Archive - Sep 2011

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the banks squandered a year to improve their capital base. BAC wasn’t selling cheap options to Warren Buffett when their stock was at 13. The SocGen CEO wasn’t on TV trying to convince investors that they had no funding or capital problems when his stock was at 42. The banks are even worse off than most of the countries, but why should anyone assume that waiting will make it easier for them to digest a Greek default... It seems that a lot has already been priced in and that the contagion is occurring whether we want it to or not, so we may as well let Greece default now and figure out how much has already been priced in and how to really stop the contagion from spreading to Italy and Spain and to banks that deserve to be saved. Let’s just admit it is gangrene and that it has already spread farther than is safe, but it is still better to cut off an arm to save the body. If we keep waiting it may not be possible to save the patient. The patient is getting weaker by the day, and being blind to that is just as big and just as dangerous as letting Greece default now.

Back on July 21, the same day as the Greek bailout redux hit the tape, we speculated that the biggest weakness in the Second Greek Bailout is that the EFSF would have to be expanded to well over the current E440 billion (which even at its current size has not been fully ratified in Europe, and based on recent events may not be implemented until 2012 thanks to Slovenia and Finland), or about E1.5 trillion (and possibly as much as E3.5 trillion). The reason this is a "problem" is that it would have to come exclusively at the expense of Germany which would have to pledge anywhere between 50% and 133% of its GDP (as France would have long since been downgraded and hence unable to participate in the EFSF at a AAA rating). We also assumed that the debt rollover with a 21% haircut would not be an issue as it should have been a formality: on this we were fataly wrong - the debt rollover plan has imploded and means that the entire Greek bailout has collapsed as some had expected. And now that it is clear that contagion is threatening to sweep through the core, it is back to Germany to prevent the gangrene, no longer contagion, from advancing beyond the PIIGS. However, in order to prevent a full out revolution, Germany's economic elite has said it would agree to an EFSF expansion and hence installation of European firewall, but at a price: a "controlled" default by Greece and 50% haircuts for private bondholders (as German banks have long since offloaded their Greek bonds).

The infographic serves as a scary reminder that America is at a treacherous debt crossroad, and most signs seem to suggest that things could get even more difficult from here on out.  

Last week the DJIA tumbled the most since 2008, while gold had an even more profound collapse. Yet did the economic news justify such a plunge? You decided - here is the summary recap of last week's key bullish and bearish events.

What Lies?

Things for UBS are just getting from bad to worse. The UBS "Rogue Trader" incident which was anything but rogue and certainly involved far more than just a trader, has struck at the very top and just claimed the scalp of the top man at the organization, forcing many to ask: just what is really going on behind the scenes at the embattled Swiss bank? Alas, this latest development means that life for the bank's other employees is about to become a (bonus free) living hell, as a complete overhaul of the employee base is imminent. From Reuters: "The board of UBS accepted on Saturday the resignation of Chief Executive Oswald Gruebel after the Swiss bank lost $2.3 billion in alleged rogue trading and said it had appointed Sergio Ermotti to replace him for now. Ermotti, a 51 year-old from Switzerland's Italian-speaking region of Ticino, joined UBS in April from UniCredit as head of Europe, Middle East and Africa. Before joining UniCredit in 2005, he worked at Merrill Lynch for 18 years. The board said in a statement it had asked management to accelerate an overhaul of the investment bank already under way "concentrating on advisory, capital markets, and client flow and solutions businesses". UBS's board meeting, one of four regular meetings per year, had originally been due to end on Friday ahead of the UBS-sponsored Singapore Formula One motor racing Grand Prix on Sunday, when executives will be trying to reassure big clients. But deliberations continued on Saturday by conference call after the board left Singapore on Friday with some members headed back to Switzerland, sources told Reuters. "

The latest quarterly report from the Office Of the Currency Comptroller is out and as usual it presents in a crisp, clear and very much glaring format the fact that the top 4 banks in the US now account for a massively disproportionate amount of the derivative risk in the financial system. Specifically, of the $250 trillion in gross notional amount of derivative contracts outstanding (consisting of Interest Rate, FX, Equity Contracts, Commodity and CDS) among the Top 25 commercial banks (a number that swells to $333 trillion when looking at the Top 25 Bank Holding Companies), a mere 5 banks (and really 4) account for 95.9% of all derivative exposure (HSBC replaced Wells as the Top 5th bank, which at $3.9 trillion in derivative exposure is a distant place from #4 Goldman with $47.7 trillion). The top 4 banks: JPM with $78.1 trillion in exposure, Citi with $56 trillion, Bank of America with $53 trillion and Goldman with $48 trillion, account for 94.4% of total exposure. As historically has been the case, the bulk of consolidated exposure is in Interest Rate swaps ($204.6 trillion), followed by FX ($26.5TR), CDS ($15.2 trillion), and Equity and Commodity with $1.6 and $1.4 trillion, respectively. And that's your definition of Too Big To Fail right there: the biggest banks are not only getting bigger, but their risk exposure is now at a new all time high and up $5.3 trillion from Q1 as they have to risk ever more in the derivatives market to generate that incremental penny of return.

The White House is lobbying European governments to shut up and do something. No more disputes in public. The world is collapsing, and it's time to act boldly. Hank Paulson's extortion racket is back.

In his inimitable manner, Marc Faber describes to ThomsonReuters why it is time for Greece to leave the common currency, claim bankruptcy, and allow its citizens to live decently even if European leaders (and bankers) have to suffer. Furthermore, he reflects on how the stock market sell-off indicates real concerns about the global economy and in an unusual moment for the author of the Gloom, Boom, and Doom report, believes the Fed was right (but only in so much as they limited the scope of Operation Twist).

At the end of a dramatic week such as this, when clearly the hope of a civilized world of buy-the-dip monetary policy-to-the-rescue 'investors' was somewhat dashed, we take a look at the decimation. Friday appeared a day of rest for everyone but margin clerks as 'safety' was sold but nothing appeared to be bought. Financials managed to hold their heads above water as hope remained that someone would do something this weekend but as we scan the asset classes - we note that investment grade credit was the best performer of the day - hardly a signal of strength - as volumes in equity markets dropped significantly.

UPDATE 1: The fact that the CME hiked margins after-hours seems to be as much a driver of the weakness in gold, silver, and copper and we note that after the equity close, we are seeing both silver and gold up around 1%. They also hiked 30Y which helps explain the coordinated sell-off we discussed earlier.

UPDATE 2: Here they come - Trichet: We Stand Ready to Supply Unlimited Liquidity

Some industries just like Poker have been held back by governmental policy over the last decade.  Many jobs were lost, and much more were never created, all because of failed policy on behalf of lawmakers.

And there you have it: CME just hiked gold margins by 21%, silver by 16% and copper by 18%. Mystery solved.

Update: Yep - it was a leak of a margin hike as just confirmed. Which may very well mean nobody actually had to liquidate, just the herd thundered, as it always does, in the wrong diraction. Expect gold to actually rise on this news.

Everyone knew they were coming... Just not when. Now that the gold liquidation frenzy has struck we still don't know much if anything: who was it, why, and where did the money go? Some rumors have it as a bank in Central, Eastern Europe unwinding massive PM positions, which if true is paradoxically bullish for gold and silver as reported previously, as it means the already tight liquidity situation in Europe is about to come to a head, possibly as soon as this weekend. Others speculate it was a plain vanilla satisfaction of collateral requirements by a big funds who may or may not be liquidating and who have sizable gold positions. Or, the simplest explanation, was it simply an expectation (and leak) of a gold margin hike? For all these questions and more, as well as to vent over anything and everything, use the following open thread.

For once the speculators got it right. In the week ended September 20, net USD futures and options exposure surged by the most in years, with net non-commercial contracts soaring by a whopping 22,577 contracts to the highest since April of 2010. The flip trade is a collapse in EUR sentiment, which saw net exposure plunge by 25,001 from -54,459 to -79,460, the most bearish sentiment in the European currency has been since June 2010. Net net: the euro is now massively oversold explaining why even the smallest of rumors initiates a furious short covering squeeze. And yes, the next bubble is now not in silver, not in gold, but in the dollar. The first sign of moderation of European stress, or a Hilsenrath piece on the next round of QE by the Chairsatan, and watch the DXY and the various USD pair collapse (and gold surge).