David's Macro Blog

British humor we can all understand.

Somehow this seems to explain the situation better than CNBC. Why is that?

On Thursday May 6th the stock market took a unexplained and terrifying plunge down 10% during the day.

This highly unusual event called the “Flash Crash” can be seen in real time on CNBC as Erin Burnett is interviewing Jim Cramer on Street Signs.

There are many (some conspiracy) theories as to the cause of the “flash crash,” which call into question the robustness of our nation’s financial systems.

How robust and sound is our financial system when the stock market can fall 10% intraday or about one trillion dollars?

Here are a few of the reported potential causes and conspiracy theories that may have triggered the crash.

• A trader made a “fat finger” error and pushed the wrong key on his keyboard selling a unusually large amount of contracts which exceeded the supply available. This is essentially a typo error.
• There was a large legitimate sell order on the S&P e-mini futures contracts which caused all markets globally to react and recalibrate to a lower futures price.
• Dow component Proctor & Gamble (PG) was either misquoted or mis-priced much lower than it should have been. (Cramer notices this on the video.)
• The market makers on the NYSE shut down for a few minutes to pause and reflect on the day’s previous 3% fall in prices. This sent existing sell order to smaller exchanges which couldn’t find enough buyers and thus prices fell dramatically.

I bet you thought that was it. But wait there’s more!

• There were fears over the European sovereign debt crisis and the crashing Euro.
• Related to the European crisis were images on TV of Greek citizens rioting because of the new fiscal austerity measures placed upon them.
• Computers trading with each other in fractions of a second all simultaneously decided to sell (similar to the October 1987 market crash). This isn’t so improbable as you might expect, because most of those system’s algorithms (“algos”) were programmed by a similar set of computer and math genius who went to similar schools and were taught similar economic and financial theories.
• And finally, my favorite: The whole affair could have been orchestrated by TPTB (The Powers That Be) on Wall Street to fleece profits from the masses (triggering stop loss orders at low prices) AND scare Washington into diluting the Financial Reform Bill being debated on Capital Hill that very day.

Here’s what should bother and scare us:

First, no one knows what caused the crash.

Second, an incredible amount of wealth, greater than some nations’ GDP, vanished into thin air over 15 minutes. How safe and secure should we feel?

There are even other possible issues which could have caused this crash and they should cause us to thoroughly examine and rebuild our financial system to be better able to absorb shocks.

Perhaps we’ll find that, like most catastrophes, it was a combination of errors and systemic issues that caused the 10% intraday stock market plunge. The stock market could handle and has handled issues in the past of similar magnitude to those listed above. However, if a few of these occurred during one day, it is doubtful order could be maintained with the current systems in place.

P.S. Does anyone still believe in the efficient market hypothesis and that stocks are ALWAYS perfectly valued?

How about the theory that “there is a buyer at every price point?”

See the 13-page report below for my predictions for 2010 and more:

• Stock Market
• Real Estate Market: The next wave of ARM defaults? Is it time to buy yet?
• Interest Rates: Stay low or heading higher?
• Currency
• Precious Metals
• Commodities
• Political: Will real reform be passed?
• The Blame Game
• Wild Cards
• What’s the real problem and what are the potential solutions?
• What would really shock me?

David’s 2010 Predictions

Related Post: 2009 Year in Review

The following is from Mike Morgan’s blog (12/09/2008). I agree with many of his points.

If you still believe we are at or near the bottom, please consider a few of my Key Points to support the coming Depression:

1 – Housing prices are still falling.

2 – We are nowhere close to resolving the mortgage crisis, and millions of foreclosures are coming. In turn, this means lower housing prices and, in turn, more foreclosures.

3 – Wall Street and the Banking System has still not accepted the consequences of the toxic assets they built, sold, profited from . . . and now they are stuck with. All they have done is covered them up with a thin layer of Magic Dust (taxpayer bailout money).

4 – The housing ATM is closed. And with the closing of the housing ATM, consumers have less money to spend . . . and less money to pay their mortgages with, so there will be more foreclosures.

5 -If you map out the consequences for 1, 2, 3 and 4 you quickly see that less FFM “free-funny money” means less to spend and this means more job losses throughout the system, and this means much more pain to come.

6 – Worldwide we are seeing government responses with nonsensical bailouts and “spending” programs. The sad thing is, the spending programs are not directed at making us better, but just at how we can buy more toys and treats. In fact, governments are repeating the very same mistakes made in the 1930′s. By the way, these are only the big picture issues. I could give you a hundred reasons we are headed to very dark times, but all of it stems from the housing bubble that created the toxic asset crisis, and until we detox, the pain will get worse. This is no different than a drug addict. All we are doing now is feeding the drug addict and making matters worse . . . just like we did in the 1930′s. And just like a drug addict must go through a horrible physical detox, so must the world.

How bad is the current deflation?

It is so bad that every tool the Fed has to fight deflation, as listed by Ben Bernanke in 2002, has been used and still hasn’t stopped massive deflation.  Essentially the current economic and financial conditions where not even conceivable just a few years ago.

From Mish: Bernanke’s Deflation Preventing Scorecard

Bernanke’s Scorecard

Here is Bernanke’s roadmap, and a “point-by-point” list from that speech.

1. Reduce nominal interest rate to zero. Check. That didn’t work…

2. Increase the number of dollars in circulation, or credibly threaten to do so. Check. That didn’t work…

3. Expand the scale of asset purchases or, possibly, expand the menu of assets it buys. Check & check. That didn’t work…

4. Make low-interest-rate loans to banks. Check. That didn’t work…

5. Cooperate with fiscal authorities to inject more money. Check. That didn’t work…

6. Lower rates further out along the Treasury term structure. Check. That didn’t work…

7. Commit to holding the overnight rate at zero for some specified period. Check. That didn’t work…

8. Begin announcing explicit ceilings for yields on longer-maturity Treasury debt (bonds maturing within the next two years); enforce interest-rate ceilings by committing to make unlimited purchases of securities at prices consistent with the targeted yields. Check, and check. That didn’t work…

9. If that proves insufficient, cap yields of Treasury securities at still longer maturities, say three to six years. Check (they’re buying out to 7 years right now.) That didn’t work…

10. Use its existing authority to operate in the markets for agency debt. Check (in fact, they “own” the agency debt market!) That didn’t work…

11. Influence yields on privately issued securities. (Note: the Fed used to be restricted in doing that, but not anymore.) Check. That didn’t work…

12. Offer fixed-term loans to banks at low or zero interest, with a wide range of private assets deemed eligible as collateral (…Well, I’m still waiting for them to accept bellybutton lint & Beanie Babies, but I’m sure my patience will be rewarded. Besides their “mark-to-maturity” offers will be more than enticing!) Anyway… Check. That didn’t work…

13. Buy foreign government debt (and although Ben didn’t specifically mention it, let’s not forget those dollar swaps with foreign nations.) Check. That didn’t work…