Whistleblower Alleges GE Commits Almost $40 Billion In Accounting Fraud

General Electric (GE) shares fell Thursday following Bernard Madoff whistleblower, Harry Markopolos, targeting the company in a report alleging the corporation covered up a massive amount of losses in financial documents, according to the Washington Post.

A forensic accountant, Markopolos posted a 175-page report, which is being circulated on a website called GEFraud.com. The reporting alleges that GE is committing $38 billion in accounting fraud. He calls this a “bigger fraud than Enron,” and declares GE is using similar fraud tactics. After the release of the report, GE stock dropped 4.3% in premarket trading, according to Reuters. 

“[I]t’s the biggest, bigger than Enron and WorldCom combined,” the report goes on to say. “In fact, GE’s $38 Billion in accounting fraud amounts to over 40% of GE’s market capitalization, making it far more serious than either the Enron or WorldCom accounting frauds.”

Markopolos and his team published the allegations after a year’s worth of research.

“My team has spent the past 7 months analyzing GE’s accounting and we believe the $38 Billion in fraud we’ve come across is merely the tip of the iceberg,” Markopolos stated in the 175-page report.

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World's First Licensed Crypto Bank Seen As Game-Changer For Switzerland

The co-founders of Sygnum crypto bank have hailed the award of a Swiss banking license as a game changer that could open the floodgates to the integration of cryptocurrencies and other digital assets into the established financial sector.

Sygnumexternal link, along with SEBAexternal link, were awarded provisional banking and securities dealer licenses by Switzerland’s financial regulator on Monday. Both entities will become fully-fledged banks once they have completed some final routine regulatory hurdles.

“This is the first time such licenses have been granted worldwide, so Switzerland is playing a pioneering role,” Manuel Krieger, CEO of Sygnum Switzerland, told swissinfo.ch. He also thinks the early movers will encourage others to take the plunge. “We now have a responsibility as an enabling platform to help banks and other financial players make the step into the digital asset world.”

“This has positive implications for Switzerland and distributed ledger technology [the blockchain-style platform on which cryptocurrencies run] internationally,” added Mathias Imbach who runs the group’s Singapore operation.

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China's Oil Imports From Iran Are Rising, New Customs Data Shows

Much anticipated data by China's General Administration of Customs (GAC) detailing the country's oil imports has been released on Tuesday, and shows that China has not cut its Iranian supply after the US waiver program ended on May 2nd, but has steadily increased Iranian crude imports since the official end of the waiver extension, up from May and June levels. 

It's been no secret that China continues to play a large part in preventing Trump's desire to take Iran's crude exports down to zero, despite a noticeable drop on its Iran oil imports compared to the summer prior (sinking almost 60% in June compared to a year earlier). 

The new GAC data shows China imported over 900,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil from Iran in July, which is up 4.7% from the month before. On a metric-ton basis, Iranian inflows rose 8.2% from June, but this marked a drop of 71.9% on the year, according to S&P conversion figures (China's GAC releases customs data in metric tons).

China's June crude shipments from Iran totaled 855,638, averaging to 208,205 barrels per day (bpd) two months after Trump ended the waiver program, compared with 254,016 bpd in May, according the July GAC figures.

Simultaneously, China's oil purchases from Iran's rival Saudi Arabia have during this hot summer of "tanker wars" soared to record volume, in June reaching an all-time high of 1.89 million barrels a day, and in July dipping slightly to 1.65 million b/d. Thus far for the first seven months of 2019 Saudi Arabia has been China's top crude supplier, with Russia and Iraq second and third. 

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Will Central Banks Survive?

Almost all economists and the vast majority of the general population erroneously believe that central banks are, basically, indestructible. And most fail to appreciate that central banks are different from normal commercial banks in just two respects: their ability to earn seigniorage revenue, and to distort accounting rules.

With the current level of liabilities central banks hold those may not be enough. We might be closing in the end of the central banking era.

The income structure of a central bank

Central banks earn seigniorage from the difference between the “printing” costs of the legal tender (monetary base) and its nominal value. In a simplified balance sheet of a central bank, money is visible in the liabilities-side, which also holds the government’s bank account (domestic liabilities) and the reserves of commercial banks and net worth. Net worth includes the capital of the central bank and valuation adjustments for changes in the foreign-exchange rate and investments. A central bank’s assets include securities, foreign-exchange reserves (net foreign assets) and loans (to commercial banks).

Thus, when a central bank buys assets, such as government bonds, it simply either creates money directly or debits the reserves of commercial banks to maintain balance. In the programs of quantitative easing (“QE”, see Q-Review 1/2018), the latter option has been used. The central bank earns income in the form of interest from these holdings. If the liabilities contain required reserves and currency, the central bank has “zero-cost” financing. If the liabilities contain excess reserves and or domestic liabilities, the central bank will need to pay interest.

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We Are Being Warned That The Last Week Of August “Could Be Highly Volatile” For Global Financial Markets

Are things about to break loose in a major way?  At the end of last week, the trade war between the United States and China escalated dramatically, and investors all over the globe really started freaking out.  Unfortunately, developments over the weekend have only made things worse, and that means that this could be a very “interesting” week for global financial markets.  As I write this article, stock prices around the world are plunging, the price of gold is spiking and the Chinese yuan is crashing.  There is clearly a lot of fear out there right now, and at this point even CNBC is warning that the last week of this month “could be highly volatile”…

The final week of August — the bittersweet end of summer for many— could be highly volatile, as markets fret over the economy and the latest developments in trade wars.

Of course things can swing rapidly from moment to moment in this environment.  President Trump could say something in a few hours that temporarily gives investors some hope, and that could cause markets to swing wildly upward for a little while.  Everyone is on edge right now, and every piece of significant news is likely to cause gyrations in the marketplace.

But overall the trend is clearly down.  U.S. stocks have now fallen for four weeks in a row, and many are becoming deeply concerned about what September will bring.

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Hong Kong’s Economy Is Still Important to the Mainland, at Least Financially

Beyond funding, Hong Kong is China’s most important springboard for foreign direct investment, either into or outside China. In particular, 64% of Mainland China’s inward FDI comes from Hong Kong and between 2010 and 2018, 65% of outward FDI was channelled through Hong Kong. The high share indicated Hong Kong’s role as the immediator between China and the West, which is due to the trust of Chinese and foreign firms on Hong Kong’s institutional framework and funding pool for their investments. In the specific case of mergers and acquisitions, Hong Kong has played a key role as its unique status has facilitated Chinese companies’ overseas acquisitions.

In addition, Hong Kong has long been China’s largest offshore RMB centre, for long a key policy initiative of the Chinese government in its pursuit of a staggered opening of the capital account. Other than RMB settlements, Hong Kong also holds a special access to China’s equity and fixed income markets, though the Stock and Bond Connect.

Therefore, Hong Kong’s role as the China’s financial arm for the rest of the world has helped Mainland China in keeping its financial sector insulated without suffering the negative consequences of such isolation, i.e. limited access to finance or difficult access to assets in the rest of the world. In essence, Hong Kong has long been China’s financial firewall.

The second important aspect to consider is that Hong Kong’s financial system is increasingly dominated by Mainland Chinese banks. At the same time, overseas bank assets held by Mainland Chinese banks are also heavily concentrated in Hong Kong. The large exposure means that the destiny of Hong Kong as an offshore financial centre affects China even more than it affects those from the rest of the world. Mainland Chinese financial institutions have expanded 3.2 times since 2010, reaching USD 1.2 trillion and have had a much higher growth rate than the rest of the banking sector.

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China's Ultimate Play For Global Oil Market Control

All attention is focused on the twists-and-turns of the very noisy US-Iran dispute in the Persian Gulf, but all the while the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is rapidly and quietly consolidating a dominant presence in the area with the active support of Russia.

Beijing, as a result, is fast acquiring immense influence over related key dynamics such as the price of oil in the world market and the relevance of the petrodollar. The PRC and the Russians are capitalizing on both the growing fears of Iran and the growing mistrust of the US. Hence, the US is already the main loser of the PRC’s gambit.

The dramatic PRC success can be attributed to the confluence of two major trends:

(1) The quality and relevance of what Beijing can offer to both Iran and the Saudi-Gulf States camp; and

(2) The decision of key Arab leaders — most notably Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin ‘Abd al-’Aziz al Sa’ud (aka MBS) and his close ally, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (aka MBZ) — to downgrade their traditional close ties with the US, and reach out to Beijing to provide a substitute strategic umbrella.

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China Wants To Build A Grains "Superhighway" In Argentina

China has stepped away from US agriculture imports and said it would bid on a project that could create a grains superhighway in Argentina, reported Reuters.

Chinese state-owned construction company (CCCC) is readying a bid that would allow it to dredge Argentina's Parana River, the country's only river that acts as a waterway for bulk vessels that transport soybean and corn from the Pampas farm belt to the South Atlantic.

China has increased agriculture purchases from Argentina since trade tensions between Washington and Beijing erupted last year.

Representatives of CCCC and its Shanghai Dredging unit have already held meetings with Argentine government and local port officials to design a plan that would allow larger bulk carriers to navigate the Parana River to and from the Argentine farm belt, to the South Atlantic, then to China, according to Reuters' sources.

CCCC is the top Chinese firm to lead international efforts in modernizing global transport hubs and shipping lanes to secure sustainable food supplies for China.

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The latest sign that absolutely nothing makes sense

In the latest sign that absolutely nothing makes sense anymore, WeWork filed formal regulatory paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week, officially notifying the world that it will soon be going public.

If you haven’t heard of WeWork (or it’s parent– ‘The We Company’), it’s a real estate company that owns practically zero real estate.

Instead, they lease vast amounts of office space in commercial buildings on long-term contracts, and then sub-lease that space to individual tenants– often small businesses– with short-term contracts.

It’s essentially the same business model as Regus– which provides virtual office services, business addresses, and short-term office space, in pretty much every major city around the world.

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12 Reasons Why Negative Rates Will Devastate The World

It has been a thesis over 20 years in the making, but with every passing day, SocGen's Albert Edwards - who first coined the term "Ice Age" to describe the state of the world in which every debt issue ends up with a negative yield as capital markets and economies collapse into a deflationary singularity - is that much closer to having the victory lap of a lifetime. Although, we doubt he is happy about it.

Commenting on the interest rate collapse he has been (correctly) predicting ever since he first observed Japan's great bubble bust of the 1980s and which resulted in both NIRP and QE, and which he (correctly) expected would spread across the rest of the world, leading to a "Japanification" of every major bond market...

... Edwards said that what bond markets are telling us is "that the cycle is ending with the central banks having failed to drive core CPI inflation higher. So Japanese-style outright deflation lies ahead at a time when western economies have piled debt sky high."

Needless to say that's not good, not least of all because we now live in a world in which the bond universe with negative yields continues to grow at an exponential pace, rising rapidly over the past two weeks and reaching a record $16.4 trillion...

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Hong Kong Activist Leader Calls For A Run On Chinese Banks Tomorrow

Prominent Hong Kong pro-independence political activist Chen Haotian has called for a run on Chinese banks, asking that everyone withdraw their money on the same day.

Haotian is a founding member and the convenor of the Hong Kong National Party.

Arguing that large scale protests have only led to injuries and escalating police brutality, Haotian believes another method could be used to severely undermine China’s influence – a good old fashioned run on the bank.

He suggested that another method could be used, namely, impacting the financial system,” reports China Press.

“He called on Friday (August 16) that Hong Kong citizens take out all bank deposits. The primary goal is Chinese banks, but he said other banks should also be targeted, otherwise Chinese banks can borrow money from other banks to solve problems.”

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Why The Dollar Rules The World - And Why Its Reign Could End

President Donald Trump wants a lower US dollar. He complains about the over-valuation of the American currency. Yet, is he right to accuse other countries of a “currency manipulation”? Is the position of the US dollar in the international monetary arena not a manipulation in its own right? How much has the United States benefitted from the global role of the dollar, and is this “exorbitant privilege” coming to end? In order to find an answer to these questions, we must take a look at the monetary side of the rise of the American Empire.

Trump is right. The American dollar is overvalued. According to the latest version of the Economist’s “ Big Mac Index,” for example, only three currencies rank higher than the US dollar. Yet the main reason for this is not currency manipulation but the fact that the US dollar serves as the main international reserve currency.

This is both a boon and a curse. It is a boon because the country that emits the leading international reserve currency can have trade deficits without worrying about a growing foreign debt. Because the American foreign debt is in the country’s own currency, the government can always honor its foreign obligations as it can produce any amount of money that it wants in its own currency.

Yet the international reserve status comes also with the curse that the persistent trade deficits weaken the country’s industrial base. Instead of paying for the import of foreign goods with the export of domestic production, the United States can simply export money.

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China Factory Output Weakest In 17 Years, Everything Missed

With currency turmoil and social unrest, China's economic assault tonight was supposed be the great equalizer - confirming that a few trillion here or there and everything looks awesome and happy, and not a tiny bit angry (and that the Americans are not to blame for everything).

Ahead of today's data, broadly speaking, macro data globally has been weak, but in China, recent credit growth numbers slumped and steel production slowed, suggesting graver concerns. And so here it is...

Finally, for a few minutes/seconds the world spiked after China set the yuan fix slightly stronger; we are not so impressed, nor is the yuan or US equity futures...

So with inflation spiking, currency crashing, social-unrest; will the PBOC flood the nation with cash to ensure happiness at October's CCP Anniversary?

It's just that the sugar high from the injection is getting shorter...

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Middle Class Death Spiral: Consumers Have Never Been In More Debt, And Bankruptcies Are Surging

This wasn’t supposed to happen.  During the relative economic stability of the past few years, the middle class was supposed to experience a resurgence, but instead it has just continued to be hollowed out.  The cost of living has risen much faster than wages have, and as a result hard working families all over America are being stretched financially like never before.  Even though most of us are working, 59 percent of all Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck, and almost 50 million Americans are living in poverty.  In a desperate attempt to continue their middle class lifestyles, many Americans have been piling up mountains of debt, and it has gotten to the point where we have a major crisis on our hands.

According to the New York Post, the total amount of debt that U.S. households have accumulated is about to cross the 14 trillion dollar mark for the first time ever…

Meanwhile, record American household debt, near $14 trillion including mortgages and student loans, is some $1 trillion higher than during the Great Recession of 2008. Credit card debt of $1 trillion also exceeds the 2008 peak.

Americans are spending heavily, again — and often recklessly, say analysts.

This is the exact opposite of what U.S. consumers should be doing.  We can see signs of a fresh economic slowdown all around us, and consumers should be feverishly trying to get out of debt as fast as they can.

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Chinese Banks No Longer Trust One Another As Repo Rates Skyrocket

For those who have grown bored with the ongoing US-China trade war whose escalation was obvious to all but the dumbest BTFD algos, the biggest news of the past week was that yet another Chinese bank was bailed out by the Chinese government - the third in the past three months - and a substantial one at that: with over 1.4 trillion yuan in assets ($200BN), Hang Feng Bank's nationalization was certainly large enough to make a dent on the Chinese financial system and on the Chinese Sovereign Wealth Fund, which drew the short straw and was told to bailout the troubled Chinese bank (more here).

Hang Feng's bailout followed those of Baoshang and Bank of Jinzhou, which means that 3 of the top 4 most troubled banks have now been either nationalized by an SOE or seized by the government, which is effectively the same thing.

Of course, to regular readers this development was hardly surprising, especially after our post in mid-July when we saw the $40 trillion Chinese banking system approach its closest encounter with the proverbial "Lehman moment" yet, when inexplicably the four-day repo rate on China’s government bonds (i.e., the cost for investors to pledge their Chinese government bond holdings for short-term funding) on the Shanghai exchange briefly spiked to 1,000% in afternoon trading.

While some attributed the surge to a fat finger, far more ominous signs were already present, and in the aftermath of the Baoshang failure, which has sent Chinese banking stocks tumbling, one-day and seven-day weighted average borrowing rates had remained low thanks to huge central bank cash injections - such as the 250BN yuan we described back in May  - longer tenors such as the 1 month repo have marched sharply higher.

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China "Faces The Worst Of Both Worlds" As PPI Deflation Arrives While Food Inflation Soars

As if China did not have its hands full with a trade war, a plunging yuan and growing civil unrest in Hong Kong, which is fast becoming the potential epicenter for the next global crisis (and which Steve "The Big Short" Eisman thinks is the next black swan), it now also has deflation to worry about at a time when its ability to boost liquidity in the system is severely limited... or maybe it's soaring inflation China should be concerned about.

On Friday, China's National Bureau of Statistics reported that the Producer Price Index (PPI), i.e. factory prices, fell 0.3% in July from a year ago, missing the modest 0.1% decline expected by analysts. This was the first annual decline in China's PPI in three years - since August 2016 - and just like back then, was largely the result of tumbling commodity prices which in turn depressed both manufacturing and raw material goods prices. And with oil sliding, and iron ore plunging, not to mention the whole trade war thing, it does not seems like a rebound is imminent at all. 

Worse, since PPI is closely linked to corporate profitability, the decline suggests that China is badly lagging in the credit impulse arena despite having started off 2019 with a bang and some of the biggest increases in Total Social Financing on record.

So what's the big deal: China has always been able to boost inflation, all it had to do was turn on the credit spigot and inject a few trillion in new bank and shadow loans into the economy.

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Gold Hits Record Highs!

Gold hit record highs in a number of currencies this week as trade war worries, geopolitical uncertainty and expectations of a slowing economy drove investors to seek safe haven.

While the yellow metal has soared in USD terms in recent weeks, as global geopolitical tensions rise and the "policy-maker idiocy" proxy spikes ($15 trillion of negative-yielding debt)...

More trade war tension was a big driver in the gold rally, but the recent surge in gold prices isn’t an isolated event. The yellow metal has been rallying for months. The yellow metal is up 17% since last December when plunging stock markets drove the Fed to initiate the “Powell Pause.”

The trade war isn’t the only factor pushing gold higher. For instance, Brexit uncertainty is driving the yellow metal up in the United Kingdom. The gold price in British pounds has skyrocketed 25% since May.

Generally weak economic data is also driving investor worry. Despite assurances from Powell and US government officials that the American economy is strong, the data tells a different story. Even as Powell was assuring us the domestic economy is fine, and the Fed’s worries are all global, we got more gloomy economic numbers. Data showed the ISM manufacturing index dropped to 51.2% in July. That’s the lowest level since mid-2016. Construction spending also declined by 1.3% in June. Meanwhile, jobless claims climbed modestly by 8,000 to 215,000 at the end of July.

Philips Futures analyst Benjamin Lu told CNBC he thinks all of the uncertainty will lead to more Fed rate cuts.

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Will China Retreat Into Itself?

It’s never easy to gauge what exactly is happening in China, or why the CCP Politburo takes the decisions it does. Today, or overnight, is no exception to that. However, one thing that appears certain, but which I don’t see reflected in all the analyses, is that Beijing pushing the value of the renminbi (yuan) down below 7 to the USD in one fell swoop, is a major setback for Xi Jinping and his government.

Yes, China may have given up hope of reaching positive conclusions in its trade talks with the US. And yes, some may think, even in China itself, that devaluing the currency is a tool that can be useful in a potential currency war. But there’s another side to this coin. It’s not even about the value itself, or the change in it, it’s the heavy-handed way it’s executed.

China wants, and desperately needs too, for the yuan to be a force in global financial markets. In very simple terms this is true because if it then wants to buy something, it can simply print the money for it. But only about 1% of global trade today is executed in yuan. That is not nearly enough. It means China needs dollars and euros, all the time. And devaluing the yuan means the country needs even more of those.

You’d almost think: why would you want to do that? What are the long-term prospects for a move like this? You’re telling forex markets that the value of the yuan is not trustworthy, because if Xi or the PBOC decides in the next five minutes that it should go up or down by 10% or 20%, they can do it. The Fed and ECB also have tools to manipulate their currencies (re: interest rates), but none of that magnitude.

The crux of the dilemma probably lies in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which I’ve been saying for years is just China’s way to sell its overcapacity and overproduction abroad. Sure, there may be loftier goals, and surely in the glitzy brochures, but the fact remains that China has tried to be an economic miracle, doing in 10 years what took the US a century, and it never slowed down its growth, at least not voluntarily, even if that might have been a wise move.

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Fed Rate Cut – Too Little, Too Late, As Trump Hikes Tariffs

We had also warned previously the current extension of the market, combined with overbought conditions, was due for a reversal. That reversal has indeed begun, and short-term sell signals have been triggered.

“As we have noted over the last few weeks, the very tight trading range combined with negative divergences also does not historically suggest continued bullish runs higher without some type of corrective action first.”

This past week, a disappointing cut by the Fed, and increased tariffs on China from the White House, provided the catalysts needed for a very quick market rout.

Again, this is something we discussed over the last couple of weeks with our RIAPRO subscribers previously (30-Day Free Trial). The analysis led us to previously trimming our long positions slightly, and increasing our cash holdings, heading into the Fed announcement.

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Mission Accomplished: Rate Cut Odds Surge After Tariff Announcement, Just As Trump Wanted

Earlier today, we wrote a post titled "What Would It Take For The Fed To Not Cut Again?", with Goldman providing a stylized answer, although in retrospect, the post should have been titled "What Would It Take For The Fed To Cut Again", as that is what the market was far more concerned about after yesterday's hawkish Powell press conference.

In any case, Goldman hinted at the one specific catalyst that could force the Fed to cut more: "We also see risks in the other direction, especially on a significant escalation of tariffs against China."

To this, we said that "if an acceleration in the trade war with China is what the Fed will need to cut more, it's pretty clear what that means for the chances of any trade deal between Washington and Beijing, since even Trump now understands that if he keeps escalating trade war with China, Powell will have no choice but to eventually cut to 0% (and lower)."

Just a few hours later, we were proven right in suggesting that an escalation in the trade war is inevitable and imminent when Trump tweeted that he would hike tariffs on $300BN in Chinese imports to 10% starting September 1, ending the tentative ceasefire with Beijing with a bang, and sending risk prices sharply lower.

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“The Stock Market Started To Fall In July…”

Will we look back on the month of July as a critical turning point for the stock market?  During the first half of 2019, stock prices soared to record high after record high even though we just kept getting one number after another that indicated that a new economic slowdown was starting.  Because of the disappointing performance of the U.S. economy, it was believed that we would see a rate cut from the Federal Reserve on Wednesday, and that is precisely what happened.  But instead of rejoicing, investors started to panic a bit, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day down 333 points.  We will get into why that happened in just a little bit.  But without a doubt it seems quite odd that the Fed’s very first rate cut since December 2008 actually caused stocks to go down.  On a historical basis, interest rates are already very low right now, and so this greatly limits what the Fed will be able to do once the next recession officially begins.  Of course most investors are not concerned with such considerations.  What they really want is for interest rates to be pushed all the way to the floor as quickly as possible, and so they were quite disappointed with what they heard from Fed Chairman Jay Powell on Wednesday.

But considering the fact that we haven’t seen a rate cut in more than a decade, the truth is that investors should have been thrilled by what happened.  When interest rates go down, that tends to promote more economic activity…

As expected, the Fed lowered its federal funds rate by a quarter-percentage point to a range of 2% to 2.25%. The move is likely to ripple through the economy and financial system, nudging down rates for credit cards, home equity lines and auto loans and theoretically sparking more economic activity. While the rate cut should aid borrowers, it will frustrate savers who were just starting to benefit from higher bank account yields.

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