Don't Try This At Home Kids - EUR Traders Holding On For Dear Life As FX Vol At Never Before Seen Levels
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/09/2010 - 17:25
More flags, more fun - 500 billion flags! A 50 pip move in an FX pair in a week is big. A 50 pip move in an FX pair in a minute is a several hundred sigma event. As all correlation algos are near unity, we believe the risk of Thursday's 2:40 pm festivities to recur in the afterhours session (either up or down) is frighteningly high.
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EU Pulls Out Nuclear Option: Proposed 500 Billion Euro Bail Out Package Is Largest In History
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/09/2010 - 16:54Germany proposed on Sunday evening the establishment of a comprehensive plan of financial aid can be used for countries in the euro area, totaling 500 billion euros and involves the IMF, told AFP European diplomatic source. "Germany has put on the table a proposal of 500 billion euros," she said. It would include 60 billion euros in loans from the European Commission, he was in the last day, and 440 billion would accrue if necessary, the euro zone countries and the International Monetary Fund. This envelope would be established "bilateral loans, collateral for loans and lines of credit from the IMF," the source said. It would be in scale, if the subject of an agreement, an assistance plan is unprecedented in history.
Uhm, we have one simple question - where will the money come from? The EUR is surging currently on the kneejerk, although for all those who realize that the next step in this now entirely Federal Reserve mandated playbook is debt monetization, it provides just a good re-shorting opportunity. Of course, before our own Maestro Junior finds a new and improved way to pummel the greenback.
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Watch The EU Extraordinary Meeting Of Finance Ministers Live
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/09/2010 - 16:06With less than 2 hours before Asia opens, the EU is scrambling - on net, the newsflow this weekend has been far more negative than Europe had hoped, with just the token minimum provided so far by the IMF (thank you Joe Sixpack) which the political situation in the UK and Germany deteriorating substantially. The live webcast from the Counsil of the European Union, the Extraordinary meeting of finance ministers - press conference is starting imminently at the following link.
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Reinhart Squared: Is The US Too Big To Fail? (Must Read)
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/09/2010 - 14:53First posted 17 November 2008, this column's analysis is more relevant than ever. It asks why investors rush to government securities when the US was at the epicentre of the financial crisis? This column attributes the paradox to key emerging market economies’ exchange practices, which require reserves most often invested in US government securities. America’s exorbitant privilege comes with a cost and a responsibility that US policy makers should bear in mind as they address financial reform. - Carmen Reinhart and Vince Reinhart
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Breaking News: Angela Merkel Coalition Loses Majority In German State Vote According To Exit Polls
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/09/2010 - 12:08Political doctrine - meet Newton's third law. Headline from Reuters. This will serve as a huge setback to a consolidated European rescue of not only Greece but all PIIGS (and then all of Europe itself). Polls are now closed and the first preliminary read is as follows: 34.5 CDU, SPD 34.5, 12.5 Green, FDP 6.5 Left 5.5.And the biggest losers from this, aside from the line of willing bailout recipients may be German public utility: as Bloomberg notes: "Chancellor Angela Merkel’s parliamentary spokesman for economy and energy, Joachim Pfeiffer, said that the German government may not have to get approval from the federal parliament’s upper chamber to extend the operating life of nuclear power plants." EON, RWE and other utilities may not appricate their 10 year ultimatum in tomorrow's DAX.
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German Finance Minister Rushed To Hospital On Eve Of Last Greek Bailout
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/09/2010 - 12:02The reason given by Reuters why the FinMin is in the hospital is due to an adverse reaction to a new medicine. While we wish Schaeuble all the best, his the timing could not possibly have been worse: the whole world is watching with baited breath to see what happens in Europe before 6pm eastern tonight. Anything less than an "ironclad" bailout program will result in a total market wipeout tomorrow.
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Guest Post: A Tale Of Two Liquidity Measures
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/09/2010 - 10:51The story of financial markets in the past twelve months has not been one of organic growth. It has been a central bank accommodated liquidity story. This melt up will end in melt down when unsustainable liquidity policy is insufficient to address deleveraging and default. Macro trade positioning needs functional measures of liquidity. As has been said before, liquidity will always be around until you need it.
Given the explosion of financial product innovation, international capital flows, and leverage some measures of liquidity are not as informative as they once were. New ones are needed. Further, thinking through liquidity phenomena to their essence is really about understanding connections to market-maker and/or seller distress, manifested in the bid-ask. So measures that exhibit a myopic view on credit risk of market players in some ways serve as a function liquidity measures.
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Civil And Criminal Probes Launched Against JP Morgan For Silver Market Manipulation
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/09/2010 - 08:25Yes, it is really happening. After years and years and years of market manipulation, JPMorgan is about to realize there is only so far you can push your luck against the criminal envelope.In other news, when silver doubles shortly, Andrew Maguire is about to become a patron saint to generations of long-suffering gold and silver "bugs" the world throughout.
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The Smoking Gun Document That Could Terminate George Papandreou's Career
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/09/2010 - 08:14Greek blog DosePasa has released several smoking gun documents in which Boston-based Hayman Private Equity (no relation to the Kyle Bass firm, at least none that we can find), discloses it intention to offer a E20 billion loan through a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding to Greece at roughly LIBOR+125bps in February 2010. If the documents are proven legitimate, and with a plethora of executive-level signatures it appears they would be difficult to forge, Athens will likely now demand G-Pap's head on a platter, or at least a coherent explanation why he refused to do this transaction at massively beneficial to Greece terms, which most importantly, did not involve the IMF's austerity measures, which have been the source of so much consternation to date, not to mention a proximal cause for the biggest market drop in history.
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The European Crisis In Eight Simple Charts
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/09/2010 - 05:47While none of the below information will come as news to regular Zero Hedge readers, as we have been discussing the European debt maturity cliff for over 5 months, here is a simplified representation of why anything and everything that the EU, ECB and the IMF can do now is simply delay the inevitable disintegration of the eurozone and the upcoming eventual debt payment moratorium.
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Here Are The Critical Credit/Liquidity Indicators To Keep A Watch For In The Coming Week
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/08/2010 - 19:05Call it Lehman 2.0, sovereign risk flare up, or plain old money run, the liquidity crunch from last week almost killed the US equity market, has generated an unprecedented swing in FX pairs, and is starting to move into key credit indicators and spreads. The "big bail out" from the weekend has come and gone (unless Trichet is preparing to release something at 5:59pm Eastern tomorrow), and if Goldman is correct will have no material impact on markets... Which means that the downward path of least resistance will continue. And with equity markets not only decoupling from the rest of the world, but from the credit market as well, as they migrate to a plane of existence of their own, replete with unicorns, rainbows and spittoons full of hopium, keeping an eye out on early stress indicators from the credit markets is critical - credit is and has always been a far better early warning of market health, or lack thereof, than the HFT controlled, rebate-driven trading action in the shares of C, FNM, FRE, AIG, and other bankrupt pennystocks which account for up to 40% of daily trading volume. Earlier today, we touched upon some of the key early warning indicators to watch for in determining if the European contagion is going airborne. Below, we share a presentation from Morgan Stanley's Jim Caron, Measuring Risk: Extracting Market Sentiment from the Interest Rate Markets, in which the credit strategist provides a much more detailed framework of what critical credit signals are and how to interpret them. We recommend that all those still trading, either with their own, or other people's money, familiarize themselves with this 27-page overview.
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Dylan Ratigan's Explanation For The Crash
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/08/2010 - 17:54...the former Fast Money lead man is actually pretty spot on. And for all you retail investors who think this market is anything but a two-tiered playground built now exclusively for Wall Street to fleece you every single day, our advice is to get the hell out. Everyone else already is... Except of course for the banks and the various 3-3,000 man quant operations, which are the only market participants left. We hope they cannibalize whatever is left of each other and blow themselves all up in the process. Whatever is left will have infinitely more credibility than the busted mockery of capital markets we have now.
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Goldman's View On Europe Bailout Plan #42 - "Unlikely To Calm Markets"
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/08/2010 - 13:24We now know that the European Union, as part of its most recent ridiculous idea for a global eurozone bailout, is planning on soon issuing its own bonds and thus becoming a defacto Treasury. How the hell it plans on doing this is simply beyond comprehension, but it certainly involves a lot of "financial innovation"... ergo - enter Goldman Sachs, from whom it would need a ringing endorsement to proceed with its plan. Alas, the just released note from Erik Nielsen is anything but favorable: "All in all this is good news, but it is unlikely in itself to calm markets; its all too “slow-burner” stuff." (and yes title is a ref: Douglas Adams - the EU has the answer, if only they could find the question now).
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Moody's Receives Wells Notice, SEC To Commence "Cease & Desist" Proceedings Against Rating Agency
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/08/2010 - 13:02And now for today's bombshell - lietarlly at the very end of Moody's 10-Q filed last night, we find this stunner:
On March 18, 2010, MIS received a “Wells Notice” from the Staff of the SEC stating that the Staff is considering recommending that the Commission institute administrative and cease-and-desist proceedings against MIS in connection with MIS’s initial June 2007 application on SEC Form NRSRO to register as a nationally recognized statistical rating organization under the Credit Rating Agency Reform Act of 2006.
Well at least it took Moody's under two months to report this massively material development, which while we are not positive on how to read the C&D action on the NRSRO registration, could mark the beginning of the end for the rating agency. If the firm is enjoined from providing additional rating research should the SEC action find fault and proceed with a lawsuit, it would mean game over for the business. Egan-Jones: it's IPO time.
We will be shocked, shocked we tell you, to find that Mr. Buffett has sold out his entire position in MCO when BRK's next 13-F is filed.
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Surging Libor-OIS And Cross Currency Basis Swaps Indicate Europe's Response Is Too Little Too Late
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/08/2010 - 10:07Even as the immediate factor for the 1000 point drop in the Dow is investigated for the next several months by the SEC, a process which will likely not come to any reasonable market structure regulatory recommendation before the SEC is forced to analyze the next subsequent (and even greater) crash, the one primary fundamental cause for the sell off in stocks this week was the ever deteriorating situation in Europe. As the euro tumbled on Thursday afternoon, which we noted 20 minutes before the stock market crash began in earnest, as implied correlation algos went berserk, and as viewers were witnessing the near-warfare in Athens live, things just got too real for speculators (investors is so 20th century). Various computerized trading platforms merely kicked on (or rather, off) after the initial panic had already set in, and liquidity evaporated, leading to the implosion in the market. And the primary reason for the initial market pessimism early on Thursday was the fact that even as the whole world was listening to Jean-Claude Trichet to say soothing words after the ECB's rate decision, the central bank president once again did not realize the gravity of the situation. And to speculators, long habituated to Bernanke's endorsement of infinite moral hazard and speculative mania, the fact that someone refused to play "ball" and leave open the possibility that failure is still permitted in our day and age was the last straw. Now, 48 hours later, we learn that the rumors, which we reported about the ECB preparing a bailout fund, were indeed true. Our sense is that at this point the ECB's action is "too little, too late" as contagion fear has already crept deep within the fabric of various overt and shadow funding/liquidity mechanisms. Additionally, the world is now convinced that Europe can only deal with problems retroactively, and who knows how big and unfixable the next problem will be: the ECB, which has lost most of its credibility after "inviting" the IMF to do a heavy part of the bailout, is about to become the laughing stock of global central banks. Trichet is seen merely as a powerless bureaucrat, caught between Merkel's electoral struggles and Bernanke's demands for contagion interception and implicit Fed supremacy over Europe. The contagion from the "isolated" Greek fiasco is rapidly spreading. Here are some of the ways in which markets are about to be affected.
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