Archive - Nov 2011

As a follow up bonus from the Artemis presentation earlier, we present this chart which answers the age old question: what is the true value of money? It does so in quite a literal fashion, and explains why Kyle Bass is such a fan of nickels...

Credit markets were far less sanguine into the close than equity markets as ES managed to get back to day session highs (and beyond). IG and HY credit markets closed much nearer their lows of the day and while broad-based risk assets rallied off the morning lows, the late day surge in stocks was entirely idiosyncratic! HYG outperformed HY while HY secondary bonds were much more balanced (net buying to selling) today than in recent days. It certainly appeared credit market participants were much less comfortable holding into the Greek vote and uncertainty of the weekend than equity players. The USD was noisy all day but rallied into the close (as the EUR drifted back under 1.38) and Gold trod water as oil managed a modest rally while silver and copper lost more ground on the week. TSYs rallied only modestly today with the belly outperforming as we saw major duration reduction in corporate bond trading on the day as the long-end was net sold. VIX rose modestly into the close, disconnecting from stocks - like every other asset class.

An ugly close for the coupon company as GRPN is held at $26 - its low of the day.

As expected, following the maximum pain rip in the EURUSD late last week, which took the pair from 1.38 to just under 1.4250, all the weak hand shorts took their losses and run. And indeed, as the CFTC has just reported, bearish bets tightened substantially from -76,512 in non-commercial net contracts, to -60,060. At this point it is safe to say that if the ridiculous move higher in the EURUSD did not force the covering of these hands, then they surely have the balance sheet to withstand such epic rips and then some. We no longer expect major short covering in the EURUSD to take the market higher, as the residual shorts not only have the conviction, but the marginable capital to see the EUR, and with it the stock market, much lower. And while of lesser significance, USD net long contracts declined by 25% from 32,110 to 23,823, simply meaning that when the scramble in a risk off moment returns, there will be quite a few incremental buyers of the USD, and thus shorters of that other currency: the EUR, now that both the JPY and the CHF are effectively pegged courtesy of their central banks decisions.

So the EFSF is supposedly going to raise 1 trillion Euros… in an environment in which it struggles to even stage a five billion Euro bond offering?  Give me a break.

Ah the old "destroying the universe" ploy.

One of the long-term recurring themes both here and in other more objective media, has been the encroaching domination of the central planning regime, or monetary authorities, read central banks, in the domain of capital markets and overall broad sovereignty, to the point where there is neither technical nor fundamental analysis left, but merely the question of where is the next batch of excess liquidity going to come from. Welcome to the death throes of the fiat system. Artemis Capital has released an extended must read presentation that summarizes just how global changes in trade, currency exchange, global monetary excess liquidity in recent decades, and especially in the coming future, will increasingly determine and define risk, and more troubling, the centuries old anarchism of state sovereignty. Anarchism, because as Europe has demonstrated so very well, in the current world the only real actors are the central banks. And with each passing day they become ever more powerful players in the global capital markets arena, as confirmed by correlations that rise every higher, approaching 1.000 across all asset classes. Anyone wondering why the only fulcrum variable for the future of risk will be FX exchange rates, and why any and all wars in the future will be primarily in binary "currency" format, we urge a careful reading of the attached slideshow by Artemis Capital titled "Fall of the House Of Money: Changes in Global Trade and Currency Exchange."

Jefferies is out with its third consecutive promise it has done nothing wrong, issuing a press release in which it says "Jefferies has no meaningful credit risk in respect of the sovereign debt of these nations, and an insignificant risk related to interest rate movements" and hopes to slay the dragon of doubt once and for all. Furthermore as CEO Dick Handler adds, "Later today, after the markets are closed in Europe and we have completed our inventory control accounting, we will post on our web-site our day-end, CUSIP-level holdings in the securities of these countries. We care for our clients, shareholders, bondholders and employees and want to allay any concern that may have arisen. As was the case yesterday, the facts about our sovereign debt exposure and other matters are straightforward and easily understood. We encourage all market participants and interested parties to review our public filings that contain extensive disclosure of the nature, extent and financing of our assets. Our firm stands on a solid foundation of over $8.5 billion of long-term capital and we look forward to continued success." We congratulate this espousal of transparency and clairty. We are also 100% certain that Jefferies will be so kind to disclose not only the Cusips but the maturities and tenors of all synthetic products. It will of course also publicly highlight the dates of all transactions: the last thing the public will want to think is that Jefferies took advantage of the grace period of the past 2 days to neutralize its cash book sufficiently. Because one can't help but be curious what the reason for the material difference between the numbers posted as of yesterday and those posted today is, or rather, when the offsetting buys and sells took place.

Update: JPMORGAN SAYS IT DOESN'T HAVE MF GLOBAL MISSING MONEY.  Ok, now we need to check with JT Marlin

Last week we heard of glitches which resulted in Germany finding $55.5 billion in missing "debt" and a €3.6 billion error in Irish debt. It was only a matter of time before MF Global also uncovered a "glitch"

• MF ACCOUNT WITH $658.8M IN CLIENT FUNDS SAID TO BE AT JPMORGAN
• MF GLOBAL'S MISSING CLIENT FUNDS SAID TO BE LOCATED AT JPMORGAN

Ignore the fact that MF admitted it had commingled and abused client funds. After all, the big boys take care of their own. And what is $660 million to JPM? Here's what - less than the taxpayer money profit the bank makes on one POMO.

Since nothing else matters in this market except for what lie Europe's leaders can come up with to mask for a few more hours that they are all insolvent and helpless, a statement validated by today's two ECB interventions in the BTP market which achieved absolutely nothing, and resulted in a close in the Italian 10 Year at just over 89, an all time low, despite the Cannes meeting which naturally was a total flop, below we present the key events in Europe for the remainder of November. Unfortunately traders are unable to leave early today even as the market has effectively closed as one has to wait for the Greek confidence vote which is now expected to pass in favor of G-Pap and lead to his resignation and the creation of a coalition government by Monday, although one can't help but be skeptical just how this particular plan will get messed up in the next 48 hours.

The MF Global probe begins. Here are the broad scope details from Bloomberg

• Trustee liquidating MF Global brokerage has started a probe into the company’s failure after getting a judge’s go-ahead. To protect books and records, forensic accountants are “securing” offices in NYC, Chicago, trustee James Giddens said in a statement today.
• "Significant’’ numbers of brokerage accounts being transferred
• Individual accounts will probably be transferred next week
• Giddens, team will work weekend on bulk transfers

As readers will recall, it was only 2 years after the Lehman filing, did Anton Valukas discover such critical mainstays of modern banking fraud as Repo 105. Alas, we do not hold much hope here, at least in the beginning, and certainly not before the FBI is involved.

A different look at payrolls.

The latest Wall Street development on the Hopium Continuum...THE GOLDEN TURD BALL!

It’s understandable that people are angry and demanding change. Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators thought they could change the system through violence. They were wrong. And even if violent revolution does create change, it usually works out poorly. Russia got Lenin and Stalin after their revolution, France got Robespierre’s Reign of Terror… followed by Napoleon’s military dictatorship. Others are deluded into thinking they can change the system in the voting booth… and with one year to go until the 2012 showdown, there are certainly a lot of people pinning their hopes on this idea. Most forget how surprised they are when, in election after election, their guy turns out to be just as bad as the old guy. George Carlin once said, “When I hear a person talking about political solutions, I know I am not listening to a serious person.” He was right. Politics creates problems, not solutions. Truthfully, elections are simply clever parlor tricks anyhow, designed to make people think they are in control. They’re not. The only thing we can actually control is what we do ourselves. Governments are like primitive cannibals feasting on a great treasure trove of sheeple. You can’t force them out, and you can’t vote them out. But you can sure as hell starve them out. When enough people pick up and leave, essentially voting with their feet, it accelerates the system crash. This is the only way to truly change the system.