Archive - Dec 30, 2011

UPDATE: Spanish bonds are leaking wider after the defiict projection looks set to be significantly worse than previously expected.

Something strange is happening in European risk markets this week. While that sentence is entirely 'normal' for what has become a diverging/converging flip-flopping correlation microstructure but the clear trend this week has been European Sovereign derisking and European Stock rerisking. The Bloomberg 500 index (that tracks a broad swathe of European stocks) is up 0.75% from Christmas Eve (and 1.6% from yesterday's lows) while 10Y sovereign spreads are wider by 10 to 30bps in the same period. France stands out as one of the worst performers - more than 25bps wider this week alone. Only Spain is notably improved on the week (-17bps) but all 10Y sovereigns are well off their best levels as stocks make new highs. Whether this is a front-run on asset rotation into the new year or expectations of the same risk-on ramp-job we saw on the first trading of this year is unclear - we do remind those front-runners that mutual fund cash levels are significantly lower this year than last. It is clear that yet another 'sensible' correlation (such as BTPs to equities) has broken but when volumes return and the reality of the huge supply calendar we face in the next month alone sinks in, perhaps equity ebullience will pull to bond bereavement. If stocks are reacting to a quasi-QE from the ECB, why wouldn't sovereigns who are the direct beneficiaries in that surreal LTRO-driven-carry trade?

The only thing of note today (there are no economic announcements at all, just the Fed disclosing the latest Op Twist schedule at 2 pm) is that while the bond market closes at 2pm, stocks will be left unsupervised for two hours of sheer idiocy between then and their normal closing time of 4pm by which point there will be nobody left trading, just some GETCO algo lifting every offer then dumping it all having made money over VWAP and suckered in the momos, as happens every single day on no volume levitation.

With year end fund flows making absolutely no sense for the most part, thank you global central planning, as the euro plunges and the market refuses to follow, with risk assets rising on speculation the ECB (and/or Fed) are about to restart printing yet gold collapsing (on one or two hedge funds liquidating, yet econ PhDs already rewriting their theses on why the "gold bubble has popped"), and finally with Treasurys soaring to near all time highs (10 Year under 1.9% yesterday even as stocks surged on data from the National Advertisers of Realtors, aka NAR, of all fraudulent and corrupt entities), here is the latest observation to make the confusion complete. As the Fed's critical H.4.1 weekly update shows (which is leaps and bounds more accurate than the Treasury's TIC international fund flow data), in the week ended December 28, foreign investors sold the second highest amount of  US bonds in history, or $23 billion, bringing total UST custodial holdings to $2.67 trillion, a level first crossed to the upside back in April. This number peaked at $2.75 trillion in mid-August, and as the chart below shows the foreign holdings of US paper have been virtually flat in all of 2011, something which is in stark contrast with what the price of the 10 Year would indicate vis-a-vis investor demand. And going back further, the last week is merely the latest in a series of Custodial account outflows. In fact, in the last month (trailing 4 weeks), foreigners have sold a record $69 billion in US paper, a monthly outflow that was approached only once - in the aftermath of the US downgrade (when erroneously it is said that a surge in demand for US paper pushed rates lower - obviously as the chart shows nothing could be further from the truth).

In the last daily update of 2011, the ECB announced that European banks saw their usage of the central bank's deposit facility rise yet again following a modest drop the day before to fund some Italian bond purchases, and increased to just shy of the all tie record of €452 billion, at €446 billion, a €9 billion increase overnight. And while this is obviously not a seasonal pattern based on historical observations, nor is it banks holding their cash for 2012 auction use, as the carry opportunities are already there with the BTP back over 7% (although LCH still has to get the memo), we look forward to the first update of 2012 to see just how much more this non-seasonal expansion will rise by. One thing is certain: when the next, February 29, LTRO is conducted, European banks will park about €700 billion with the ECB in the biggest circle jerk ever conceived in modern monetary history.

The Sovereign Ponzi