Archive - Oct 2011

• It’s Too Hard to Know Who Is Too Big to Fail (Bloomberg)
• China Currency Bill Passes US Senate Test (FT)
• China Labor Costs Push Jobs Back to US (FT)... one week behind Zero Hedge
• Credit Swaps on Chinese Debt Surge on Slowdown Fears (FT)... three weeks behind Zero Hedge
• America’s Six Key Lessons for a ‘Euro Tarp’ (FT)
• EU Pressured for Bank Rescue Plan Before G-20 (Bloomberg)
• Whitehall Fears New Bail-out for RBS (FT)
• Bank of Japan Keeps Policy on Hold (Reuters)
• Euro-Indebted Emerging Currencies Have Further to Fall on Growth (Bloomberg)
• Moody’s Lowers Its Senior Debt, Deposit Ratings for Nine Portugal Banks (Bloomberg)

Some observations from the front lines and supply trains in the developing saga of society vs itself

This morning Moody's resume its Freudian transference experiment borne out of its inability to downgrade the US by continuing to downgrade insolvent European banks, by downgrading a whole bunch of Portuguese and UK as of several hours ago. Per Bloomberg: "Nine Portuguese banks had their debt ratings cut by Moody’s Investors Service by one or two levels, which cited concern about funding, bad loans and holdings of government debt. Moody’s cut the “standalone” debt ratings of three banks, Banco Espirito Santo SA, Banco Comercial Portugues SA and Banco BPI SA, by two levels, the ratings company said in a statement today." Elsewhere, per BBC, "Moody's has downgraded the credit rating of 12 UK financial firms including Lloyds TSB, RBS, Nationwide and Santander UK. Moody's said it now believed the UK government was less likely to support some firms if they got into trouble. However, the firm emphasised that the downgrades did not "reflect a deterioration in the financial strength of the banking system". Moody's also downgraded nine Portuguese banks, blaming financial weakness. Shares in both RBS and Lloyds were down by about 3.5% in morning trading." Since all of this is certainly pried in (ask Dexia), we expect the weak hands shorting throng to continue its scramble to cover, until the next European bank fails, and the next, and so on until it s the longs turn to realize that not only has nothing improved but things are progressively getting worse.

Simply Must Read report on Volatility.

All you need to read.

Wake up as many people as you can.

"A rock and a hard place" is a long-running theme of Casey Research publications. It refers to the dilemma the US government has wandered into with its continued policy of rescue inflation. The "rock" is what will happen if the Fed pauses for long in printing still more money – the collapse of an economy burdened by an accumulation of mistakes that rescue inflation has been keeping at bay. The "hard place" is the disruptive price inflation that becomes more likely (and likely more severe) with every new dollar the Fed prints to keep the effects of those mistakes suppressed.

When the dollar was cut loose from the gold standard in 1971, the Federal Reserve was freed to create as much new money as it saw fit, whenever it saw fit. Enabled, it turned with enthusiasm to doing what central bankers imagine they are supposed to do – eliminate downturns in the economy. The Fed fancied itself as being on the answering end of a 911 system: whenever the financial markets signaled distress, whenever the economy came down with the flutters, the Federal Reserve would dispatch a van, an ambulance, a fire engine or even an assault vehicle, whatever seemed right but in every case full of cash.

Even a traditionally optimistic Michael Darda, of MKM Partners, is having trouble discovering the silver lining among the flotsam and jetsam that is the global macro-economic ocean currently. The Japanification theme continues with five charts offering too-correlated-to-be-ignored perspectives on equities, money supply/velocity, valuations/multiples, and demographics.

No, Obama is NOT the answer ...

Geithner frets that the crisis in Europe could undermine confidence. But if confidence isn't based on facts and transparency, it's a con game.

VIX expiration day often coincides with particularly heavy trading activity in underlying SPX options. VIX settlement value, or VRO rarely matches either the Tuesday close or Wednesday open prices on the "cash" index, prompting pundits to blame VIX settlment for being manipulated. A popular theory is that VIX settlement value is being pushed up or down with huge SPX trades, referred to as "carpet-bombing". Some say that the manipulative trades are concentrated around high-vega strikes, others concerned specifically about puts. In this post I explain why large trades are not likely an explanation for VIX manipulation, and instead how VIX settlement value can be artificially increased for less than one hundred dollars, how VSTOXX futures and options are not subject to such manipulation, and propose a simple modification that makes VIX manipulation too expensive to be profitable.

In our previous post we warned, indirectly through the IMF, that the biggest risk for Europe is the inability to reach consensus over anything from the most complicated, to the simplest matter. As noted previously, one of the main initial drivers of the market surge which has since translated into yet another short covering rally of epic proportions was the belief that Europe can actually come together in agreement over the simplest thing - like its own survival. Alas, it appears even that is not the case. As Bloomberg reports, "Germany and France are at odds over whether the European Financial Stability Facility should have limits on government bond purchases, Handelsblatt reported, citing an unidentified high-ranking European Union diplomat. France doesn’t want to restrict the EFSF on how much of its funds it can use for such purchases, the newspaper said in a preview of an article to appear in tomorrow’s edition. Germany wants to limit the amount EFSF can spend for bonds per country and is also considering whether there should be a time limit for bond purchases, Handelsblatt said." Said otherwise, here comes the latest cause of discord within Europe. Unfortunately, it also means that any rumor, innuendo and speculation that Europe has finally reached a coherent union over its own bailout can be promptly discarded. As if there was ever any doubt in the first place.

Squeeze has taken us to new reistance levels, now what....?

Another day, another 12 swings of greater than 0.75% in S&P futures as volume slid to the lowest in a week and second lowest in two weeks. Credit and equity markets stayed largely in sync (as they have for the last few days - with slight beta-adjusted underperformance of credit) until around lunchtime and then a funny thing happened to investment grade credit. At around 12:30ET, the most liquid credit index, IG17, gapped tighter as ES and HY reversed briefly off the highs and then IG did not stop - compressing 3-4bps more into the close - notably outperforming HY and ES (its far higher beta cousins). At the same time, the less liquid but hugely levered (and exposed to correlation traders, tail-, and jump-risks), IG9, cracked very notably tighter (from our runs around 15bps) to 147bps. IG9 had held up as markets rallied but this move's magnitude and velocity suggest more than just some hedge adjustments and while the rest of the risk assets we cover were all levitating, this 'capitulation' stands out among them. Dollar weakness of course helped fuel the equity strength and commodities and PMs pushed on all day with gold the most subdued.