Archive - Jul 2011

Any time Wall Street tells you something, ignore it. Case in point: the historical "consensus" forecast of Q2 GDP. We have presented this chart before, most recently as pertains to Q1 GDP, although when it comes to unmasking Wall Street's broad incompetence, repeated showings never hurt. And the chart speaks volumes not only to just how much more "insight" those experts have into the future of the economy (none, but that doesn't prevent them getting multi-million bonuses at the end of every year), but also that any hopes of a Q3 and Q4 economic rebound will be imminently dashed. Below is the dramatic(ally wrong) history of Q2 GDP consensus forecasts, one day ahead of the first estimate of the official data release which will now most likely come well below a contractionary level in real terms.

The firings June Clarkson and Theresa Edwards can be dismissed as inter-office politics; the campaign contributions are best described as bribes. How can you take campaign contributions from a company the AG Office is investigating?

By now some readers may have read ludicrous stories about the Fed coining multi-trillion precious metal coins in a way to loophole the debt ceiling situation. Granted, this plan is so far beyond ridiculous that we have not wasted the time to comment on it. That, however, does not mean that the Fed is powerless to assist the Treasury in a modestly long-term term fix of the debt ceiling fiasco. In fact, as Stone McCarthy's Raymond Stone observes: "The Fed does not want to be a player in this debt ceiling/potential default debate. It didn't want to be a player in the Bear Stearns debacle, or the Lehman situation. But when push comes to shove the Fed will do what it can to avoid a default." In summary there are three avenues that the Fed can pursue in order to help Tim Geithner prolong the cash illusion modestly longer. The three options for Bernanke are to i) book profits; ii) prepay expenses and, yes, iii) sell gold. Combined, these three approaches could squeeze out well over half a trillion dollars, giving the Treasury breathing room not only past August 2, but potentially into 2012! That said, "The Fed would not want to advertise to Congress the possibility of delaying default. It does not want to take Congress off the hook on increasing the debt ceiling." But it will, if it has to, and the end result will be a delay potentially of up to a month. And if it means selling off the Fed's gold, so be it.

Update: according to Eric Cantor's spokeswoman Laena Fallon the vote will be only delayed until later on tonight.

Boehner just informed the media that the congressional deficit plan vote will be delayed, presumably because Boehner has not amassed the requisite number of votes. The market reaction is fast and furious: ES dumping 6 points immediately after the notice which means that the delay could now cut into August 2, and there may not be a resolution until Tuesday absent a "grand compromise" plan, which we do not see happening without either party getting crucified by their voters.

Retirement funds have become the ultimate fudgemaking tool of corrupt fiscal policy around the world. Treasury Secretary Tim Geither has been robbing federal pensions for the last several months in the absence of a debt deal, and several governments overseas have also stolen from retirees in order to continue financing their largess. Bottom line- if these bankrupt governments and agencies owe to retirement funds, they’ll stop paying whenever it suits them. If they have access to steal from the retirement funds, they’ll steal. We’ve seen several examples of this over the last two years, and we’re seeing more all the time. This is one of the issues that concerns me the most because I know how many people are completely unprepared for this eventuality. Even private retirement accounts are fair game in the political calculus… and it’s a simple matter of arithmetic.

WARNING: These images have not been approved by the United States Pornography Exchange Commission. Viewers are advised not to view these images while consuming food and beverages of any kind whatsoever.

Where is the money coming from to buy stocks? 

Things are getting real. After all the bluffing, huffing and puffing by Geithner, the rating agencies, and anything with a pulse and a TV or radio pulpit has failed, the last trump card is coming down. While yesterday the Treasury informed that it would not disclose any details of its contingency plan, Bloomberg has just learned via a Treasury leak that the US government will give priority to bondholders. From Bloomberg: "The U.S. Treasury will give priority to making interest payments to holders of government bonds when due if lawmakers fail to reach an agreement to raise the debt ceiling, according to an administration official. The official requested anonymity because no announcement has been made. The Treasury has said about $90b in debt matures on Aug. 4 and more than $30b in interest comes due Aug. 15. Overall, more than $500b matures in August." And so it begins: while the Treasury has not yet pushed the big red flashing button, this leak is nothing but it latest and greatest bluff. It also means that America will, indeed default, next week, as the absence of a contractual payment is a default. And then we get into the fine print with the rating agencies whether or not X is default but Y is not. At that point however it won't matter: every form of intermarket liquidity will be permanently gone as Lehman will be a cherished walk in the park. Thank you Tim Geithner and your total lack of contingency plans.

A snapshot of the US Afternoon Briefing covering Stocks, Bonds, FX, etc.

Market Recaps to help improve your Trading and Global knowledge

When it comes to sellside research ideas (no matter how wrong) being mysteriously converted into official policy nobody, and we mean nobody in the world, is more effective at this "task" than Goldman. In addition to being a herd leader of all the other momos on Wall Street (with Deutsche Bank being dead last), what Goldman wants, whether it is QE1, QE2, or the final layout of the eurozone bailout package #2, Goldman gets. Which is why people actually do care about Goldman's research: not because it is right, it rarely if ever is, unless of course one gauges its success with the bonus pool for Goldman Sachs itself in which case it has been a massive success without fail, but because everyone in DC reads it as gospel, and whatever is advised is eventually implemented. Which is why even as we have skipped numerous analyses of what would happen to the US should its rating be cut, Goldman's is a must read, not the least because Goldman finally puts all those economic illiterates who compares a US downgrade to that of US and assume off the bat that nothing bad can possibly happen. Wrong. Just ask Jan Hatzius: "It bears repeating that no two episodes are alike – nor is any historical episode a close parallel to current US circumstances." And while even he admits he has no idea what will happen, he doesn't get paid by the blank piece of paper so the Goldman economist did have to supply 4 summary conclusions of what will happen when the US is downgraded, sometime over the next 3-4 weeks: 1. A drop in equity markets, but probably a modest one, 2. Some weakening in the currency, 3. A steepening of the yield curve and a cheapening of Treasuries relative to OIS, 4. Some weakness in the financials sector. In other words, "we have no idea, but it won't be good." We totally agree. The full note is below for those whose brains aren't petrified enough to assume that the Japanese downgrade is in any way remotely comparable to that of the US.

When it comes to the name John Williams, there can be only one. The status quo apparatchik who is the new head of the San Fran Fed is a distant second. Alas, it is his words that are more important today, as in a speech to the Community Leaders of Salt Lake City titled The Outlook for The Economy and Monetary Policy, he just made it clear that should the current re-re-recession within a depression accelerate, more QE/LSAPs are coming. To wit: "Looking ahead, we at the Fed will keep a very close eye on incoming data and adjust our policy as needed to work towards our two policy goals. If the recovery stalls and inflation remains low or deflationary pressures reemerge, then we may need to keep our very stimulatory policies in place for quite some time or even increase stimulus." And unlike Lacker earlier who admitted QE 2 had been a failure, Williams is a liltle more polite: "the Federal Reserve doesn’t have a magic wand that will allow the economy to get through a crisis of this magnitude unscathed." Translation: we have been improvising and we have failed although in the process we have made the rich richer, and everyone else as poor as they ever have been. Lastly, Williams appears to be a fan of the Boehner plan: "There is no question that we are currently on an unsustainable long-run path of federal fiscal deficits. It is essential that budget deficits over the next decade be brought under control." Funny that because it was none other than the Chairsatan himself who every time he is trotted before congress, says that stimulus has to come from a fiscal basis, not monetary. While Congress is obviously full of contradicting idiots, it is a little scary if the same can be said of the Fed as well too.

The debt crisis might be real ... I've been warning about it for years.

The potential downgrade to America's credit is real ... I've been warning about that for years, as well.

But the way that the rating agencies and Wall Street are approaching the debt ceiling debate is a scam. 

Systemic financial instability is spreading rapidly around the globe. Nobody knows the precise timing, of course, but if we consider the systemic causal forces at work, it seems the future is now: the next few months could see unstable markets gyrate wildly and unpredictably as the latent instability breaks out and plays out into the 2012-2013 timeframe. Here are a few of the structural causal factors behind the coming global financial instability.

Those interested in the apex of today's Congressional charade can follow the House debate on the Boehner plan live at the following link. It appears that the House does have enough votes to not only take up the debt-limit plan but to successfully pass it (has to be over 218). As a reminder the actual vote is expected to take place at around 5:45pm.

There are some who may read the following article from Bloomberg titled "Banks Find Few Signs of Default Distress in Repo, Credit Markets" and be left with the impression that banks find few signs of default distress in repo, credit markets. These same people would then be very surprised by the chart below which shows that the overnight repo rate has more than doubled from 0.055% to 0.115%, or the highest in months, overnight. "Big deal, this is just a small jump" others may say. To those others we will retort that in a market as massively levered as the ON repo, which is a primary source of risk free financial institution funding in conjunction with the Reserve market (via the Fed's IOER rate), a relationship we have discussed extensively before. This simply means that the O/N GC-IOER spread is probably the most levered synthetic "instrument" in the known universe. Apply 100x leverage to the spread and the 0.06% change effectively wipes out capital buffer for an entity that was picking up pennies in front this particular steamroller, and has a firmwide leverage of 16x or a Tier 1 buffer of under 6%. Luckily, that same entity will quietly approach the Fed and using one of a plethora of secret and not so secret rescue mechanism, the Fed will merely transfer more electronic ones and zeroes backed up by future tax receipt claims to said entity's debit account and all shall be well, with nobody but the Chairsatan and the occasional Wall Street CEO knowing just how close we came to yet another systemic implosion.