Archive - Dec 14, 2011

How much further might gold fall? Market momentum is a powerful force and therefore further weakness is quite possible.  Support is at the 200 day moving average at $1,619/oz. Below that is the psychological level of $1,600 per ounce and the 250 day moving average of $1,571/oz. Price resistance was seen at the $1,570/oz level between late April and July 2011 (see chart) and this level could become support as is often the case in bull markets. It is important to note that gold’s falls have been primarily dollar related and gold has fallen by a lot less in pound and in euro terms. Most analysts of the gold market remain of the view that this is another correction and that the medium and long term uptrend will continue due to significant investment, store of wealth and central bank demand due to geopolitical, macroeconomic, systemic and monetary risk. One analyst who appears to have a very different view regarding gold is world renowned economist Nouriel Roubini.  The Chairman of Roubini Global Economics has again taken to Twitter to engage in some name calling and to appear to question gold’s recent price action and whether gold may reach $2,000/oz.

As pointed out earlier, the short term USD-funding liquidity ruse instituted two weeks ago by the New York Fed has now all expired, which means global banks are progressively selling all residual winners left having dumping US safe haven securities (a big reason why the EUR has plunged is there is no more repatriation of USD-denominated assets by European, well, French banks). Enter the commodity space. As the following color-coded chart demonstrates, "stuff" is being offloaded by the boatload to procure cash in expectation of yet another day of "rip your face off" margin calls. Which naturally is to be expected - with collateral negligible, those who sell hard assets first sell best. Yet at the end of the day, all it does is provide an ever better entry point for those who have the means to institute hedges against the next step which will will occur shortly: yet another global liquidity tsunami courtesy of the central banks, because that is all they know and all they can.

With fundamentals, technicals, and now even headlines out of Europe largely irrelevant, it only leaves one market-moving thing: rumors. And yesterday was a terrific example of precisely this. Art Cashin does a "rumor by rumor" expose of the key "events", however unfactual, that moved stocks yesterday. If history is any indication, and it is, today will likely see the rumor brigade unleashed all over again shortly. 

While Netflix has quite often been in the news these days, typically in connection with some spurious take out rumor or another, most likely spread by infamous flip flopping longs largely underwater on the name, there could be other, more sinister news lurking underneath the surface. As Disclosure Insight, an organization that among other activities submits FOIA requests to various regulators and compiles the data to expose companies that may have undisclosed regulatory proceedings against them, the SEC just may be investigating the fallen from grace and zero barrier of entry video steaming company (for which the imminent USPS bankruptcy will be merely the finally nail in the coffin).

Self explanatory title states what I have been saying was obvious for some time now...

As noted two weeks ago when predicting the efficiency and duration of the latest global coordinated USD liquidity injection, we had a sinking feeling the Fed action would have a very brief time span. Sure enough, judging by the action in two critical FX liquidity indicators - the 3M and 1 Y basis swap indicators, the dollar shortage is baaaaack... only this time, very paradoxically, with implied infinite backstopping from the Fed: if even that factor no longer has an influence on the market's perception of liquidity risk we are in very deep trouble. Which of course is to be expected: the gross synthetic dollar short back in 2007 was $6.5 trillion. Add a few years of ZIRP to this, where the USD is also the funding currency of the world, and one can see why the global USD short position currently is in the double digit trillions. So just how will the Fed backstop $10+ trillion in explicit USD shorts? We can't wait to find out.

It is only December 14th. We are all so exhausted it may feel later than that, but the reality is it is only December 14th. The market is providing liquidity like it is 3 pm on December 31st. So no, it is not normal. It also seems that the new spread is adopted by all the dealers. As far as I can tell, there is no entrepreneurial trader out there trying to make a name for him or herself by providing tighter execution levels. That would be typical. So no, this isn’t a normal behavior for this time of year. If CDX Indices were cleared, or better yet, exchange traded, they could continue to trade with tight bid/offer spreads. S&P futures continue to trade actively and e-minis had an exceptionally busy day yesterday. It is at times like this, that the failure to get CDX indices on exchanges (or even properly cleared) is most felt by the market.

• A well-received Schatz auction from Germany rendered support to Bund futures
• ECB allotted USD 5.122bln in its 7-day USD operation - a much higher allotment than usual
• ECB's Weidmann said Bundesbank is only willing to provide fresh funds to the IMF if conditions on other countries' involvement are met, adding that losing AAA rating is not the end of the world
• Market talk that S&P may downgrade France, however the talk remains unconfirmed

• Austrian Banks Face Hungary ‘Debt Slave’ Revolt (Bloomberg)
• Steve Cohen calls insider trading rules "vague" (Reuters)
• ‘Haircut’ dispute risks delaying Greek rescue (FT)
• Reid Says He Will Block Republican Tax Cut (Bloomberg)
• Bernanke Signals Europe Risk Keeps Fed Ready to Ease Further (Bloomberg)
• Euro Crisis Shows Dutch Converge With Germany (Bloomberg)
• Obama raises stakes over $200bn stimulus renewal (FT)
• EU treaty hopes come under strain (FT)
• Beijing urged to bolster house sales (FT)

As has been demonstrated time and time again, anyone wishing to make money should allign themselves with Goldman's flow desk, which by definition does the opposite of what Goldman's clients are doing. The most recent indication of this came last Friday when Goldman told clients to sell buy European banks to entertaining results. Today, we get the latest Stolpering, following Goldman's all too glaringly obvious initiaition of Groupon with a "buy" and a $29 price target. From the reprt: "We are initiating coverage on Groupon with a Buy rating and a $29 12-month target. We view Groupon as the key to unlocking the massive local advertising market with which the Internet has long struggled. We believe the size of the addressable market (conservatively the $100 bn local advertising market, but potentially over $10 trillion in global advertising, goods, and services markets), new business models like Groupon Now! in mobile, and the advantages of scale more than offset the considerable risks from competition, margin pressure, and deal fatigue." That's sufficient, we get it...

And so the inevitable has happened: the European currency finally fell below that strange attrractor level of 1.3000 following an Italian 5 year auction that despite the "technical" clarification that it would be of Off The Run bonds, still ended up being the highest rate ever paid for a 5 Year piece of Italian paper. As Reuters explains, the euro slipped versus the dollar on Wednesday after Italy paid a euro era record yield of 6.47 percent to sell five-year debt, adding to concerns that an EU summit last week had made little progress in tackling the region's debt crisis. More: "Italy paid a euro era record yield of 6.47 percent to sell five-year paper at its first auction of longer-term debt after the EU moved towards greater fiscal integration at last week's summit, but failed to convince markets it can solve the debt crisis. The average yield at Wednesday's sale compares with an auction rate of 6.29 percent Italy paid a month ago, which was also a euro lifetime record high. Rome sold 3 billion euros of the Sept. 2016 BTP bond, the top of an unusually small range of 2 billion to 3 billion euros for the sale. Italy has trimmed the size of its auctions in reaction to market pressure but it will have to step up issuance in coming months if it is to meet a gross funding goal of around 440 billion euros next year." And result: EURUSD < 1.3000 which means bad things for the record high correlated stock market... and the Christmas Rally.

It is often useful to learn from one's mistakes, or in some cases from one's successes, and as they prepare for their 2012 Blueprint, Deutsche's FX research team focuses in on lessons they learned from the travails of an asset class that was at times chaotic and at others baffling in its stagnation. Digressing from the high levels of uncertainty accompanied by strange periods of low volatility to a recognition that emerging markets did not decouple and there are no more safe havens, the five key insights offer practical views on what worked and what didn't and critically going forward to focus on the flows emanating from the Euro-zone as opposed to monetary policy.

An analysis of the job market in the UK and USA including suggestions for future growth.