Archive - Aug 2010

RANsquawk US Afternoon Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 17/08/10

One of the most beloved phenomena of Fed intervention is the "miraculous" ramp in stocks on days in which the Fed's Permanent Open Market Operations (POMO) occurred: while this was a requisite in 2009 when the Fed monetized $700 billion in Treasurys, it had gradually disappeared from the public consciousness after the termination of the Treasury portion of QE1 in October 2009. Well, now that POMO is back courtesy of QE Lite, and with the help of various sellside analysts, Primary Dealers knew precisely which Treasury CUSIPs to purchase in advance of the auction for a quick leveraged pick up of a few hundred bps. And now that the money is funded back to the PDs, as of the end of the POMO operation at 11am Eastern, it needs to find a new home. And with the PDs providing the initial impetus for a risk asset (read stock) ramp, and momo quants picking up the sloppy seconds as they jump over each other to send the momentum driven ramp ever higher, the result is presented below. What this means is that going forward, every single day that the Fed is monetizing bonds via 10:15-11:00am POMOs, it will be very foolhardy to short into the Fed's stock surging offensive. As a reminder, here are the immediately upcoming POMO days through the end of August: August 19, August 24, August 26, and September 1. Shorting on those days has once again become implicitly illegal.

Just in case there was any doubt...

Update: and, lo and behold, the market was more than prepared to front-run the Fed: the issues prescribed by MS for prepurchasing (and then selling into the Fed's bid), account for 92% of the $2.551 billion in total Bids Accepted (out of a total $20.949 billion in Bid Submitted). The result: a stunningly low 12.2% hit ratio as everyone was more than happy to sell to the Fed. And guess where the cash the PDs just got from the Fed for selling into its bid is going...

This weekend we presented an analysis by Morgan Stanley which attempted to anticipate precisely which bonds will be bought, and which will be excluded (in How To Front Run The Fed With The Best Of 'Em) in today's FRBNY Open Market Operation. To Igor Cashin's credit, his projection was spot on: his suggested 10 issues expected to be monetized all made this list. And, more importantly, the six exclusions were all correct as well, yielding his prediction a 16 out of 16, or A++ score. The full list of securities to be purchased at 11am this morning is presented below. To those who bought in advance of this action as we recommended, congratulations. To those who missed, it, the schedule of upcoming CUSIPs most likely to be purchased in the next 4 auctions through September 1, is recreated below. Once the actual results of the auction with notional amounts is disclosed post auction, we will update this post. Regardless, the massive rip in Treasurys over the past week begs the question: was the action merely one massive frontrunning attempt, and is today's weakness in the Treasury complex just the unwind of that trade...And as for equities, now that POMO is back, it is worthwhile to remember that on POMO days, the market is up about 99.9999*% of the time.

During the live hearing, Bill Gross stated the obvious: private players in the MBS space will never participate as long as long as the government accepts zero down payments. Of course, he is absolutely correct - the only entity stupid enough to gamble with its seemingly endless resources in such a manner is the US government. And in doing so, it continues to widen the schism between public and private interests, and makes the return of private businesses in this most important segment of US credit markets an impossibility. In fact, Gross urged a move one step further, with the full nationalization of the GSEs - as the GSEs are nationalized now in all but writing, this would be logical. Alas, the fact that US Debt to GDP would jump from 90% to 140% may make this proposal a little difficult to implement.

Those hardware vendors that have adopted Android are experience monumental growth, eclipsing the growth rate of the previous smart phone champ, Apple. As software vendors take note, expect to see massive strides in the Android ecosystem. Will this be the first time in the history of consumer technology that an opens source, free platform dominates telecom, media, and data? Who will profit the most from this?

In light of the entrenched way of perceiving things, especially in the U.S., it is difficult enough to convince some people that the economy is in fact not providing the security they desire, but is actually destroying their future completely. To explain to them that this is deliberate, that the economy is designed to self-destruct, that is another prospect altogether. Many people hit a proverbial wall on this issue because they simply cannot fathom that certain groups of men (globalists and central bankers) view money and economy in completely different terms than they do. The average American lives within a tiny box when it comes to the mechanics and motivations of finance. They think that their monetary desires and drives are exactly the same as a globalist’s. But, what they don’t realize is that the box they think in was BUILT by globalists. This is why the actions of big banks and the decisions of our mostly corporate establishment run government seem so insane in the face of common sense. We try to rationalize their behavior as “idiocy”, but the reality is that their goals are highly deliberate and so far outside what we have been taught to expect that some of us lack a point of reference. If you cannot see the endgame, you will not understand the steps taken to reach it until it is too late. - "Giordano Bruno"

Today's portion of political theater is kindly brought to you by Tim Geithner's endless treasury issuance authority, and is currently in progress (and close captioned). The conference can be watched live at the link below. And yes, as expected, and much to Bill Gross' delight, Geithner has noted that the GSEs will need some type of government guarantee. So much for reform.

In an interview with Fox Business News, former US envoy to the UN, John Bolton, told the channel that if Israel wants to prevent Iran from acquiring a working nuclear plant, then a military strike must be launched against the Bushehr nuclear power facility within the next eight days. Specifically, Bolton was envisioning the projected August 21 launch date of the nuclear power plant, which Zero Hedge noted previously. According to Bolton, once the Bushehr facility is operational it will be too late for a military air strike against Iran because such an attack would affect too many Iranian civilians due to the spread radiation.

Gold is following Monday’s buying through this morning and is up 2-3 dollars after yesterday’s solid gain of over $9.00. Stocks and the rest of commodity complex are broadly higher so far today. The USDX is weaker as well. Soros made some comments that investors should buy gold and Goldman Sachs made a buy recommendation last week. The market has behaved strongly since that recommendation, despite the concerns that GS may be creating an exit strategy for itself and/or some clients. But that would be the point wouldn’t it? I mean who takes the cover of Barron’s touting a stock he hasn’t already bought, right? The question remains, is there enough interest and discretionary capital left to spur another buying spree?

Markets in a Flash

· The EUR is starting to push higher this morning and is gaining against the USD, JPY and GBP.

· US equity futures are higher this morning following the European advance and indicating a rise in equity prices at the bell.

· Oil is trading over +1% higher this morning and is above $86.00. Gold is continuing to rise slowly and is at around $1230.00.

Even as the PPI data came out as expected, both on a MoM (0.2% vs exp 0.2%), and YoY basis (4.2% vs exp 4.2%), from a previous reading of -0.5%, and thus serving as no market moving indicator in either direction, housing starts of 546k came in well below expectations of 560k. And in keeping with tradition, the US government once again revised the prior period data, to make today's print seem like an improvement: the previous reading of 549k was revised to 537k. As the Census Bureau reported, "Privately-owned housing starts in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 546,000. This is 1.7 percent (±9.7%)* above the revised June estimate of 537,000, but is 7.0 percent (±7.5%)* below the July 2009 rate of 587,000." Completing the trifecta of economic data, Housing Permits also missed expectations of 580k, coming in at 565k. Far less relevantly, we also find that "privately-owned housing completions in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 587,000. This is 32.8 percent (±6.8%) below the revised June estimate of 874,000 and is 25.4 percent (±7.3%) below the July 2009 rate of 787,000." In other words, houses really are not being built.

• Bulls on parade: Latest JPM Treasury client shows longs rose to 27% from 24%, shorts unchanged at 14% and neutral holdings fell to 59% from 62%
• Debt Virus Spreads During Make-Believe Recovery (Bloomberg)
• Ben should make banks lift savings interest rates (Post)
• Merkel to Stick With Cuts Despite Growth (FT)
• China tries to downplay signficance of July trade number: China's July trade surplus a rare case: expert (China Post)
• Japan govt to discuss stimulus steps Aug 20 (Reuters)
• Our thesis of a European slowdown coming to fruition: German Data Point to Slowdown (WSJ)
• Stellar German Recovery Masks Euro Zone Strains (Reuters)
• Australia, Korea Central Banks Harbor Doubts on Global Outlook (Bloomberg)
• Uncle Sam, Venture Capitalist: Meet the battery company that Obama visited yesterday (WSJ)

• Australia, Korea central banks harbor doubts on global outlook.
• Big banks ease standards on small-business lending - Fed survey.
• BOJ doesn't see threat in recent Yen rise.
• China cuts long-term US Treasuries by most ever as yields drop.
• German investor optimism may drop to 16-month low on weaker growth outlook.
• U.K. July annual consumer price inflation up 3.1%.
• Yen falls versus Euro on rebound in Asian stocks, intervention speculation.

Economic Calendar: Data on Housing Starts, Building Permits, PPI, July Industrial Production, Capacity Utilization to be released today.

Irish CDS, which recently was trading wide of 300, tightened materially after the country, most likely with a very direct ECB intervention, managed to place two €0.75 billion auctions, the first a 4% due 1/15/2014, and the second: 5% due 10/18/2020. The Bid To Cover on the first was 5.4, compared to a BTC of 3.1 at the last auction held in May, explained simply by the surge in the rate from 3.11% to 3.627%. The 2020, however, saw the BTC drop from 3.0 to 2.4 as the yield dropped from 5.537% to 5.386%. In other words, the ECB overbid for the near maturity, and likely just put in for a token amount. And for some odd reason, CDS traders see this latest central bank intervention to extend and pretend as a favorable development, and have decided to run away from Irish risk for the time being. The question of how long the ECB can continue this charade is relevant: after all the Fed has just one country to deal with. And continuing with Ireland, the country's central bank stated that the net cost of Anglo-Irish to the government may be €22-25 billion, even as it cleared up hypocritically that capital raising via taxing banks' excessive reliance on short-term borrowings would be preferable. Of course, the central bank should keep its mouth shut, and be happy that the ECB will continue to support any part of the curve, as in its absence the country would be long insolvent.