Archive - Jun 22, 2011

And while the developed world wonders whether or not Greece will default (it will), the real news continues to come from the new "White Knight" and IMF replacement, China, which according to the China Securities Journal is about to see an unprecedented surge in inflation, making life for the schizophrenic PBoC (on one hand handing out liquidity, on the other reeling it back in with rate hikes), untenable. Market News reports: "The Chinese central bank will need to raise interest rates in the near future if it is to tackle inflation pressure, despite the potential hit to economic growth, the official China Securities Journal said in an unsigned, front-page editorial Thursday. The newspaper said the central bank will move in the near future because the monetary conditions that are driving inflation are still in place, while negative rates are driving money out of the banking system, and putting those funds outside of the scope of reserve requirement adjustments. "The China Securities Journal believes that the current monetary conditions driving inflation haven't been reversed (and) the central bank will raise interest rates to address this," it said. Consumer inflation in June is very likely to exceed 6% y/y following May's 5.5% rise, the newspaper warned." Just as importantly, "real interest rates [have been pushed] into negative territory and
triggered a drain of funds from the traditional banking system in search
of yield. The newspaper said that M1 and M2 are no longer reliable indicators
of fund flows within the economy because of this drain and said "it is
urgent that interest rates are raised to reverse negative rates and
guide funds to return to the banking system." Which simply said means that the liquidity crisis we have been following every day for the past week is about to get far worse. Indeed, as of tonight, both 1 and 2 week SHIBORs are above 9%. The highest 1 week Shibor has ever been is just over 10% back in 2007, right after the quant crash in August of that year. We are confident this all time high will be taken out in a few days.

The always insightful market observers at Global Tactical Asset Allocation have released their third Q3 update compendium following equities and credit, this time focusing on FX, which is a must read for everyone trading currencies. Not surprisingly, the US Dollar is the fulcrum currency of choice: "The USD is becoming increasingly undervalued against most currencies and ridiculously so against some. It is at a 40 year low on a real broad trade-weighted basis. Its economy is much more dynamic and has started to rebalance earlier than other developed economies. Companies have been cutting costs aggressively and are much more competitive in the international markets. They are many challenges ahead but currencies are not an absolute bet on a country but a relative one...The 2 main problems remain are that: 1. the Fed is suppressing real government bond yields through quantitative easing. Ceteris paribus, the USD will have to be more undervalued on a PPP basis to be in equilibrium. Indeed, the deficit of interests payment foreigners are receiving has to be compensated by a lower price I.e. lower USD (this is another reason, beside the Balassa-Samuelson effect, why emerging markets with negative real yields have very undervalued currencies on a PPP basis). At current levels we think the compensation is large enough. 2. Uncertainties regarding future fiscal initiatives and long-term deficit reduction plans are high and foreign investors do not like incertitude." Naturally the result leads to Fx warfare, and other undesirable yet very exciting developments in FX trading. For everything one needs to develop an opinion on a given currency, including valuations, sentiment, liquidity, trade, seasonality, and more technical analysis that is healthy, this is the presentation for you.

Tomorrow, in an amendment to bill S.679, aimed at streamlining presidential appointments, proposed by Jim DeMint, the Senate will vote around noon as to whether or not to end the "U.S. government's authority to provide loans to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and rescind related appropriated amounts." Another fun amendment to the same bill comes from David Vitter, whose amendment "would end the ability of the White House to appoint policy "czars," and prohibit funds for salaries and expenses for appointed czars." But it is the DeMint amendment that will be the focus of attention, since should the US, as primary source of capital for the IMF, which itself is a key contributor of funds to the Troica, so desperately needed to bail out Greece, no longer have legislative freedom to use taxpayer funds to bailout European countries, things in Greece and in half of Europe, may soon turn very ugly.

Last week it was Forex.com, now it is Oanda. As a reminder "Forex.com, a large retail foreign-exchange operation, on Friday told clients it will discontinue its gold and silver over-the-counter products marketed to retail investors who are U.S. residents. It asked investors to close their positions by July 15." This was first reported on Zero Hedge. "Trading gold and silver over the counter -- bypassing a futures exchange -- offered investors a chance to enter a highly speculative, leveraged market that also left many investors at risk of fraud, according to one trade group. “In order to trade, it needs to be done in a exchange, or it can’t be done at all,” said Dan Driscoll, a vice president with the National Futures Association. The industry group asked Congress for such changes, due to numerous cases of fraud in such contracts. Doing business with a futures exchange offers retail investors more protections and transparency, he said." There you go: it's the extensive fraud that did it. And just as we predicted, this is only the beginning to heard all PM investors into the waiting clutches of the CME's margin demands.

Considering the only soundbite that was relevant from Ben Bernanke's 45 minute 2:15pm oratory was that "we don't have a precise read on why this slower pace of growth is persisting" America, and the entire civilized world, could have done just as well without it. Instead, we should have listened to Jim Grant, who once again correctly identifies all the things that the Fed chairman should have said (Bernanke certainly focused on the other side): "What we are not going to get is a concession that QE2 has achieved its unintended consequences, namely a lower dollar exchange rate, a higher gold price meaning weaker confidence in the dollar, slower economic growth and a higher measured rate of inflation. Those are some of the things that have come out of this experiment and let us call it by its name money printing...How do we know that this 30% gain in the Russell and 20% gain in Dow since the Chairman spoke in August, how are we to know these are real values. The prices are up, but are people who are buying these stocks on the back of the Fed, are they doing something wise from an investment point of view, and if the market is too high because the Fed has put it there, what does the Fed do when the market comes down, which opens the fate for QE3." And on a far more important topic which we will soon hear much more of, namely extensive US money market exposure in Europe, which will be completely locked up if, pardon, when there is a major liquidity run in Europe snagging American money market liquidity: "The money market mutual funds have nothing to do in this country cause rates are zero, go to Europe. So money market mutual funds investors are taking quite ponderable risks for about a 0% return, these funds are yielding a few basis points only. But to get those few basis point, these funds are crossing the Atlantic right smack dab in the middle of the European banking crisis. This is a prime example of the unintended consequences of this massive intervention by our central bank." Indeed, this is just one simple example of the massive clusterfuck, which certainly does not need Greece's $5 billion notional in CDS, to make the Lehman liquidity freeze seems like a little melting ice cube. And since everyone now agrees that Greece will default, and it is only a matter of time, all the trillions in dollars in the shadow and open banking systems that we have been exposing for years now, will suddenly be locked up in the forms of 1 and 0 in computers belonging to institutions that are no longer operational. And most unfortunately, the man in charge of it all, has a quivering lip problem.

Coal prices are surging ahead even as most other commodities pull back, spurred on by expectations that metallurgical and thermal coal production will again fail to meet rising global demand this year. The result? Record profits for major coal producers like Xstrata, a surge in acquisitions from coal-hungry India, Chinese electricity shortages, and a raging carbon tax debate in Australia amid record investments in that country’s coal-heavy mining sector. The price spikes in the second half of 2008, which were completely unsustainable and disappeared rapidly in the recession, distort the picture. So instead, imagine the above graph without those peaks. What you get is an almost sustained ascent in the spot prices of thermal and metallurgical coal over the last four years. Metallurgical coal, which is used to make steel and is also known as coking coal, has almost doubled in price, climbing from just above US$80 per ton in mid-2007 to more than US$160 per ton today. Thermal coal, which is burned to generate electricity, has risen from the US$45 per ton range to almost US$80 per ton. There are a couple of countries that really take notice when coal prices start to rock. Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter and relies on thermal coal for 80% of its electricity. China mines more coal than any other country in the world but still imports more to support its power and steel-making needs – the country mines and burns more than three billion tons of the black stuff annually. And India – where the economy is growing at 8% annually – is facing multimillion ton coal shortages even as it works to halve a 14% peak power deficit within two years.

The Status Quo consensus is that "kicking the can down the road" a.k.a. "extend and pretend" will work because "Greece, Spain, Ireland et al. are going to "grow their way out of debt." That is a fantasy. Once a household or nation is burdened with stupendous debt loads and stagnating earnings, "growing your way out of debt" is impossible. The E.U. may succeed in strong-arming Greece into swallowing even more debt, more austerity and higher interest payments, but that will only speed up the self-reinforcing dynamics of insolvency, and guarantee the losses kicked down the road for a few months will be even more devastating.

Two notable observations in market technicals: first, from the NYSE, May margin debt declined for the first time since the May 2010 flash crash, and after peaking at $320.7 billion in April, the May sell off saw hedge funds and other levered investors modestly contract their gross leverage to $315.4 billion. Additionally, net leverage, or total net credit aka investor net worth, increased modestly from an all time record low of ($75) billion to ($67) billion. Still, leverage is at very precarious level should the ongoing drop in asset prices be met with an actual cash outflow in the form of redemptions. Which brings us to the second observations: according to ICI, domestic equity mutual funds, saw an 8th straight week of outflows in the week ended June 15, with the mount hitting $6.9 billion, or the highest in not only 2011, but the highest since September of 2010. Year to date nearly $10 billion in redemption requests have hit funds, meaning the only saving grace to an all out liquidation would be an increase in asset prices, which however now that additional monetary easing is off the table, will be a very difficult accomplishment. Incidentally, since the beginning of 2010, equity mutual funds have seen total withdrawals to the tune of $108 billion: not a great amount in the grean scheme of centrally planned things, but quite substantial nonetheless.

There's a reason yesterday's announcement that JPM Chase would 'settle' for a fine of $156.3 million, while neither admitting nor denying any wrong-doing, thereby forking over the whopping equivalent of a normal person's weekly grocery budget, pisses people off. Because it's a marginal fleabite on the teflon hand of the nation's second largest bank in terms of punitive pain, and absolutely meaningless in altering the grand scheme of toxic securities creation or complex financial institution business as usual.

RANsquawk Market Wrap Up - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 22/06/11

Culture, culture, culture...it's the culture you Eurocratic dopes!

From Goldman's Jan Hatzius, who was probably typing while he was being interviewed by CNBC: "Fed Chairman Bernanke’s press conference included many details but few major surprises. On activity, he expressed relatively low conviction, saying “We don't have a precise read on why this slower pace of growth is persisting” (note that quotes come from the real-time transcript, which may be revised slightly). However, consistent with the FOMC’s forecasts (see below), he emphasized that he thought that some factors restraining growth were temporary."

"Sheu, an optimistic and philosophical man, often compared the United States with his original home in communist China. He told his associates and others that while in China whistleblowers were usually killed or imprisoned, he was certain that in the United States of America those pursuing justice would ultimately prevail. With this philosophy, Sheu was confident that if his story were known by the press and authorities, no one would dare harm him." It appears he was wrong...

Here comes the headless horseman cavalry:

• SCHUMER SAYS SENATE DEMOCRATS WEIGH TAX REPATRIATION HOLIDAY
• SCHUMER WOULD USE REVENUE FROM HOLIDAY FOR INFRASTRUCTURE JOBS

How the second sound bite makes any sense, we will need to ask someone with a full frontal lobotomy. What revenue? Where it is coming from? Doesn't Schumer have some Chinese currency manipulation bill he has to be submitting to Senate for the nth time instead of boosting multinational EPS through buybacks, while killing even more US jobs? Luckily it was just yesterday that we discussed that this whole process will do nothing at all to boost jobs as captured best by
Kristin J. Forbes, an MIT economics professor who was on the Bush team
back when the Homeland Investment Act in 2005 was enacted, who said: "For every dollar that was brought back, there were zero cents used for additional capital expenditures, research and development, or hiring and employees wages." Another economic disaster in the making, brought to you by the clueless captain of this country.

Imagine being told that you need to do something in life and you attempt to do it, but the person that’s very insistent that you do X takes his other hand and actively goes out of his/her way to prevent you from attaining X while each passing moment in time said person begins to label you as “lazy” or not trying hard enough?