Archive - Nov 10, 2011

Remember Austria: that "other" AAA-rated country, whose megabank Erste recently made headlines for covering up its sovereign CDS exposure? It appears that AAA rating, which means Austria is still eligible to fund the EFSF, may soon be cut, putting even more pressure on Germany and, of course, France, and thus concerns for ratings downgrades there, to bear the brunt of what is an increasingly impossible bail out plan for Europe. It also means that the market will now be fearing not only a kneejerk reaction to the perpetual French downgrade terror threat courtesy of S&P and Moody's, but can now add not only Hungary and Belgium but also Austria to the list of countries due for some inverse rating agency love trim. As for the catalyst: "In two weeks, Moody's analysts to come to Vienna to assess the situation on the ground. Felderer considers it possible that Austria would put on negative outlook in this review." Alas, it appears that the Grinch is about to steal AAAustria's vaunted rating for Christmas, and push the direction of contagion into a whole new direction.

Missing customer funds might be those of MF Global itself.  Also, JPM gets to keep any and all collateral and cash it seized in return for $8 million?

European Central Bank policy makers said the bank can’t do much more to stem the region’s sovereign debt crisis, suggesting they are reluctant to significantly ramp up bond purchases to lower Italy’s borrowing costs.

For anyone who thinks that the ECB is some pristine virgin which has barely been touched in that special monetary printing place, we, or rather JP Morgan's Michael Cembalest, has some news for you: "To-date, that’s what the ECB has done: of the 1.1 trillion Euros extended to European banks and governments (through sovereign/covered bond purchases and repo), 970 billion has been given by the ECB." So anyone demanding that the ECB print even more outright (which incidentally we are certain will eventually happen - our thoughts are identical to those of Dylan Grice from two months ago: "ECBCTRL+P: The Next Steps In The European Implosion") should probably keep this in mind. It will also explain why German members of the ECB are dropping like flies, and why Germany, which better than anyone else, most certainly proponents of modern reincarnations of failed Keynesianism, knows what happens when central banks have gone wild, is certain that the ECB proceeding to move from €1 to many, many more trillions of explicit monetary support, will mean nothing short of hyperinflation.

The miracle that is a global economy in which everyone is looking for export growth has been discussed here at length along with the simple math that makes it nonsense. Today's 'wonderfully' positive improvement in the trade deficit data for the US - which will be extrapolated into a spike in GDP growth and why the S&P should be at 1500 by month's end - does seem a little odd given all the uncertainty. Sure enough, thanks to Sean Corrigan of Diapason Securities, we have our answer. A massive spike in Exports to - drum roll please - Hong Kong!!A 76% rise in exports to this once glorious colony. The US trade deficit fell by $1.8bn thanks to a $2.5bn rise in exports (of which $2.03bn was to Hong Kong). Has Hong Kong become the channel-stuffing center of the world? It appears so since China's exports to Hong Kong have remained extremely high.

The overwhelming majority of media content being created now in 2011/2012 (film, television & music) is being BLINDLY financed with hopes that NEW reliable and profitable media streams will emerge quickly before the "old" income streams completely dry-up.

The failure of the Eurozone and the European monetary union looks increasingly likely. This has incredible political, economic and monetary implications for the world and could lead to shockwaves akin to or surpassing that seen after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Given the scale of the crisis, we continue to amazed at the lack of animal spirits in the gold market – both from media coverage and from public participation. The majority have no idea of the ramifications of these momentous geopolitical developments. The public knows the developments are negative but most are resigned to their fate and many are like deer in the headlights failing to join the dots and realize the ramifications for their investments, savings and financial wellbeing. While demand in Asia has fallen from the very strong levels seen recently - demand continues and Chinese New Year should see Chinese demand pick up again in the coming weeks. Western investment demand continues as seen in increasing allocations to the SPDR trust.

• Former ECB vice president Papademos will be the interim Greek PM. Meanwhile, media reported that the Italian PM Berlusconi may step down by Sunday
• Market talk that the ECB is buying in the Italian and Spanish government bonds. Also, market talk that in an emergency meeting today, the ECB may decide to purchase the Italian government debt in unlimited amount
• News emerged that the ESM may not be operational in mid-2012 as Germany and France clashed on bond loss provisions
• ECB's Knot said that the ECB can keep buying bonds as long as sterilization works, adding that the central bank can speed up bond purchases. He further said that the ECB can keep purchased bonds until maturity. However, he also said that the ECB should only buy bonds when markets are panicking

The only question we have is how much higher will this week's 390K number be revised to next week in continuing the BLS one trillion sigma tradition of revising every prior number higher and never lower. As it stands, the 390K is the lowest since April, and a drop of 10K from both the previous print and expectations. In other news Non-seasonally adjusted claims increased by +29,106 to 398,753: this is the second highest number since July. What was also notable is that those on EUCs and Extended Benefits rose by 43K in the past week, an odd reversal to the now persistent issue of 99'ers hitting the cliff. In other news, the previous continuing claims number was revised worse by 24k from 3,683K to 3,707K which means today's 3,615K number will also see a downward revision soon. Regardless, no matter how one looks at this, the Claims number confirms there is no net job creation, and considering the bloodbath on Wall Street that will occur over the next month which will affect very high paying jobs, the bottom is about to fall out where it hurts the most: tax collections, which means the government will once again be forced to do what it does best: print paper, with the Fed firmly in tow to monetize it. Same old song.

Those of us who have supported Ron Paul since his presidential run in 2008 (and some who supported him long before that) have come to expect an astonishing array of mainstream media tricks, lies, and censorship when it comes to the “journalistic” examination of the good doctor. This doesn’t mean, however, that we have ever or will ever come to ACCEPT this consistent trend of deception and disinformation as a forgone conclusion of our political lives. We will never throw up our hands and walk away from the mess the MSM has deliberately created, because that is exactly what they would like us to do; give up, shut up, go home, vote for Romney (an establishment crony with the creepy grin of a pedophile), and watch him lose to Obama (yet another establishment crony) in 2012. With this stated up front, it was brought to my attention that CNBC was running a poll asking readers who they thought won the recent Republican Presidential Debates in Michigan. Now, as in many polls in 2008, the name “Ron Paul” has been rising to the top of the charts in 2011 despite all efforts by media lapdogs to dissuade the public from even considering such a candidate. CNBC did not fail to play its roll this time around either. Ron Paul won by a substantial margin, and of course, their response was to take the poll down!

This morning brings the latest, or the third, in the ongoing pitch book of Italian bonds by Goldman's Francesco Garzarelli, in which the strategist hopes that third time will be the charm for calling the bottom to the BTP collapse (sold to you, Goldman client). What apparently has Goldman confused is how its former employee Mario Draghi has let BTP spreads hit the record and unsustainable levels they did yesterday. To wit: "We were actually quite surprised not to see more forceful intervention by the central bank in secondary markets after the LCH announced it would raise initial margin requirements (and wrong in assuming it would have helped keep the Italy vs. AAA spread close to 450bp – it closed yesterday at 500bp over, but is now back at 450bp)." Here Goldman confirms what we suggested on Monday: that the ECB is now nothing but a policy enactment and dictator overhaul tool: "In this context, Italy still has to comply fully with the ECB’s ‘requests’ dated August 8, while Greece’s commitment to more austerity in exchange for financial support has continued to sway (at the time of writing, news that former ECB no. 2 Papademos would take the helm is encouraging)." Even so, the future to Goldman is quite cloudly :Granted, one positive collateral effect of market tensions has been to precipitate a political shakeup in Italy. But the collateral damage created by the price shock in Italian bonds to the stability of the EMU project (aggravated by explicit talk of countries being expelled from the single currency) is high and quite lasting. It will probably take a leap forward into deeper forms of fiscal risk-sharing (Prof Monti is a long-time proponent of Eurobonds) to get the market properly functioning again." OTOH, Barclays has done the math, and as we pointed out a few days ago, is not surprised.

To everyone who was hoping the latest Greek PM would be a double letter, triple word score game killer in Scrabble, our apologies. In the end the ECB's puppet ended up in control, just as initially expected. Kneejerek reaction in the EURUSD higher which will be promptly faded and all that jazz. Fact is nobody cares about the ECB/Fed protectorate known as Greece any longer.

• Permanent EU Bailout Fund Said to Face Delay (Bloomberg)
• Deal Greek President to Meet Party Leaders (Bloomberg)
• EU Lowers Euro-Region Growth Forecasts (Bloomberg)
• Italy Senate Speeds Vote That May Lead to Monti Government (Bloomberg)
• U.S. Dems Offer $2.3 Trillion Deficit Plan (Bloomberg)
• Friendship Is Tossed in MF Global Storm (WSJ)
• Clients who fled MF Global face clawback risk (Reuters)
• Yuan Bet Losing Its Luster (WSJ)
• Fannie Alabama’s Jefferson County Enters Biggest Muni Bankruptcy as Crisis Victim (Bloomberg)

Earlier today Italy sold €3 billion in 1 year Bills at an average yield of 6.087%, the highest since September 1997, and almost 3% higher compared to a month ago, when it prices at 3.570%. Yet there was a stunning twist: the 1 Year was trading at a whopping 7.75% in the gray market minutes before the auction, or almost 200 bps wide of the auction result, something which never happens under normal conditions unless the invisible hand of the central bank has anything to say about it. Now we know already that the ECB stepped in to aggressively mop up Italian bonds in the secondary market immediately after the auction to bring 10 year yields below 7%, however briefly: the bond has since widened above that level once again. Yet what is shocking is the primary market strength for the 1 year: since the ECB is prohibited by law from intervening in the primary, auction market, we wonder just what illegal backdoor funding scheme the ECB has concocted with friendly banks in order to have the auction price where it did, and how much money was transferred by back door channels to keep Europe from imploding one more day. Considering that the EURUSD was trading below 1.35 just prior to the auction at around 3 am, and has since regained losses, just as we expected yesterday, please remind us to add this latest illegal central bank intervention feature to the list of things to uncover once Europe blows up and the ECB's secret trading records are laid out for all to see. In the meantime, here is the Wall Street snap reaction to the Bill auction.