Archive - Oct 16, 2011

We won't spend too much time to dwell on the following pamphlet of sheer "buy, buy, buy" desperation from Barclays' Sandeep Bordia, suffice it to say that we now know which would be the first European blue light special "rescuer" of Lehman to go under courtesy of a massively wrong bet on PrimeX should the "illiquid" market continue to flounder. Which it will. We will add, however, that it would be damn poetic, not to mention hilarious, if while long and wrong bets on Subprime is what detonated Lehman, then being John Holmes'd in Prime is what leads to Barclays' bankruptcy (and we do already know that Barc is the bank with the second largest capital shortfall in Europe courtesy of that other bank which hopes to pick up the pieces upon blue's implosion, Credit Suisse). It would appear that the vultures are already circling... And where the vultures are, the squid can't be far behind.

Europe is far too reliant on Germany and the other ‘strong’ countries for the various individual nations to be able to take care of their own problems - particularly if any localized bank recapitalizations are to be in addition to the already pledged EFSF contributions by each nation (left). What is far more likely is some kind of ‘bazooka’ or ‘shock & awe’ (to use two tired cliches) approach using the newly-approved EFSF. If France had to recapitalize BNP and Soc Gen to the tune of €11 billion in addition to its €158 billion stake in the EFSF (as is widely suspected), it could well kiss goodbye to its AAA rating now that the ratings agencies seem to have finally found religion (Italy & Spain saw downgrades this week) and that, for a country currently running a debt-to-GDP ratio of 84%, would NOT be a good thing. Whether a ‘station-to-station’ plan is in the works or not, it will rely on a nice, orderly procession from one country to the next and I think it has been made abundantly clear over the last year that Europe DOESN’T do ‘orderly’. There is absolutely no way that the Eurocrats can stop the markets turning their collective eyes towards the next domino in the line at every point in the process. As they struggle to ‘fix’ the Greek situation, the markets have already done it for them and Greek 1-year bonds now yield 166%. Job done. Next up? Whether the architects of a solution are ready for it or not, it’s Spain and Italy... and France.

With the near record melt up in stocks last week already history, vacuum tubes are already eagerly awaiting the next week of wild and crazy momentum swings in which earnings season comes with a bang as 100 of the S&P 500 companies, or 33% of the total market cap, reports earnings. And even with lowered earnings expectations, hence the upcoming beats, the trailing 4 quarters of S&P 500 earnings which are now expected to come at $94, will represent a new all time high, over the $91.47 record set in Q2 2007, and well above the $90.91 LFQ posted last quarter. As Goldman notes, "To remain below the previous peak, earnings would have to miss current bottom-up consensus expectations by 10%, which would represent a significant shortfall." As for what Goldman, or specifically what its clients expect, here is the rundown: "Conversations this week focused on the 3Q earnings season as investors look to use this earnings season to benchmark  company performance in light of the uncertain macro environment. Solid micro data from earnings results could represent a stabilizing force in a market where volatility had been extremely elevated. Better-than-expected or in-line results would indicate firms can continue to produce strong profit growth despite weaker economic data, matching the pattern in both 1Q and 2Q 2011. However, high correlation will act as a  market headwind if earnings disappoint. Average 3-month stock correlation for S&P 500 stocks rose significantly in August to nearly 0.75 and remains near record-high levels." However, so far earnings have been more or less a dud, with the exception of Google: "This week AA reported earnings below consensus estimates on higher costs and slowing European demand. SWY beat EPS estimates despite margin pressure. JPM results were largely in line with expectations after excluding one-time items." Well, no, absent the "benefit" of JPM effectively buying CDS on itself, it would have missed consensus by 20%. Expect the same gimmick to be used by all other financials.

Sunday sarcasm. Or not?

Economists need to get back to being actual economists and not market directional cheerleaders.