FTX Chief Hunts for Crypto, Calls Controls ‘a Complete Failure’ (Cryptos Getting Creamed As Fed Tightens) Didn’t SBF See That Coming??

As I have said before, Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX exemplifies loose Fed monetary policy and its unintended consequences: shoddy investment practices by both sides and ridiculous claims that are unverified.

Like Sam Bankman-Fried tweeting that FTX and his team were held as paragons of running an effective company.

I am sure that SBF’s attorneys (like his parents) are telling Spam to stop tweeting ridiculous defenses. As in its all the fault of crypto volatility. We now know that at best SBF had a total lack of corporate controls and thought risk management was the Hasbro board game. And SBF while virtue signaling failed to mention his twisted relationship to Ukraine funding.

(Bloomberg) — Advisers now overseeing the carcass of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX Group are struggling to locate the company’s cash and crypto after finding poor internal controls and record keeping at the now-bankrupt company.

“Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information,” John J. Ray III, the group’s new chief executive officer who formerly oversaw the liquidation of Enron Corp., said in a sworn declaration submitted in bankruptcy court.

“From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented,” he added.

Advisers have located “only a fraction” of the digital assets of the FTX Group that they hope to recover during the Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Ray said. They’ve so far secured about $740 million of cryptocurrency in offline cold wallets, a storage method designed to prevent hacks.

The company’s audited financial statements should not be trusted, Ray said. Advisers are working to rebuild balance sheets for FTX entities from the bottom up, he said.

FTX “did not maintain centralized control of its cash” and failed to keep an accurate list of bank accounts and account signatories, or pay sufficient attention to the creditworthiness of banking partners, according to Ray. Advisers don’t yet know how much cash FTX Group had when it filed for bankruptcy, but has found about $560 million attributable to various FTX entities so far.

Although restructuring advisers have been in control of FTX for less than a week, they’ve seen enough to depict the crypto company as a deeply flawed enterprise. Lasting records of decision making are hard to come by: Bankman-Fried often communicated through applications that auto-deleted in short order and asked employees to do the same, according to Ray.

Well, this story keeps getting worse and worse and makes Sam The Sham look like a common criminal rather than a Democrat Saint.

Didn’t SBF’s chief economist show this chart to him and his Alameda team? The one where crytpos soars at The Fed and Federal government go wild on stimulus, then back-off? As The Fed tightens, cryptos are getting crushed.

At least Bitcoin rallied a bit today to $16,564.21, but other cryptos are down … again. Litecoin is actually up 4.57% while Solana is down -4.35%.

SBF, like Janet Yellen, will claim he didn’t see it coming.

The Thrill Is Gone … From Cryptos? Bitcoin Resumes Downward Trend As Fed Tightens To Fight Inflation

The Thrill Is Gone … from cryptocurrencies.

The cryptocurrency market is getting hammered thanks mostly to two things: 1) Sam Bankman-Fried’s horrid failure with FTX (fraud, Enron, front-running, stupid investors, Democrat-Ukraine connection) and 2) Fed tightening to combat high inflation.

Bitcoin, the Mac Daddy of cryptos, is down another 2% today.

The rest of the story.

The NEW face of the US Federal government and why they will sweep the Bankman-Fried fiasco under the rug, just like Hunter Biden’s laptop fiasco.

Buying Typical US Home Now Requires Income of Over $100,000, Up 46% YoY (19 Straight Months Of Negative REAL Wage Growth Isn’t Helping)

Redfin had an interesting post where they showed that the “typical” US home now requires income of over $100,000.

Of course, it is easy to blame the figure on rapidly rising mortgage rates and Federal Reserve tightening.

But the rest of the story (as Paul Harvey used to say) is that US REAL wage growth has been NEGATIVE for 19 straight months. This alone makes housing unaffordable for the middle class and low wage workers.

Good day!

Again, why are Biden and Trudeau wearing Mao jackets in Bali? And why is Biden looking like a robot?? Biden does look like he is saying “Take me to my leader, Pei.”

US Mortgage Rates Drop Below 7% in Biggest Decline Since July (But MBA Purchase Applications Drop -9.52% WoW, Refi Apps Drop -11.44%)

US mortgage rates fell last week by the most since the end of July, slipping below 7% and helping generate a bounce in purchase applications that otherwise remain depressed, but only in the Seasonally Adjusted data. The NON-Seasonally Adjusted data show a hefty decline.

The contract rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage decreased 24 basis points to 6.9% in the week ended Nov. 11, according to Mortgage Bankers Association data released Wednesday. The group’s index of applications to buy a home rose 4.4% — the most since June — but is still near the weakest level since 2015.

But the bounce was in Seasonally Adjusted data only. The NON-seasonally adjusted data remained depressed.

Mortgage applications decreased -10.0 percent SA from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending November 11, 2022. This week’s results include an adjustment for the observance of Veterans Day.

The Refinance Index decreased -11.44% percent from the previous week and was 88 percent lower than the same week one year ago. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased -10 percent compared with the previous week and was 46 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

Mortgage purchase applications will continue to fall in NSA terms since it is the Winter and home buying season won’t really start until January. Refinancing applications actually dropped -11.44% even with the drop in mortgage rates.

The data. As my former students know, I like the “raw” data, better known as NON-seasonally adjusted (NSA) data and avoid seasonally-adjusted data (SA) since it hides what is going on.

And on The Fed Futures Front, The Federal Reserve is still looking a hiking their target rate from 4% to just under 5%.

Cryptos Rebound After Zhao Announces Plans An Industry Recovery Fund (Cronos UP 24% Overnight)

Major cryptocurrencies erased losses and turned higher after Binance Holdings Ltd.’s Chief Executive Officer Changpeng Zhao said the world’s largest digital-asset exchange plans to set up an industry recovery fund.

Zhao said Monday the goal was to “reduce further cascading negative effects” of the bankruptcy of rival exchange FTX, adding the fund will assist otherwise strong projects that are facing a liquidity squeeze.

So, cryptos are up today with Cronos up 24% overnight. Of course, Cronos is trading near zero, so any upturns in price register as large turns.

But across the board, cryptos are up. Of course, if Zhao changes his mind, look out.

I am waiting for the list of pension funds that invested in Sam Bankman-Fried’s schemes.

Let’s see if Alameda Research’s CEO Caroline Ellison faces any wrath from the DOJ or SEC. I doubt it.

US Treasury Yield Curve Slips Into Darkness (Implied Yield On 3M T-Bills In 18 Months – 3M T-Bill Yield Inverts) Slippin’ Into Darkness

The US economy is Slippin’ Into Darkness.

The Fed’s favorite yield curve measure, the implied yield on 3-month T-Bills in 18 months less the 3-month T-bill yield has inverted. Note that this curve inverts prior to a recession.

The new face of reckless Fed policy and Federal spending. 19 straight months of negative REAL earnings growth as America re-elects the same irresponsible fools that are turning the US into Venezuela.

Fed Is NOT Unwinding MBS, 30yr Mortgage Rate Falls To Under 7% (Will The Fed ACTUALLY Unwind Its Balance Sheet??)

Now that the midterm elections are over (except for counting of million of mail-in ballots, a massive moral hazard risk), President Biden has proclaimed that he isn’t changing any of his horrid policies. And apparently, neither is The Federal Reserve.

Despite the headlines that The Federal Reserve is rapidly downsizing its massive balance sheet of assets, The Fed is just letting their enormous holdings of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) run off. That is, just letting MBS mature. So, The Fed’s System Open Market Holdings of Agency MBS has barely declined.

Here is the table of MBS run-off. The mass of MBS doesn’t start to mature until … 2039. It is Treasuries that are maturing.

So, The Fed is raising its target rate rapidly, although that is likely to reverse course in the first half of 2022.

Meanwhile, mortgage applications fall to lowest level since 1997 with Fed tightening.

“So Mr Bond…let me tell you my plan for global domination.”

US Mortgage Rates At 7.32%, Up 154% Under Biden (As Fed Fights Soaring Bidenflation)

Biden’s magic trick was to turn the economy into a train wreck.

Example? The 30-year mortgage rate was 2.88% on Biden’s inauguration day (January 20, 2021). They are now 7.32%, a 154% increase under Biden.

The US economy is suffering from knucklehead energy policies, reckless Federal spending and rampant inflation.

Here is Joe Biden doing economic magic tricks, turning a vibrant economy into an inflation-ravaged one.

And why I won’t watch of subscribe to Peacock.

Double Whammy! Mortgage Holders Lose $1.3 Trillion in Equity in Q3 As Price Correction Continues (Nationally, Homes Shed 2.6% of Value Over Past Three Months As Treasury Yield Curve Remains DEEPLY Inverted)

Yes, this is an economic double whammy!

First, according to Black Knight, US home values declined -2.6% over the past three months.

Second, the US Treasury 10Y-2Y yield curve remains near 1980s low.

There is a third whammy, rising utility costs (highest in a decade).

Yes, its a double whammy!

The US Midterm Election In One Chart (Hint: Republicans Favored As Inflation Soars, Biden Unpopular On Kitchen Table Issues)

Here is the US midterm election in one chart.

According to Real Clear Politics, the generic Republican polling data FAVORABLE (red line) is at 47.9% while Democrat polling data favorable polling data (yellow line) is at 45.4%, advantage Republicans.

Biden has been a disaster as President (energy mandates, Afghanistan debacle, endless funding of Ukraine, highest inflation in 40 years, and every time he opens his mouth. But it is the “kitchen table” issues where Biden is getting clobbered: inflation, rising gas, food and diesel prices. One Democrat Congressman, Sean Patrick Maloney, said “Let them eat Chef Boyradee.” I can’t believe how tone deaf some politicians can be.

Biden’s UNFAVORABLE polling numbers (orange line) are directly related to the US headline inflation rate. Inflation was 1.4% YoY when Biden became President and it is now 8.2% YoY (blue line).

And I don’t think Biden’s hateful rhetoric toward “MAGA Republicans” is helping him. I thought his set looked like the movie “Doom” with Duane “The Rock” Johnson and Karl Urban.