Business

What a day... this seemed appropriate...

Just days after ConocoPhilips became the first major to slash its dividend, moments ago Anadarco followed suit and announced, just one week after it reported earnings that, it too would virtually halt distribution to shareholders, when it said that it would cut its dividend - the first such action in decades - from 27 cents to just 5 cents per share, an 81% cut, and far above the more modest expected reduction of 14 cents.

One would imagine that in a market as skittish for risk as this one, that selling $24 billion in 3 Year paper would be if not as easy as pie, then as simple as last month's issuance, when not a cloud was visible when the Treasury sold 3 Year paper. One would be wrong, because moments ago the US Treasury managed to sell precisely that amount in February 2019 paper, however at a notable concession to the When Issued, with the high yield of 0.844% tailing the When Issued by 0.7 bps, while the Bid to Cover of 2.742 was the lowest since July of 2009.

Global equity market investors have lost a stunning $16.5 trillion of their newfound CB-fueled "wealth" in the last six months. This has erased half of the gains from the 2011 lows (but of course leaves all the debt created still in place). However, what is perhaps more troubling given the unprecedented money-printing since the last crisis peak, is that global equity market "wealth" is now down 10% from its November 2007 prior highs.

It all started in mid/late 2014, when the first whispers of a Fed rate hike emerged, which in turn led to relentless increase in the value of the US dollar and the plunge in the price of oil and all commodities, unleashing the worst commodity bear market in history.

The immediate implication of these two concurrent events was missed by most, although we wrote about it and previewed the implications in November of that year in "How The Petrodollar Quietly Died, And Nobody Noticed."