Archive - Sep 27, 2011

Today feels just like it did in 2008. We had almost as many manic up days back then as crazy down days. Remember how we were saved when Fannie and Freddie got put into conservatorship? Remember how all was good when AIG was taken over by the government? Then we sold off the day that TARP failed, but rallied when it passed? Though by the time it was signed into law, the market was already selling off again? Or that weekend when the TARP infusions were made? That suddenly TARP was available to shore up the capital of banks? And the FDIC put in the Temporary Loan Guaranty Program so that banks could issue bonds guaranteed by the FDIC and that the depositor insurance amount was increased? And reflecting on today's price action in Europe, maybe credit just started to realize that the backdoor tricks to increase the size of EFSF are unlikely to work, and that the guy with the credit card (Germany) seems reluctant to let everyone use it. Maybe they actually like being AAA!

While Fed's Lockhart earlier opined on his 'hope' that rates will drop under 'Twist' (and we remind him that all but the 30Y are now higher in yield than before Twist was announced) but expects its impact to be modest, Fed's Fisher just lost-the-plot with his truthful explanation on why he dissented. Speaking in Dallas, Bloomberg reports some rather refreshingly honest headlines from the outspoken Fed President:

*FISHER SAYS FED POLICY `HAS YET TO SHOW EVIDENCE OF WORKING'

*FISHER SAYS BENEFITS OF OPERATION TWIST DON’T OUTWEIGH COSTS

*FISHER SAYS RECENT FOMC POLICIES LIKELY TO BE INEFFECTIVE

*FISHER SAYS FOMC POLICIES MAY WORK AGAINST JOB CREATION

*FISHER SAYS OPERATION TWIST WILL INCREASE INCENTIVES TO SAVE

Still confused by the 500 DJIA point rally in 48 hours? You are not alone. Here is David Rosenberg guaranteeing that your confusion will be even greater when you realize that nothing has really changed, suffice to say that the record confusion has provided the best smokescreen for nothing short of a collusive global window dressing session for massively underwater hedge and mutual funds.

If you’ve followed this letter for any length of time, you know that I tend to roam around the world with great frequency; we’ll typically have these conversations across 40 to 60 countries in 6 continents over a year’s time. Lots of international travel means lots of silly stamps, seals, and stickers to fill up the visa pages in my passports. Even though I have multiple passports, they tend to fill up within 18-months or so given my travel schedule. My current US passport, for example, was issued last February while I was in Thailand. By late summer, there was barely a single square inch of space remaining, so today I had the unfortunate displeasure of heading down to the US consulate in Cape Town to have them insert more pages. Each time I’m forced to demean myself in this way– sitting around those sterile government waiting rooms and filling out useless paperwork only to justify the salary of some bureaucrat– I have plenty of time to reflect on the nature of this system.

Remember the below chart which we are so fond of posting on Zero Hedge occasionally? Well, it will have to be redone very soon, because the SEC has just submitted a proposal for public comment to cut market-wide circuit breakers in half from the current thresholds of 10%, 20% and 30%, by 33%. And if the SEC is actually proactively looking at something such as marketwide circuit breakers, a glaring admission that vol is about to surge, but not quite enough to actually trigger the 30% market collapse needed for a full day market halt, then all hell must be about to break loose.

The onslaught of denials appears to have met its denouement in credit markets while equities find it harder to turn on 'real' news. The drivers of the strength from early Friday have been financials, particularly European financials, and while the rally has been persistent on both sides of the pond, the last few hours have seen a dramatic disconnect between the reality perceived by credit market participants and the machines/traders in equity markets with the former notably weaker.

In a brief note this morning from Goldman, the correlation between European equities and bond yields is noted at a 40-year high - above the levels reached in the initial credit crunch period of '07/'08. They find that the rolling correlation is highly dependent on the absolute level of bond yields and at current levels is very indicative of significant growth concerns (much more so than any inflation fears) and furthermore that the relationship is starting to look a lot like the lost twin-decades in Japan.

If there has been one consistent theme since day one at CI, it has been our perhaps near myopic focus and focal point highlight of importance that is the macro credit cycle.  Does this play into long wave and perhaps Kondratieff cycle or Austrian economics type of thinking?  Call it what you will, but elements of all of these schools of thought very much overlap.  Right to the point, we believe THE key thematic construct to keep in mind as a macro cycle decision making overlay and character point dead ahead is the now more than apparent collision of the generational long wave credit cycle with the current short term business cycle of the moment.  Without trying to reach for melodrama, this is the first time a multi-decade long wave credit cycle has collided with the short-term business cycle since the late 1920’s/early 1930’s.  Most decision makers and Street seers of the moment have absolutely no experience with this type of a generational collision.  Moreover, our illustrious academician Fed Chairman has never even considered long wave or credit cycle based Austrian economics thinking in his and the broader Fed’s policy making – absolutely key and crucial mistake.  Although it’s just our perception, this will be Bernanke’s legacy Waterloo.  It also tells us directly that his only policy tool ahead will be more money printing.

For some odd reason, even though it is by now very, very clear that the world is back in a depressionary state, some are still fascinated by the inflection point of the global economy, and wonder: "are we headed for a recession?" (which obviously is the wrong question). Anyway, to help with the answer is this set of 9 interactive charts from Reuters which should remove any last bit of doubt as to what is about to unfold, at least in the perception of conventional wisdom. Furthermore, since most of these data sets are coincident or lagging, it is safe to say that the NBER will shortly announce that the recession started some time in H1.

The following is an excerpt from the contribution from BoomBustBlog resident trader Eurocalypse

While the fact that the September Conference Board consumer confidence number missed in September, coming in at 45.4, below expectations of 45, and a tiny increase from the revised August 45.2, the shocker was in the responses to "jobs hard to get" category which printed at 50, up from 48.5 in August, and is now the highest number since 1983! Yet despite that it can not get a job to save its life, the public appears to have reverted to Hopium consumption, with the 6 month outlook jumping to 54 from 52.4, even as the current conditions index declines from 34.3 to 32.5, and the lowest since January. And a big red sign for the auto segment, is that Americans expecting to buy a car within 6 months has dropped to just 11.4% from 13% last month. And this even with GM offering subprime loans to deadbeats left and right.

Following closely on the heels of Schaeuble's express concerns over leveraging the EFSF and his AAA rating, the EIB has come out with a direct statement refuting media claims (read Liesman unsourced rumors which served no other reason than to be a pretext for a month end window dressing rally) about the potential involvement of the fund in connection with the EFSF. So if the money man (Germany) and the SPV shell-partner (EIB) are both denying, then who or what is left?

And 9:55 am update in which Mantega responds to Valor (and ZH):

• MANTEGA SAYS BRAZIL ISN'T PREPARING ANY MEASURE

So far the only strategic use of "unnamed government officials" has been to leak rumors, whose sole purpose is to test the market's short covering squeeze potential and to discover just how long the half-life of one after another ever more incredulous rumor is. And since the only thing to come out of Europe in the past month in terms of problem resolution (no really: there has not been one policy that has been enacted since the July 21 Greek bailout), this is a useful strategy. Alas, as Europe is about to find out, this works both ways, because as Brazilian financial site Valor Economic reports, none other than perpetual optimist Brazil, the same country that is supposedly according to one set of rumors preparing to bail out all of Europe, with or without the rest of the BRICs, is now preparing for a Greek default within the week. From Valor: "Something must happen. Greece is a few days [from bankruptcy]" said a high official source.

All the markets continue to bask in the glow of the new improved EFSF.  From a low of 1115, the S&P futures are now trading at 1175.  A pretty impressive 5% move.  Stocks in Europe are doing even better and credit is following along.  By now I would have hoped to see some details of this alleged new beast that EFSF has morphed into.  While I search for detail all I could see, so far, are denials by Germany and Spain, some support from Austria, and additional rumors of what is to come.  Every European politician outside of Germany can say this is a great idea, but if the money man doesn’t go along, is there really a deal?  This isn’t a democracy, and only Germany controls German money. There was a brief headline that this new plan could cause S&P to downgrade Germany and France.  As a back-up plan, there is talk about letting the EIB do the heavy lifting.  Just in case the world wasn’t already controlled by enough 3 letter entities, welcome the EIB to the IMF, ECB, and FED party.

The Case Shiller for July, that's right July (does anyone remember that? that's was before the US was about to go bankrupt due to that whole flap in Congress over the debt ceiling, nevermind the second European bankruptcy), is out and it was both better and worse than expected: the Y/Y print beat at -4.1% on expectations of -4.4%, up from a revised -4.4%, yet missing on a sequential basis, which was expected to come at 0.1%, instead printing at 0.05%, unchanged from the June's upward revised M/M 0.04%. In other words, this is not only traditionally late data, it also confirms that the double dip continued into the months that saw the market tumble by nearly 15%. Look for substantial drops in the August and September Case Shiller data.