Archive - Aug 5, 2011

BOTTOM LINE: Employment report good but not great. Establishment survey data clearly better than expected, household survey still soft.

In our monthly update on how many jobs have to be created by the end of Obama's potential second term, when accounting for the 90K per month natural growth in the labor pool, we now get a new record of 256K jobs per month, up from 254K last month. In other words, to regain all the losses in the labor force since the December 2007 start of the great depression, which at this point are 10,596,000 when adding the 3,870,000 growth in the labor force over that period together with the 6,726,000 cumulative jobs lost, somehow America needs to add 16,356,500 jobs over the next 64 months. Good luck America.

While we still await for BLS.gov to finally come back up online half an hour after printing the actual NFP number, here is the one data point that we know for a fact: the labor force participation rate, and the reason why the general unemployment rate declined to 9.1%, just dropped to 63.9%, the lowest in 16 years, or matches the participation rate from January 1984.

Change in Non-Farm Payrolls M/M 117K vs. Exp. 85K (Prev. 18K)
Change in Private Payrolls (Jul) M/M 154K vs. Exp. 113K (Prev. 57K)
Change in Manufacturing Payrolls (Jul) M/M 24K vs. Exp. 10K (Prev. 6K)
US Average Hourly Earnings (Jul) M/M 0.4% vs. Exp. 0.2% (Prev. 0.0%)
US Unemployment Rate (Jul) M/M 9.1% vs. Exp. 9.2% (Prev. 9.2%)

More coming as soon as bls.gov actually comes up

Just like on the last NFP release, we now have Obama again addressing the country at 11:00 am on the "jobs situation." The more conspiratorially minded saw in the last statement an indication of a major beat only for the final number to be an abysmal miss. We would not read much into this scheduled conference, although if anyone knows the job number in advance, it is the Teleprompter. Another interesting, if once again prescheduled data point is the 12:45 pm testimony of BLS commission Keith Hall to the Joint Economic Commitee. This is also a recurring monthly event.

Market talk of the ECB buying in the Eurozone periphery government bonds, together with an affirmation of Ireland's sovereign ratings by the S&P boosted risk-appetite
EU's Rehn said the European Commission will present a report on feasibility of the Eurobonds, adding that effective lending capacity of the EFSF and its scope should be boosted
CHF came under selling pressure in early trade after market talk of further intervention by the SNB
The Eurozone 10-year government bond yield spreads narrowed across the board as the European session progressed
Markets look ahead to the Nonfarm Payrolls report from the US due to be released at 1330BST (0730CDT)

There is just one number that is important in the just released Fannie Mae Q2 earnings release, in which the firm reported a loss of "just" $2.9 billion, which includes $6.1 billion in credit related expenses all of which was blamed on Bush (no, really "substantially all of which were related to the company’s legacy (pre-2009) book of business"). The number that matters is that for the 11th consecutive quarter a bankrupt Fannie Mae came running to the Treasury, this time requesting $5.1 billion from Tim Geithner, the second highest number in the past year. This brings the total cumulative bailout since Fannie's conservatorship to a stunning $103.8 billion. And wasn't it pathological liar Tim Geithner who himself said a month ago that the GSEs are no longer a burden on the Treasury? Perhaps he can explain the chart below taken from the company's announcement.

An interesting day, for sure. But a surprise? It shouldn’t have been, since even the Guvvamint’s statisticians and spinmeisters seem to have noticed that The Great Recession is back with a vengeance.

All eyes on the July employment report. Goldman summarizes what to expect below, and while we refuse to predict what the number will be this time, we remind readers that it was the horrible July NFP reported in the first week of August 2010 that set off a chain of events starting with Goldman first downgrading the economy, leading to Hatzius and Dudley holding hushed tete-a-tetes, and ultimately culminating with Jackson Hole three weeks later. If the Fed is truly hell bent on QE3 or bust, expect a very disappointing NFP number this month (and potentially an even worse one next month when the economic data is goalseeked to validate monetary policy which only succeeds in raising the Russell 2000).

As both Italian and Spanish bond spreads continue slowly creeping wider toward the half a century territory, we are reminded once again that once both countries pass 450 bps, LCH will automatically hike collateral triggers for both countries, in essence initiating another waterfall effect whereby less cash is released upon repo, requiring more bonds to be pledged, which in turn means other assets have to be sold off to make up for the shortfall, which in turn leads to a sell off of the underlying financial institution (recall that banks in Europe buy their nation's sovereign debt and immediately pledge it back via various repo mechanisms) and so on. What this practically means is that the bond vigilantes now have a far more achievable task in terms of endgoals when it comes to punishing the offending debt, in this case Italy and Spain. Expect a prompt move to this appropriate level as debt holders start panicking what an extra margin demand will mean for them, and in turn try to lock up cash at current repo levels.

After a brief intermission in which even the robots apparently took some long overdue shut-visual sensor, things are back in motion, with both French and Italian CDS pushing out to record wides, France hitting 150, 7 bps wider, while Italy rising 15 bps to over 405 bps at last check. And what is more disturbing for all those who keep pounding the table that Spain should blow up first dammit so stop looking at Italy, Italian 10 Year yields just surpassed those of Spain, for the first time since April 2010. Elsewhere, as Bloomberg reports, the Yen has resumed its rally as the BOJ, has ceased its intervention after spending over Y4 trillion according to some accounts, only to realize what we said from the beginning: the yentervention will fail. "Both BOJ and SNB have made clear they oppose further currency appreciation but absence of other safe-haven alternatives means the yen and swiss franc will remain in demand", Lutz Karpowitz, strategist at Comerzbank, writes in note. And some more observations courtesy of Bloomberg: "Confidence is waning over EU policymakers’ ability to contain debt crisis, Derek Halpenny, strategist at BOTM-UFJ writes in note. These will make it all the more difficult for BOJ to find intervention success in yen. Without further BOJ intervention, intensifying risk aversion will result in further yen gains, Halpenny adds." What is ironic is that the Italian stock market is rebounding rapidly from overnight lows of -3.and 5%, is now green courtesy primarily due to alleged additional ECB bond purchases of Italian bonds, which rumor has in turn stabilized Italian financial stocks which are, as expected, soaring. We are confident this response will be as transitory as all other central bank interventions.

A snapshot of the European Morning Briefing covering Stocks, Bonds, FX, etc.

Market Recaps to help improve your Trading and Global knowledge

"The whole world is mad" - so says Marc Faber when beginning his latest observations of the markets in the attached Bloomberg TV interview. "Stocks will be dropping 30%, then rallying 20%, and dropping another 30% -  that's going to be the pattern. And whoever can't live with that shouldn't be buying equities at all." And while the publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom report, said "there is a case to be ultrabearish about everything, and markets are going to go lower" he notes that markets are "extremely oversold" and he expects a "snap-back" rally in the U.S. Standard & Poor's 500 Index of about 40-50 points. That said, Faber sees no new highs in 2011. He concludes that he can already smell QE3, and that the next week will be important to see if Bernanke is a true money printer or an amateur, and if he is a true money printer he will start printing soon." Couldn't have said it better ourselves.

260% profits in 48 hours? Global markets in full meltdown mode? Bank runs imminent? Is this an all out collapse or will the global central financial planning cartel reign it in via the bear market rally from hell. Well, here's a few steps to take either way...

The meek and somnolent shall inherit nothing, because Europe just came back online and the apocalypse has resumed. Italian, Spanish and Belgian bonds opened lower, with spreads to Bunds surging the most since before the euro was introduced in 1999 (but before it was abolished in 2012). Specifically, the yield on 10-year Italian bonds jumped 19 basis points to 6.38% as of 7:40 a.m. in London after reaching 6.40%, the highest since 1997. The spread over bunds was as wide as 414 basis points. The yield on two-year Italian notes jumped to more than 5 percent. Additionally, the FTSE was down 2.7% as of first prints, the CAC 40 down 2.% and the lovely Italian FTSE MIB did open, however down 3.3%. We give it a few hours before it implodes. Furthermore, both Dexia and Intesa Sanpaolo are now limit down. US futures are down 7.5 and dropping. And this is just the beginning...