Business

After four months of hope-strewn expectation beats, Case-Shiller's home price index missed expectations with MoM growth slowing from 0.96% to 0.8% (and YoY from 5.83% to 5.74%). This is the first inflection in the resurrection of home-price acceleration since June, and we are sure will be blamed on the weather and the stock market. Perhaps most notably Miami and new York saw prices drop MoM as the smoking gun canaries in the coalmine of real estate speculation remain well worth watching.

Did the cycle just turn again?

Below is the latest KBRA research report on blockchain, the enabling technology behind the bitcoin payments system.  After spending several months talking to participants and organizations focused on this new approach to transferring value between individuals, we find no viable commercial business model in sight.  There are however, swarms of hungry consultants, aging derivatives mavens and private equity firms seeking to profit from the hype surrounding bitcoin and the blockchain technology. 

It has been a bad year for most markets. It has also been a bad year for those entities who collect 2 and 20 to "hedge" against bad years for markets: hedge funds. Unfortunately, as we have said since 2009, most hedge funds tend do anything but actually "hedge" which is why as Goldman's latest HF tracker reports, hedge funds have only modestly outperformed a weak S&P 500 YTD following their reduction in net long exposure to 45% at the start of 2016, the lowest level since 2012. Most are down for the year.

Back in August, we warned that things were about to get much worse for Standard Chartered, whose EM focus makes the bank especially vulnerable to the ongoing downturn in commodities and the generally poor outlook for the emerging world in an environment characterized by slowing global growth and a persistently strong USD.

• Risk rally fades as stocks, oil slip back into the red (Reuters)
• Syrian govt. accepts halt to 'combat operations' in line with U.S.-Russian plan (Reuters)
• Earliest Chinese Data Signal Slowdown Hasn't Bottomed Out Yet (BBG)
• The Trickle of U.S. Oil Exports Is Already Shifting Global Power (BBG)
• Greek police remove migrants from Macedonian border as more land in Piraeus (Reuters)
• Clinton, Sanders race takes on angrier tone after Nevada (Reuters)
• London Whale’ Breaks Silence (WSJ)