reminded of the Friday the 13th crashette, Oct. 13, 1989. Coming two years after the U.S. market's worst day ever, the big concern was that the 6.91% decline was only the warm up to something worse, just as the then record DJIA point drop, 108 on Friday Oct. 16, 1987, was the warm-up to Black Monday.
From I Love Charts:
I don't care who you are, that's funny. Here's Buzzfeed:
13 People Who Will Stop At Nothing To Win "Supermarket Sweep"And many, many more.
10 Things Daft Punk May Or May Not Have Sampled
9 Ordinary Objects Made Inordinately Expensive By The Addition Of Bling
11 "Arrested Development" Party Food Ideas & Recipes
From ZeroHedge:
Market Reacts As Bernanke Promises "MOAR"
MOAR Orderly... oops... Bernanke: "Fed could reduce bond purchases in the next few meetings if data supports it" and perhaps most disturbing is that reality is finally seeping into the corner offices of the Marriner Eccles building when Bernanke says that concerns about "frothiness" and "bubbles" has increased? Was it the sub-5% yield in high yield that tipped them off?
From the Google Research blog:
We believe quantum computing may help solve some of the most challenging computer science problems, particularly in machine learning. Machine learning is all about building better models of the world to make more accurate predictions. If we want to cure diseases, we need better models of how they develop. If we want to create effective environmental policies, we need better models of what’s happening to our climate. And if we want to build a more useful search engine, we need to better understand spoken questions and what’s on the web so you get the best answer.HT: Steve Jurvetson's flickr:
So today we’re launching the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab. NASA’s Ames Research Center will host the lab, which will house a quantum computer from D-Wave Systems, and the USRA (Universities Space Research Association) will invite researchers from around the world to share time on it. Our goal: to study how quantum computing might advance machine learning.
Machine learning is highly difficult. It’s what mathematicians call an “NP-hard” problem. That’s because building a good model is really a creative act. As an analogy, consider what it takes to architect a house. You’re balancing lots of constraints -- budget, usage requirements, space limitations, etc. -- but still trying to create the most beautiful house you can. A creative architect will find a great solution. Mathematically speaking the architect is solving an optimization problem and creativity can be thought of as the ability to come up with a good solution given an objective and constraints...MORE
In the D-Wave Board meeting in Canada this morning. Today's news: Google buys a quantum computer for machine learning and artificial intelligence: "We actually think quantum machine learning may provide the most creative problem-solving process under the known laws of physics. " — Google BlogUltimate HT: Next Big Future who we'll be returning to this afternoon.
This is an interesting development in a larger trend I call Deus Ex Machina — machine learning innervates everything.
Under the covers, just about every new research initiative at Google is driven by machine learning — whereby the machine learns patterns in the data without explicit models or traditional solution design. It’s what makes “Big Data” BIG this time around. The approach requires a humble relaxation of the presumption of control, and so it starts with companies like Google and eventually revolutionizes all businesses, even those with a delusion of control, like Investment bankers. =)As a precondition to purchase, Google gave the company a number of performance benchmarks to prove that the quantum computer is faster than anything Google has in house. The NYT reports:
“For most problems, it was 11,000 times faster, but in the more difficult 50 percent, it was 33,000 times faster. In the top 25 percent, it was 50,000 times faster.”...MORE
From Physics Today:
Chaos at fifty
In 1963 an MIT meteorologist revealed deterministic predictability to be
an illusion and gave birth to a field that still thrives.
In classical physics, one is taught that given the initial state of a system, all of its future states can be calculated. In the celebrated words of Pierre Simon Laplace, “An intelligence which could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective situation of the beings who compose it—an intelligence sufficiently vast to submit these data to analysis . . . for it, nothing would be uncertain and the future, as the past, would be present to its eyes.”1 Or, put another way, the clockwork universe holds true.
Herein lies the rub: Exact knowledge of a real-world initial state is never possible—the adviser can always demand a few more digits of experimental precision from the student, but the result will never be exact. Still, until the 19th century, the tacit assumption had always been that approximate knowledge of the initial state implies approximate knowledge of the final state. Given their success describing the motion of the planets, comets, and stars and the dynamics of countless other systems, physicists had little reason to assume otherwise.Starting in the 19th century, however, and culminating with a 1963 paper by MIT meteorologist Edward Lorenz, pictured in figure 1a, a series of developments revealed that the notion of deterministic predictability, although appealingly intuitive, is in practice false for most systems. Small uncertainties in an initial state can indeed become large errors in a final one. Even simple systems for which all forces are known can behave unpredictably. Determinism, surprisingly enough, does not preclude chaos.A gallery of monsters
Chaos theory, as we know it today,2 took shape mostly during the last quarter of the 20th century. But researchers had experienced close encounters with the phenomenon as early as the late 1880s, beginning with Henri Poincaré’s studies of the three-body problem in celestial mechanics. Poincaré observed that in such systems “it may happen that small differences in the initial conditions produce very great ones in the final phenomena. . . . Prediction becomes impossible.”3Dynamical systems like the three-body system studied by Poincaré are best described in phase space, in which dimensions correspond to the dynamical variables, such as position and momentum, that allow the system to be described by a set of first-order ordinary differential equations. The prevailing view had long been that, left alone, a conventional classical system will eventually settle toward either a steady state, described by a point in phase space; a periodic state, described by a closed loop; or a quasi-periodic state, which exhibits n > 1 incommensurable periodic modes and is described by an n-dimensional torus in phase space....MORE
We haven't looked at Wealth-X in over a year but they seem to be entrenching themselves in their niche, getting quoted in major media and making the report more and more user friendly.
Here's the Telegraph:
Oxford 'has highest number of rich graduates'
Britain's most high-profile universities are more often pitted against each other in the annual rowing clash or league tables charting their academic prowess. But a new league table compares the seats of learning on the number of rich graduates they have produced.
According to research by Wealth-X, Oxford numbers 401 "ultra high net worth" individuals among its alumni population and together they have a total net worth of $51bn (£33bn). Each individual has an average net worth of $127m.
Ultra High Net Worth by locationAn ultra high net worth individual is classed as having a net worth of at least $30m after accounting for shares in public and private companies, residential and investment properties, art collections, aircraft, cash and other assets...MORE
It was in 2005 that I first started hearing normally sober and reliable people discuss the economy in terms that, loosely translated, said: Everyone will make their fortune by swapping real estate and selling each other "Tall half-skinny half-1 percent extra hot split quad shot lattes with whip"*
From Execupundit:
From EurActiv:
Europe’s plan to decarbonise its economy by 2050 could be turned on its head at a summit today (22 May) if EU heads of state and government sign off on measures prioritising industrial competitiveness over climate change in draft conclusions seen by EurActiv.
The draft text says that EU policy must ensure “competitive” energy prices, and declares it “crucial” that Europe diversify its energy supply and develop “indigenous energy resources” – a reference to renewable energies, but also coal, nuclear power and shale gas.
One high-profile German MEP Holger Krahmer (ALDE), hailed the end of “climate hysteria” in a jubilant press statement.
“For the first time, rising energy costs and the declining competitiveness of the European economy will be rated higher than obviously unenforceable global climate change ambitions,” he said.
“The economic and social consequences of collective hysteria can no longer be ignored, as the governments of the EU member states admit in this paper,” Krahmer added, saying that it was right to give more attention to energy sources such as gas and coal.
The draft summit conclusions also pledge to review the causes and nature of Europe’s energy price costs by the end of the year, and look more closely at industrial competitiveness.
Luxembourg MEP Claude Turmes (Greens) branded the document “appalling” in its entirety and a “dramatic setback” for environmentalists.
Decisive lobbying
The shift in emphasis by European leaders follows the rejection of a proposed reform of the EU's depressed Emissions Trading System (ETS), pushed by the Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard, which sought to boost CO2 prices.
The measure had been heavily resisted by energy-intensive industries and the business employers’ federation, BusinessEurope, which argued against artificially raising carbon prices – and therefore energy costs – in a slow economy....MORE
Alphaville's The Closer post links to the Aleph blog:
The foolish do the best in a strong market
“The trend is your friend, until the bend at the end.” So the saying goes for those that blindly follow momentum. The same is true for some amateur investors that run concentrated portfolios, and happen to get it right for a while, until the cycle plays out and they didn’t have a second idea to jump to.
In a strong bull market, if you knew it was a strong bull market, you would want to take as much risk as you can, assuming you can escape the next bear market which is usually faster and more vicious. (That post deserves updating.)
Here are four examples, two each from stocks and bonds:
...
- In 1998-2000, tech and internet stocks were the only place to be. Even my cousins invested in them and lost their shirts. People looked at me as an idiot as I criticized the mania. Buffett looked like a dope as well because he could not see how the enterprises could generate free cash reliably at any intermediate time span.
- In 2003-2007, there were 3 places to be — owning homebuilders, owning depositary financials or shadow banks, and buying residential real estate directly. This was not, “Buy what you know,” but “Buy what you assume.”...
...I could go on about:
The go-go years of the ’60s or the ’20s
The various times the REIT market has crashed
The various times that technology stocks have wiped out
And more, like railroads in the late 1800s, or the money lost on aviation stocks, if you leave out Southwest, but you get the point, I hope....MORE
There is one wonderful chapter where the consummate pragmatic speculator, the Great Winfield, is lamenting his performance problems in a wildly speculative bull market.
“My boy,” said the Great Winfield over the phone. “Our trouble is that we are too old for this market. The best players in this kind of a market have not passed their twenty-ninth birthdays. Come on over and I will show you my solution.”
So Adam Smith goes over and finds three new faces in the Great Winfield’s office.
My solution to the current market,” the Great Winfield said. “Kids. This is a kids’ market. This is Billy the Kid, Johnny the Kid, and Sheldon the Kid.” The three Kids stood up without taking their eyes from the moving tape, shook hands, and called me “sir” respectfully.
“Aren’t they cute?” the Great Winfield asked. “Aren’t they fuzzy? Look at them, like teddy bears. It’s their market. I have taken them on for the duration.”
Winfield then describes how much money Billy the Kid is making in computer leasing stocks like Leasco Data Processing and Randolph Computer that he has heavily leveraged with bank borrowing....And the really spooky bit, for me anyway, SHALE:
...Sheldon the Kid waved his hand for recognition.
“This one will really take you back,” said the Great Winfield. “Sheldon’s Western Oil Shale has gone from three to thirty.”
“Sir!” said Sheldon. “The Western United States is sitting on a pool of oil five times as big as all the known reserves in the world – shale oil. Technology is coming along fast. When it comes, Equity Oil can earn seven hundred and fifty dollars a share.
It’s selling at twenty-four dollars. The first commercial underground nuclear test is coming up. The possibilities are so big no one can comprehend them.”
“Shale oil! Shale oil!” said the Great Winfield. “Takes you way back, doesn’t it. I bet you can barely remember it.”
“The shale oil play,” I said dreaming. “My old MG TC. A blond girl, tan from the summer sun, in the Hamptons, beer on the beach, ‘Unchained Melody,’ the little bar in the Village.”
“See? See?” said the Great Winfield. “The flow of the seasons. Life begins again. It’s marvelous. It’s like having a son! My boys! My Kids!”
The Great Winfield had made his point. Memory can get in the way of such a jolly market, that malaise that comes with the instantly gone, flickering feeling of déjà vu. We have all been here before.
“The strength of my kids is that they are too young to remember anything bad, and they are making so much money they feel invincible,” said the Great Winfield.
“Now you know and I know that one day the orchestra will stop playing and the wind will rattle through the broken window panes, and the anticipation of this freezes us. All of these kids but one will be broke, and that one will be the multi-millionaire, the Arthur Rock of the new generation. There is always one, and maybe we will find him.”...
Note the highlighted bit.
From the Telegraph:
The curse of hedging that blighted gold in the 1990s is making a comeback, and threatens to loom over the market like Banquo's ghost.
London-listed gold producer Petropavlovsk has said it will pre-sell 55pc of its future output planned for the second quarter of 2014, at an average price of $1,408 an ounce. This is the first time that a big producer has hedged more than half its future sales.
“We have a huge investment programme and thought a little price protection in the short-term will let us sleep better at night,” said chairman Peter Hambro.
Tyler Broda from Nomura said this may signal the return of “structural hedging” across the industry, with other companies scrambling to lock in forward contracts. “This could increase the pressure on the spot gold price over the coming years,” he said. The risk is a vicious circle as hedging leads to lower prices, leading to more hedging.
The process pushed gold down to $252 an ounce in 2009, though there were many other forces at work, including sales by the Bank of England and other Western central banks.Here's the intro to a post on his kid last month:
“It was hedging that killed gold prices the 1990s,” said Ross Norman from Sharps Pixley. “Every time there was rally, the producers seized on the chance to sell forward. It was most unhelpful.”...MORE
According to CityWire's Wealth Manager Evy Hambro is a so-so manager, losing less than average in gold stocks and more than average in other natural resource issues.Or not.
On the other hand his dad is the Peter Hambro and his former boss at BlackRock is Graham Birch who quit BLK to run his dairy farm before getting bored and joining père at Petropavlovsk plc, i.e. Evy can probably get some decent thinking on the gold biz....MORE
Speaking of convexity and duration...
(well not exactly but it's the same rates up/price down teeter-totter)
From GuruFocus:
By The Third Avenue Real Estate Value TeamSee also today's Financial Times:
Excerpted From the Third Avenue Real Estate Value Fund First Quarter 2013 Shareholder Letter
A frequently asked question and topic of discussion among Third Avenue Management investment professionals is what impact rising interest rates would have on our investments and our portfolios in general. While trying to tackle this topic, as it relates to global real estate, in a single essay is a daunting task, we will attempt to explain our view on how rising interest rates might impact the global real estate markets and how some types of companies might perform in such an environment. In short, it is our view that rising interest rates would likely create some volatility in the short term (which is the friend of the value investor); but, over the long term (which is where our focus ultimately lies), could ultimately benefit certain types of companies.
The big question: How will rising interest rates impact real estate values? Our answer: It depends. In fact, the impact on property values will vary greatly depending on (i) why interest rates are rising and (ii) what type of property one is talking about. If long-term interest rates spike materially due to some sort of economic crisis (e.g., a U.S. Treasury default), we have no specific opinion on the impact to real estate values (other than "it will probably be bad for most investments, real estate or otherwise – but, at least we own hard assets"). However, in a scenario where more vibrant economic growth in the U.S. leads to a falling unemployment rate, the Fed has explicitly stated it will increase short-term rates and is likely to take its foot off the gas as it relates to buying on the long-end of the curve. A vibrant economy and rising employment will likely be inflationary, leading to higher interest rates.
Commercial properties (retail, office, apartments, industrial, etc.) are primarily valued based on applying cap rates (i.e. initial yields) to property cash flows. Cap rates have historically been highly correlated to long-term interest rates, with the highest correlation being Baa corporate bond yields (as opposed to 10-year Treasuries). Based on history, it is reasonable to assume that an increase in 10-year Treasury yields will result in an increase in Baa corporate bond yields, but not necessarily on a one-to-one basis. In fact, credit spreads (the spread between Baa bond yields and the "10-Year") have historically tightened during periods of rising 10-year treasury rates. What does that mean? Simply put: if the 10-Year rates increase in response to economic growth, we would also expect Baa corporate bond yields and cap rates to increase, but at a more muted pace due to tighter credit spreads.
Higher cap rates translate into lower property values, all else being equal. But, all else isn't equal. The second part of the answer to the big question is that the impact of rising interest rates depends on the property type, location and tenant lease terms. In order for property values to not decline, higher cap rates need to be offset by increased cash flow. For example, a property that generates $12 million of cash flow would be valued at $200 million using a 6.0% cap rate. At a 6.5% cap rate, the value would be only $184.6 million – a 7.7% decrease. The property would have to generate an additional $1 million of cash flow (an 8.3% increase) to offset the impact of the higher cap rate. The impact of leverage further magnifies higher cap rates. For instance, if the property was 50% leveraged with a mortgage, the 7.7% decrease in property value would result in 15.4% decrease in equity (or net asset value).
The ability of commercial property owners to increase cash flow through rental increases depends on the length of lease terms for tenants in place, near-term lease expirations/renewals and current occupancy levels....MORE
A century ago, US farmland real estate enjoyed a huge boom. Interest rates were low. Grain prices were high. The world’s appetite for agricultural exports seemed endless.
Now, as a strikingly similar story unfolds, land investors are hoping for a different ending.
From 1900-1919 US farmland gained 70 per cent. Then the farming economy was hit by a rise in interest rates and a slowdown in food imports after the first world war. Land prices collapsed back to turn-of-the-century levels by 1940.
Over the past decade, US farmland prices have doubled as the Federal Reserve has held interest rates at historic lows and demand has stayed strong. The big question is what will happens when monetary policy is tightened and the supply of grain grows....MUCH MORE
On its risk appetite index, Credit Suisse views the index value of 5 as "euphoria". And we are headed there, as markets embrace risk.
 |
| Source: Credit Suisse |
This is not surprising given where credit markets are trading. As an example, the Merrill European High Yield Index average yield is now below 4.5% (4.46% to be precise)....MORE
We dipped into some of Global Financial Data's public work on the Berlin Stock Exchange ca. 1923. Link below.
They probably have stats on the Denarius/Shekel in A.D. 70.
From FT Alphaville:
Everlasting credit, the long view
From historical chart specialists Global Financial Data — the yield on perpetual Consols versus the stock of UK sovereign debt…all the way back to 1742. Click to view….MORE (chart, discussion)Unfortunately no discussion of the convexity of an instrument that has this kind of duration.
| Best Months | Percent Return | Worst Month | Percent Return |
| September 1923 | 99.12% | August 1922 | -43.90% |
| December 1922 | 67.91% | December 1923 | -31.68% |
| June 1923 | 60.38% | July 1922 | -29.94% |
| August 1924 | 47.66% | August 1923 | -29.32% |
| November 1923 | 38.25% | November 1919 | -29.26% |
| October 1949 | 32.04% | April 1924 | -27.98% |
| April 1920 | 31.67% | September 1931 | -25.85% |
| February 1923 | 29.58% | October 1922 | -24.65% |
| April 1923 | 29.28% | November 1918 | -23.16% |
| October 1923 | 26.20% | October 1987 | -27.31% |
Posts
All Comments
