Archive - Jul 25, 2011

The only real solution to the Eurozone end-game is massive debt forgiveness and the resulting destruction of "too big to fail" banks, and a return to national currencies, which will enable structural imbalances to be resolved via currency devaluations. This will of course destabilize the German export economy; but that is inevitable. "Extend and pretend" is an endgame, not a fix.

Following hot on the heels of the proposed Boehner rehashed plan, we get the first details of where the bulk of the $2.7 trillion in proposed savings will come from. Are you ready for this? REID PLAN SAID TO HAVE $1 TRLN SAVINGS FROM WINDING DOWN WARS. That's right. In some parallel galaxy far, far away, lack of expenditures, on America's 6 front wars to be sure, is now considered a "saving"? Front lobe hemorrhage to commence in 5 seconds. And the other migraine-inducing details of the Reiid plan are...

The Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments) announced that it recorded an investment return of 14.5% for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2011 (fiscal year 2011)....

Since last update in March 2011, quite a lot has happened. The global news empire is in trouble, Euro zone problems escalated, US Debt ceiling issues are still on the table and generally the earnings have surprised on the upside. With all of these grey swans and uncertainty, the markets have responded quite well to the price levels charted earlier in March 2011 issue. Regardless of how the news on TV may appear to be, market sentiment is not at extremes, as can be seen via AAII sentiment readings.

For a day that was supposed to be full of drama, fury, margin calls and overall bloodshed, newsflow is so boring, for a second we wanted to demand our money back from management, or the kleptocracy, whoever it is that prints these things nowadays. However, some excitement may yet be salvaged now that Boehner has just called for a news conference precisely on the closing bell at 4pm. We assume this will be to present details of his two-tiered plan, which we touched upon earlier, and which Fox News now provides some additional details on. Suffice to say, if Obama were to accept the terms contained herein it would be complete embarrassment for the head executive, as Boehner is literally demanding everything, up to and including a balanced budget amendment, that Obama swore he would not cede.

It doesn’t matter what terms the President offers. It’s that simple. Boehner can’t deliver the votes...That's why Boehner is always crying--Alan Grayson

Given the ridiculous number of rumors (and ridiculousness of some of the rumors) related to the US and EU debt talks that are circling the financial community, I thought it best that we confront the realities these two economies face. 

Citing the most hilarious explanation we have ever heard for not daring to approach the capital markets, Dow Jones reports that following a comparable announcement from Austria earlier, none other than clutch euro Domino Italy, whose bond yields surged by about 40 bps today, has decided to take a sabbatical from accessing capital markets, and will not issue medium and long-term bonds in August. Of course, the real reason is that the spreads are prohibitively high but that's a story for another reason. The problem for Italy, however, is that it will end up burning through a lot of cash over the next 45 days and then far more will depend on the successful passage of the country's auctions in the following month, when the next scheduled medium term auction is on September 13 (full auction schedule is here). Amusingly, while all of Europe complains that the Greece, Ireland and Portugal have no capital markets access, some of the better of PIIGS make the voluntary decision to avoid price discovery. We fail to see how this can possibly result in anything than another loss of credibility in the eurozone rescue package.

Slowly details of the shape of Boehner's two-step plan are emerging:

• BOEHNER'S FIRST STEP WOULD BOOST DEBT LIMIT INTO FEBRUARY
  
• BOEHNER PLAN SAID TO SEEK DEBT BOOSTS OF $1 TLN AND $1.6 TLN
  
• BOEHNER'S PLAN WOULD HAVE COMMITTEE IDENTIFY SPENDING CUTS
• BOEHNER'S PLAN REQUIRES HOUSE AND SENATE TO VOTE ON BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT BETWEEN OCTOBER AND THE END OF 2011

It is unclear if this approach is a non-starter considering that every democrat has made it clear in the past 24 hours that a partial debt increase of $1 trillion would not even be discussed as it would reach just through February or March at the current cash burn rate.

You know, it's downright frightening how clearly this was able to be anticipated well over a year ago, yet it appears as if the EU politicking behind the bailout bonanza STILL leads down the road to perdition.

You read about it previously on Reuters, now here, as per your 1^st amendment protected right, is the full text of the statement issued by the Chinese Propaganda Department seeking to prevent broad dissemination and distribution of the news of the two high speed trains from Saturday. To wit: "The latest directives on reporting the Wenzhou high-speed train crash: 1. Release death toll only according to figures from authorities. 2. Do not report on a frequent basis. 3. More touching stories are to reported instead, i.e. blood donation, free taxi services, etc. 4. Do not investigate the causes of the accident; use information released from authorities as standard. 5. Do not reflect or comment." Obviously, that failed spectacularly, and as was reported earlier, has generated a broad wave of discontent among the population for this glaring attempt to put bureaucratic incompetence and corruption over human life. One thing is certain: at least America's own version of the DOT(ruth) is modestly more subtle... For now.

RANsquawk US Afternoon Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 25/07/11

China continues to flex its wings, in this case literally. The FT reports that last month two Chinese Su-27 jets crossed the middle line in the Taiwan Strait to repel a US spy aircraft. "This marks the first known encounter between US and Chinese military aircraft in mid-air since a US reconnaissance aircraft collided with a Chinese fighter jet in 2001 and was forced to land on Hainan island, sparking a crisis that severely damaged bilateral relations." And while this is certainly not the first such incident, it is the first one disclosed publicly, with the sole purpose of humiliating the US. Furthermore, recent tensions in the South China seas (profiled previously here) have become a big sticking point for the US administration so it should not be surprising that China will do everything in its power to embarrass America before the global community, a task in which it has just succeeded.

"While we are sympathetic to the desire to avoid wasteful and duplicative litigation, the source of the unnecessary proceedings in this case was not an overly wooden application of the rules, but US Bank's failure to abide by them."

Yep. As expected volume just died, which means the algobots are in control and the vaporvolume melt up is imminent. Obama's horribly mistimed plan to crash the market has just been foiled by a few trillion vacuum tube equivalents courtesy of Getco.