The LBO Refi Wave Approaches: $800 Billion In Junk Debt Maturing By 2014, Adds To Multi Trillion Fixed Income Refi Cliff
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/07/2010 - 14:32After a mere $100 billion in projected debt maturities in the 2010-2011 period, the LBO wave of 2005-2007, largely financed with 5-7 year tenor bonds and loans, will set the refi scene on fire in the 2012-2014 period, when $700 billion of debt is set to mature. Should Fed Fund rates, and the yield curve begin to shift higher, the incremental cost of debt capital will destroy tens if not hundreds of billions of equity value over the next 5 years. After peaking at 19.4% in Q4, 2008, and subsequently dropping to 9.5%, Moody's expects HY bond yields to begin increasing in 2011. And while HY companies are rushing to access the current favorable HY refi window, when refi capital is still broadly available, growth capital has been extremely scarce with just 4% of last year's total HY issuance used for M&A activity (78% was for refinancing maturity extension). It would appear High Yield companies have entered "run-off" mode for credit investors, with no consideration for any residual equity value.
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Contagion
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/07/2010 - 03:22
The key lesson from the ERM crisis of 1992 and the Asian crisis of 1997 is that contagion can emerge quickly and often in unpredictable ways. Unwinding of leveraged positions by distressed market participants, herding behaviour among investors, and loss of liquidity that gives way to general flight to quality can all lead to heightened correlations between markets and, in extremely circumstances, set off a self-filling crisis on a regional/global scale. There have been clear signs over the past week that the distress in the Greek government bond market is increasingly being felt in other euro area countries such as Spain and Portugal. The most likely explanation of this development is the “demonstration effect” – the Greek crisis is likely to have caused investors to re-evaluate the fundamentals of these countries. Spain and Greece may not have strong financial or economic links, but their fundamentals have a lot in common.
The possibility of contagion of the Greek crisis may not end with Spain. There is a presumption among investors that in the worst case scenario (and we are not there yet) the EU will give Greece financial assistance. If this is an isolated event, the effect on the overall public finances of the EU is unlikely to be substantial. However, a bailout of Greece may make aid to other countries in similar situations more likely (moral hazard). A series of open-ended bailouts would not only undermine the fiscal positions of core euro area countries such as Germany and France but, more dangerously, would weaken their political commitment to the continuation of the euro area project.
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Guest Post: Mirabile Dictu! The First Market Rally Of 2010 That Merits More Than A Few Words
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/07/2010 - 02:01“U.S. Stocks Jump in Final Hour, Pushing Up Metal Prices; Dollar Pares Gain U.S. stocks rose in the final hour of trading on speculation the European Union may propose a solution for Greece’s budget deficit, reports Bloomberg.
This end of day soundbite provided the fodder/excuse for a short-covering rally on the Feb 5 NFP report. Traders and investors should recall that the 2009 low was set on the March 6 NFP report, that the 2010 high came on the day following the Jan 8 2010 NFP report and that the crest of June 5 2009 leading to the June swoon of 2009 came on a NFP report. Obviously, the spark for the short covering today had nothing to do whatsoever with the NFP report, but alas, how often do market buying and selling climaxes occur on NFP dates give or take a day? Plenty, and too many for me to recount to you off the top of my head, but longtime clients know to look for and expect equity buying and selling climaxes on key announcement dates such as NFP reports. End of story, period!
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Morgan Stanley Joins Zero Hedge In Calling For Future Bund Weakness
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/06/2010 - 17:42Zero Hedge has long been bearish on the prospects for the German Bund, whose yields at 50-year record lows, can only go up. Couple this with German CDS which still inexplicably trades inside of the US, and the fact that the PIIGS fallout is certain to wreak fiscal and/or monetary havoc on the core of the Euro zone, or alternative a favorable resolution is sure to end the Bund flight to safety trade. We have discussed both Bund short and German CDS long positions for those readers who can establish such exposure. Yesterday afternoon, Morgan Stanley's European Interest Rate Strategist came out with a Bund short call along precisely the same fault lines that we have uncovered in Europe's shifting te(c|u)tonic lines.
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Art Cashin: Market Commentary - An Encore Presentation
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/06/2010 - 17:01"The “easy” part of the reflex rally is over. The market has a couple of options on where it heads next. They range all the way from resuming the January selloff to resuming the December rally. This window of uncertainty could last until about Tuesday. The market should show its hand by then. For today, the napkins again suggest early resistance at 1102/1105 with critical backup at 1112/1115. Support again looks like 1087/1092. The fall back from there would be 1070/1075. Breaking below 1070 could put the bears back in control." - Art Cashin
- Comments: 35
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Charting Europe's Crisis - Part 1
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/06/2010 - 16:41
With Europe finally regaining its rightful place as the epicenter of the peripheral economic crisis, it is time we shift focus, albeit briefly, from America and its increasing cadre of troubles, to those of the Euro area. Below we present some of the key charts and observations that will frame the imminent [bail out|default] of a whole host of minor EMU and EU countries.
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Guest Post: Carry Trade 2 - Extremely Long Dollar Love
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/06/2010 - 13:52Revolutions happen when broken parts of existing structures reassemble themselves in novel ways. Today’s Japanese carry trade will become something completely new: currency jettison. This coming Yen carry trade is going to fundamentally change Japan. Next time, Miho Maejima won’t be hungry for yield. She has no yen for it: the carry trade will be driven by exchange rate volatility hedging. She’ll handcuff the government to the bedpost and go for full-on dollarization. When she does, shorting yen is the best trick on the planet. Dollarization to control currency volatility happens a lot. It is not even a radically new event in Japan, but it will go viral and mutate into a radically new species of carry trade. The utter abandonment of the yen to de-risk will end any return crash. And the Japanese semi-democracy (that designation applies to all nations, not just Japan) must allow it to happen. Aging pensioners are both creditors and voters: the only possible adjustment they can make to the coming sovereign crisis is by getting entirely out of yen.
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Guest Post: The Jobs Plan We'd Get If Leading Innovation Scholars And Growth Economists Weren't Being Volckerized -- Part 1
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/06/2010 - 13:11The Jobs Plan we'd get would leverage America's advantages to make America the Silicon Valley of the global market for customized education (CE). Understanding why we'd get this plan starts with knowing that popular online markets for CE can be expected to catalyze the creation of many jobs.
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Weekly Chartology
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/06/2010 - 12:56Recapping the week that just ended, in a few easy bullets (with the requisite spin) and charts, from Goldman Sachs.
Performance
S&P 500 fell -1.9% this week. The Financials sector was the worst performing sector, falling - 3.5%. Consumer Discretionary was the best performing sector, falling just 80 bps. We expect S&P 500 to rise to 1300 by mid-year (+22.3%), before ending 2010 at 1250 (+17.6%).
S&P 500 earnings
Our top-down EPS forecast of $76 and $90 for 2010 and 2011 reflect +33% and +20% growth, respectively. Our pre-provision and write-down EPS forecasts are $81 for 2010 and $91 for 2011. Bottom-up consensus forecasts a 39% increase in 2010 to $79, and a 20% increase in 2011 to $95.
Valuation
Top-down, the S&P 500 trades at an NTM P/E of 14.0X (13.1X on pre-provision EPS). Bottom-up, it trades at NTM P/E of 13.6X and LTM P/B of 2.2X.
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OilPrice.com Weekly Oil Market Update: 2/1/2010 - 2/5/2010
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/05/2010 - 21:28After starting the week on a firmer note, oil prices fell sharply toward the end of the week in a general market sell-off as investors sought the dollar as a safe haven amid worries about European Union economies. Debt problems that have plagued Greece are now spreading to Portugal and Spain, driving the euro down temporarily below $1.36 and bringing the dollar to an 8-month high. Because oil and other commodities are priced in dollars, gains in the U.S. currency usually translate into declines in oil prices. Even a decline in the U.S. jobless rate below 10% on Friday could not stop the downward trend in commodities.
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Why Is There A $71 Billion Difference Between China's FX Reserves And... China's FX Reserves?
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/05/2010 - 21:06Zero Hedge has been following the topic of Chinese FX reserves, and specifically their change over time, with great interest, as this (presumably) primarily dollar-denominated amount is the critical "dry powder" that our key foreign purchaser of Bonds, Notes and Bills uses when bidding on Treasury Auctions. Should China's FX reserves decline, or be forcibly diversified, the amount left over for UST purchases will be correspondingly less at a time when every UST auction could be the last should PDs, Indirect and Direct bidders not have enough bidding interest to cover growing supply. As China is very secretive about the composition of its FX reserve portfolio, there is usually a lot of guess work involved in tracking where and how the money flows. What we do know, according to a January 15th report by People's Bank of China (PBOC), is that in 2009 FX reserves increased by $453.1 billion to a total of $2.399 trillion... Or so we thought. Yesterday China's official State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) released an update on FX reserves, according to which FX reserves increased... by only $382.1 billion, a $71 billion differential from the PBOC's number.
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Nouriel Roubini: Flat Market In 2010
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/05/2010 - 18:31
Doctor Doom is now Doctor Flat, which is how he sees the market in 2010. A 50 second recap of the week's events from this Bloomberg Television interview - the key events will not be a surprise to any Zero Hedge regulars (and even irregulars): sovereign risk, budget deficits, massive slowdown in H2, slumping growth. And an expectation for the S&P to end in the mi 1,000's. Nouriel has now fully abdicated his Chief Pessimist Officer title to Mohamed El-Erian.
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G-7 To Discuss Greece This Weekend, Even As Trichet Watches The Superbowl
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/05/2010 - 18:16Quotes from Germany's Finance Minister:
G-7 To Discuss Greece, Portugal On Sidelines
Crisis Not Yet Fully Over
Market Moves Exaggerated But Must Be Taken Seriously
Euro Is And Will Remain Stable
Will Not Spare Greece From Efforts To Reduce Deficit
Europe Isn't Only Place With Budget Problems
EU Commission Will Enforce Tough Demands On Greece
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We Close The Week And The Move
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/05/2010 - 18:14Most of the reversal late in the day was short covering, as no one wants to be short over the weekend in case some resolution comes out of Europe. Trichet could not help saying there would be no special ECB meeting just to add a bit of fuel on the fire, but no short on her/his right mind was going to expose his P&L based on this very man's word. - Nic Lenoir
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Blankfein, Cohn To Both Get $9 Million In Stock Bonus, No Cash
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/05/2010 - 18:07This is certainly a little more PR friendly than $100 million. Now if only we can get some color on all the traders who got over $20 million in 2009...More as we get it.
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