Archive - Aug 9, 2011

The last time we saw letters of this nature, John Thain and Dick Fuld were assuring their employees all shall be well. It is about that time again. The CEO of the soon to be bailed out company has just distributed a memo to his "teammates" doing his best to rebuild rock bottom morale, and failing: "Because we serve one in two households in the U.S. and have leading positions with the global Fortune 500 companies here and around the world – a market advantage in most respects – turbulence in the global economy will affect us as well. But we have weathered challenging times before and we will now." Correct: you did so courtesy of $15 billion in TARP funding from the Fed. And we are certain that you will do the same all over again, so you, or actually your imminent replacement can write sentimental drivel such as this all over again. That said, we find it truly shocking that there is no mention of the fact that Bank of America is about $20-50 billion underprovisioned for the perfect litigation storm that is coming courtesy of the worst transaction in M&A history: BAC's purchase of CFC.

The levitation resumes. And as expected, the second this happens the volume divergence from average goes red. Good to see that no matter how big of a beating they experience, the robots will always be here, apocalypse or shine. In the meantime, the carbon-based whales are sitting on the sidelines until 2:15 pm. Anything less than the expected from the gospel of St. Chairsatan will promptly push the volume bar from red to green, and the direction of stocks (inversely) appropriately.

Global markets are stabilizing a bit after authorities worldwide are pulling out all the stops to stem the bloody tide. Greece and South Korea have followed Italy’s recent lead and even banned the short-selling of equities. Brazilian Finance Minister Mantega said the G-20 was prepared to take action to calm the global crisis. The concerns over the debt levels of Italy, a country which is Too-Big-To-Bailout, are quickly spreading to the US as Citigroup and Bank of America both fell over 15% yesterday...No matter which way you turn, all roads lead to the TBTF banks, their leverage and the $700tr derivatives market. Until these issues are resolved, we will continue to go through bouts of panic, instability and market routs. The entire global economic system is threatened by the continued status quo regarding our TBTF banks and the global derivatives market. Everything else is just noise. Governments can be upgraded or downgraded, currencies can rise and fall and equity markets can rally or sell-off. But if one of the TBTF banks collapses, the game will change immediately to one of fear and collapse as the size of the potential asset write-downs that will follow is simply overwhelming.

The same robots that accelerated the selloff yesterday, are in charge of the buying this morning, as the mean reversion signals kick in, potentially with a helping hand from the Citadel/FRBNY JV. Yet the "all clear" is nowhere to be found, and in fact confidence continues to evaporate.Today, investors and risk managers have once again shifted their attention across the Atlantic, where the epicenter of this morning's unease is to be found once again in the form of European funding concerns. Exhibit A is the Euribor/OIS spread which at +5.4 bps, and rising, is now at 46.8 bps, the highest since June 2009 (see chart below). Add to this yet another day of unprecedented strength in the Swiss Franc which has now undone all SNB intervention from last week, courtesy of ongoing bank runs across Europe which will be disclosed to the broader public only once it is too late, and we are fairly confident that absent very encouraging language from the Fed, the market's focus will once again shift to Europe and its ridiculously insolvent bad bank, the ECB, at which point the algos will have no chance against yet another onslaught of global selling.

Just in case there was any concern which way China is leaning ahead of today's meeting, here is the missing clue:

• China's NDRC official says likelihood of US QE3 appears highs
  
• China's NDRC official says US QE3 will push up commodity prices and will intensify hot money flows
  
• China's NDRC official says QE3 will threaten Chinese price stability

Of course, China is quite adept at saying one thing and meaning another. And with inflation there continuing to surge, and no chance of a loose monetary policy any time soon, China will be very delighted to see the Fed to another round of easing. After all by the time, exported inflation hits China it will be at least 3-6 months down the line, by which point China should have its inflation problem under control. So with Goldman and China both egging Bernanke on, we doubt there is much surprise left in today's 2:15pm announcement.

Who could have possibly imagined that in the month of June, Greek banks would see yet another major deposit outflow. Alas, according to just released NBG data, June deposit outflows by households and corporates amounted to €3.8 billion, bringing the total down to just €188 billion. This is a whopping 20% decline in total Greek bank deposits since January 2010. It also means that each increasing outflow merely plants the seeds for even more outflows in the next month as less and less confidence (and cash) remains in Greek banks. As a reference, an equivalent outflow in the US, based on the total $8 trillion in total domestic deposits, would imply a $160 billion monthly outflow, enough to put two Bank of Americas out of business. We expect to see comparable data out of the Bank of Italy, and then all other pigs, as billions of euros are being pulled from deposit accounts in insolvent countries and deposits in Switzerland. Naturally, it also means that European efforts to quell the panic are failing abysmally.

All three Keynesian policies have been tried, and all three have failed completely. The massive "shovel-ready" fiscal stimulus caused a minor blip up in activity, but it did not spark any regeneration of borrowing and spending. All it did was enable further deleveraging as consumers and businesses struggled to pay down their crushing debt loads. As for devaluing the currency, the Fed's policies devalued the U.S. dollar 32% from the early 2000s, and 17% from 2008. Rather than spark a boom of spending and investment, this massive devaluation sparked a dramatic loss of purchasing power which households experience as high inflation. No nation ever prospered in the long-term by devaluing its currency. Devaluation is just another Keynesian "quick fix." Borroing 40% of Federal spending didn't "fix" what's wrong with the economy? Then borrow 50%. That devaluation wasn't enough? Then takes the dollar down another 10%. These are the policies of debt-junkies, not legitimate long-term growth based on capital formation and productive investment.

What makes this so interesting is that this bank is sitting under everybody's nose yet no one suspects it. KaBoom!!! Nuclear chain reaction thoughout Europe based on panic, greed, avarice and fear? Oh well, back to the trade at hand...

What a difference a quarter makes. Back in Q1, Goldman reported one (1) day in which it had a trading loss out of 62. It also reported 32 days on which it made over $100 million. Oh how the times have changed. According to the just released 10-Q, Lloyd Blankfein's firm suffered an epic implosion, recording 15 trading day losses out of 63, or a stunning 24% loss rate. And far worse: only 4 days in which Goldman recorded profits of $100 million. And that's why the stock is floundering. The only question is whether this was premeditated to shift the public anger away from Goldman which back in 2010 barely had any trading day losses in the entire year. And if not, what is the systemic change that caused this worst quarterly performance for Goldman in years?

The only economic data point of the day is a disappointment as non-farm productivity drops 0.3% on consensus of -0.9%, although we once again get an unprecedented revision from the BLS whose data can no longer be trust for anything, as Q1 productivity was cut by whopping 2.4% from 1.8% to -0.6%! This is the first consecutive quarterly drop since 3Q, 4Q 2008. Net, this is very disappointing data and means that the economic slow down is far more broad than previously expected. And, not at all surprisingly, we get the same thing with labor costs rising 2.2% on consensus of 2.4%. The kicker yet again is in the revision, which speaks for itself: from 4.8% to 0.7% in Q1. US economic reporting is rapidly becoming a bigger joke than the Chinese Department of Truth.

Asking almost any credit trader how their market is trading, and the most common answer is broken.  Yesterday, a few people would have said bidless, or ugly, but today, its just broken.  Liquidity is extremely low.  Every trade resets the market. Trades are being driven by fear and fear alone.  Fear of a further sell-off.  Fear of whipsaw.  Sovereign debt trading was the first to be hit, and it has now hit all the credit markets.  Even equities seem to have seen a complete breakdown, with big air pockets.  For the S&P, 5 points seems to be just a little noise every few minutes waiting for the next big move.  S&P futures have already traded in a 70 point range, not too big for a month, but a lot for 12 hours.

This may be a sign that the current sharp rally may have reached its zenith as neither bank has a great track record regarding short term trading calls on commodity markets. In the short term there is the risk of a correction as gold’s rise is now becoming front page (on front page of FT today) and headline news. The fact that silver has fallen in recent days and remains below $40/oz and the fact that gold mining equities have also not risen may also be a warning signal. Gold has risen from below $1,500/oz to nearly $1,800/oz in 5 weeks (since the start of July) and is up nearly 18% in dollar terms.  Therefore, in conventional terms gold is most certainly overbought.  However, we are not living in conventional or normal times and the ongoing global market crash and global currency debasement means that there is a chance that gold will go parabolic as it did in the 1970’s.

• Rogoff: Fed Will Embark on QE3, Act ‘Decisively’ (Bloomberg)
• China Inflation Quickens to 6.5%, Limits Policy Response to Global Crisis (Bloomberg)
• ECB Puts Pressure on Italy (WSJ)
• Chinese Fault Beijing Over Foreign Reserves (NYT)
• Senate to probe S&P downgrade (FT)
• Cameron Back to U.K. for Emergency Meeting on Riots (Bloomberg)
• Trichet Turns ‘President of Europe’ as Debt Crisis Stuns Political Leaders (Bloomberg)
• Hong Kong Sells Land 33% Below Surveyors’ Estimates Amid Market Turmoil (Bloomberg)

Markets witnessed a mood of risk-aversion today on the back of growing concerns about a global economic slowdown on the back of a recent US sovereign downgrade, together with ongoing contagion fears in the Eurozone. European equities traded lower during the session, following lower closes to the US and Asian bourses, which triggered market talk of a Euro-wide ban on short selling. The FTSE-100 index breached the key 5000 level to the downside, and registered a 20% drop since Feb’10, as it entered a bear market. Meanwhile, Spot Gold printed a record high at USD 1780.10 per ounce as investors opted for safety of a more tangible asset. Elsewhere, the USD-Index weakened ahead of the FOMC rate-decision later in the session, weighed upon by prospects for further monetary easing by the central bank. Fresh all time lows were observed in USD/CHF and EUR/CHF at 0.7383 and 1.0480, respectively, whereas USD/JPY tested a key level of 76.96, which saw the previous intervention by the BoJ. Weakness in the USD-Index helped EUR/USD and GBP/USD to print session highs, however GBP/USD came under pressure following weaker than expected industrial/manufacturing production data from the UK. In fixed income, the Eurozone 10-year government bond yield spreads observed tightening across the board on renewed market talk of the ECB buying in the Italian and Spanish bonds, which also weighed on Bunds. Moving into the North American open, the focus remains on the FOMC rate-decision to see if the Fed delivers a verdict of further monetary easing owing to the recent S&P rating action on the US, together with low growth prospects in the country. In fixed income, USD 32bln 3-year Note auction is also scheduled for later in the session.

BAC default risk at 265-270 bps as of this morning. About 30 tighter from yesterday's epic rout which saw the final bid/asl around 290/310, or well over 100 wider on the day. The longer BAC keeps mum, the worse this will get, and we expect the bleed wider to resume shortly, slowly at first, then very fast if no curve steepening QE3 Operation Twist is announced.