Archive - Apr 18, 2011

In a notable shift from the traditional regime observed over the past year when the afterhours session would regularly see a quiet, persistent melt up, primarily in equities, post close of electronic trading recently has been all but traditional. As can be seen on the chart below, after an attempt to ramp equities into the regular close, ES is now back to the lows of the day, where it is joined by Crude and soon- the EURUSD, which leads us to believe that the front and center story today, which was Europe until the S&P escapade, is once again in focus. The weakness is not isolated to any particular asset class, and while gold saw no sell off following the S&P move earlier, precious metals are not spared now. Curiously, the only class that refuses to budge are LT bonds: the 10 Year has been locked at the 3.37% number since closing and is hardly moving.

So, which is it? Who is lying?

If you think that somehow the Fed’s money pumps will keep the system afloat and stop another 2008 type even from occurring, consider that we’ve gone from $50 billion to $200 billion per month in money pumps… and we’re still seeing sharp sell-offs occur. Indeed, at some point, and I cannot say specifically when, the Fed will lose control of the system. When that happens, the Crisis that follows will make 2008 look like a PICNIC.

It has been a while since we looked at the ZAMG radioactive fallout dispersion forecast: considering that the radioactive fallout from Fukushima continues to be released without much abatement this projection is actually quite relevant, as once again the various Geiger reading across the region continue to be very dependant on wind direction. And as the latest ZAMG data indicate, there could well be a spike in radiation of proximal cities, since the wind over the next 24 hours is blowing from the Ocean, as well as radioactivity over Russia, which will likely be rather frowned upon: after all Russia is now the energetic white knight providing the marginal energy that Japan needs.

While presenting his view on this morning's S&P warning to Reuters, in addition to expressing his now "well-accepted" contrarian outlook to that of Bill Gross via-a-vis the US Treasury response to the end of QE2, DoubleLine's Jeff Gundlach (his latest complete presentation was posted here first) had some very cautionary words for both the economy and for stocks.

One of the more surprising victims of this weekend's dramatic tornado flurry that ravaged numerous states causing the deaths of 45 people, were two nuclear reactors operated by Dominion Resources in Surry County, Virginia on April 16. Luckily, it appears that the shutdowns have been contained. From Reuters: "Dominion Virginia Power said the two nuclear reactors at its Surry Power Station shut down automatically when a tornado touched down and cut off an electrical feed to the station. The U.S. south was hit by violent storms over the weekend. No radiation was released during the storm and shutdown, the NRC and the company said. The situation was described as an "unusual event," the lowest of the four NRC emergency classification levels." The Guardian adds: "The US nuclear safety regulator said on Mondayit was monitoring the Surry nuclear power plant in Virginia. Dominion Virginia Power said the two reactors shut down automatically when a tornado cut off power to the plant. A backup diesel generator kicked in to cool the fuel. The regulator said no radiation was released and staff were working to restore electricity to the plant." Perhaps this is a modest but much needed validation that not every natural disaster will result in some form of nuclear incident. Then again, we will follow news of when precisely the Surry plant will officially regain full electricity.

One of the most flagrant forms of abuse of US accounting rules was the implementation of FAS 157 and 115 discussed over two years ago by Zero Hedge here. The rules, which were implemented in advance of the end of Mark To Market back in 2009 to prevent fair value from creeping into bank asset valuations, segregated bank assets into three categories: trading, available-for-sale and held-to-maturity (also known as banking). The chief distinction was that while "trading" assets could be, well, traded, on an ad hoc basis, they would also need to be marked-to-market, and as a result suffer valuation shortfalls which would possibly lead to bank undercapitalization when markets swooned. The held-to-maturity assets, on the other hand, were encased in a shell of impenetrable valuation, traditionally held on the bank books at par, as the assumption is that all would be money good at maturity. The one caveat is that banks could not trade out of these assets without a solid reason to justify shifting underlying assets from one class to another. Not surprisingly, in the volatile days of 2009 and 2010, most banks moved their asset holdings to the banking category leaving trading books empty. And while the FASB recently pushed to reinforce mark to market, that failed. Yet what seems to be happening is that banks are now voluntarily going back to Mark-to-Market in order to take advantage of what even they are obviously perceiving as ludicrous valuations for toxic assets. As the FT reports, Citi shifted  $12.7 billion in bad assets from its banking book to its trading book, supposedly so it can be shielded from onerous Basel III capitalization requirements (minimum 7% equity buffer on banking book assets), but really so it can take advantage of an environment in which bidders for Maiden Lane II assets (primarily AIG itself indirectly through banks) are scrambling to bid on last pockets of remaining yield. What this means is that pretty soon all bank assets will be moved back to Mark To Market, leading in much more incremental volatility as these will be reflexive of market momentum and vol. But that is at least a few weeks away. And by then it will be some other CFO's problem.

"Our liquidity position is stronger than ever..."--Dick Fuld

The flashing fuchsia elephant at the core of our economic, and thus budget problems – remains the response to the financial homicide imparted by the big-banks and abetted by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department. There was a choice to be made in Washington in the fall of 2008 - smack Wall Street into place, do a good-ole free-market – you fail if you deserve to fail, we’ll protect consumer assets and that’s it maneuver - and deal with possibly intense, but definable fall-out for a short period. Or - lavish bailout upon guarantee upon subsidy upon asset purchase upon the lowest rates in our nation’s history on Wall Street, and wring the very possibility of a recovery out of the general economy from the get-go. Of course, the brilliant minds of our exceedingly-privileged, out-of-touch, economic leadership decided on the former, and are acting their asses off to pretend that that decision, in itself, wasn’t the cause of the economic problems that followed, from Main Street anemia, to commodity inflation to international disdain and a weak currency that has no right to even have the purchasing capacity it still does. And, yet Tim Geithner had the audacity of job-security to take his debt ceiling ‘plea’, on the Sunday Morning talk show circuit – really, we will be in crisis and other countries will think poorly of our ability to pay our debts if we don’t raise the ceiling and increase our debt. In truth, it is Tim Geithner’s ego on the line, while his boss, through staggering absence of mention, is fine with assuaging it. Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke remained silent about the topic, not least because between the Fed and the Treasury department, more debt has been racked up and issued in the past two years than ever before. Of course, the debt cap will get raised, just as it got raised under Treasury Secretaries Paul O’Neil, John Snow and Hank Paulson.

Only a very few names managed gains in both equity and credit today (an interesting bunch - MAR, TOL, HOT, DHI, PEP, and SVU) as homebuilders were interestingly near the tope on the list of better performers in credit (which we suspect was related to the underperformance of the CMBX and ABX tranche markets as well as the higher beta exposure in some of the credit indices). Every sector was in agreement between credit and equity with a deteriorating move today as we note financials, leisure, and media were the worst beta-adjusted in credit relative to stocks on the day. Capital Goods, Utilities, and Consumer Noncyclicals performed the relative worst in stocks versus credit. The up-in-quality theme in credit is increasingly leaking into vol as we saw much less impact higher in vols in better-rated credits than in lower-rated credits. This was also the picture in credit though we did see the very highest rated names underperforming (financials?). This picture was somewhat different in equity-land where BB-rated and below names saw their stocks drop far less than A- rated and above names - once again we think this is to do with both financials dominating performance as well as the typical ratings/momentum correlation unwind.

Importantly, this inflationary episode, which threatens to last as long as the U.S. does not raise nominal interest rates above present rates of inflation (or, more to the point, real rates above the growth rate of the economy), has serious recessionary consequences, especially when wage and salary costs lag prices. In other words, what is being touted as a constructive element, the fact that labour costs are not showing signs of inflation, is reason to believe that the economy will soon be hit by another wave of retrenchments, as consumers are hit by shrinking real paycheques. Recessionary pressures in the U.S., adumbrated by downward revisions to second-quarter GDP forecasts in recent weeks, are being reinforced by economic weakness in the U.K., which is already undergoing a more severe bout of inflation, and the Eurozone (with the exception of Germany), which is in the grips of extremely high unemployment and negative growth per capita and stifled by excessive debt, rising taxes, and, believe it or not, low money supply growth. Consider, too, that most of the emerging markets are engaged in belated and not always conventional forms of monetary tightening in a desperate but ultimately futile hope of reducing inflationary pressures without disrupting real economic growth, and the resulting mix, you might guess, can only spell global economic trouble.

But by launching his campaign with outrageous demagoguery, Pres. Barack Obama “made it clear” he will avoid fundamentals. He counts on emotional appeals to self interest – private and corporate welfare recipients, elderly who make old age a profession out of human tragedy, all interests vying for favor at the public trough.

Never have so many, said so much, that's so wrong. It seems like a combination of deficits and rating agency action have sparked a myriad of comments, many of which are just plain wrong....First, on the deficit. NEITHER party is reducing the existing cumulative deficit nor amount of debt outstanding. They are NOT creating surpluses anytime in the next few years (decades)! They are cutting the projected deficit...Secondly, after getting wrong what the deficit reduction really is, they get wrong the likelihood. Talks about 2030 being balanced. Excuse me???? In November the talking heads thought we might see tax cuts expire. They didn't see new spending. In December, we got both! Why do we assume things will be better 15 years from now when we can't predict a few months out very well? Probably, the obvious reason. IBGYBG. I'll Be Gone, You'll Be Gone. Stocks have rallied from 900's to 1,300 as the smart money bet on unwavering and unlimited government support. Tepper was spot on. He called it for what is was. Now, smart money may be realizing that game is over... The pundits can continue to be wrong about their budget commentary, can scream til they are blue in the face that the rating agencies don't get it, but we have moved one more step towards that slippery slope where government support for stock prices is getting more difficult to implement.

Just like the Fed and banks ...

TXN which is merely the latest company to post weaker than expected earnings in a quarter which so far has been a major disappointment across the board, also has the dubious distinction of being the first company to blame its outlook cut on Japan:

Outlook

For the second quarter of 2011, TI expects: 

• Revenue:  $3.41 – 3.69 billion
• Earnings per share:  $0.52 – 0.60

This estimate includes a negative impact of about 5 cents for costs resulting from the earthquake and its aftermath in Japan. 

As the street was expecting $0.63 this is not good, but the market will promptly forgive this weakness now that every company will start using the Japanese wildcard.