Archive - Oct 23, 2012

Dow Jones down 250, and a new bearish letter from Bob Janjuah? Lucky coincidence? Or conspiracy? You decide. From Bob: "How to play it? The SPX is the obvious pure risk short because of how rich it is against other equity markets. Outright is fine, so are options. Take a look at January 1350 puts for example currently trading at 20. If doing outright we would recommend a stop just above the recent highs at 1475. We also like the USD and Treasuries because the market has seen time and time again US problems do not lead to selling of (safe) US assets and it can and we think will be the same again."

Since just after the US equity day session opened, Intrade's Obama and Romney markets have seen volume explosions. In what can only be described as HFT-driven chaos, perhaps someone is seeking a 'cheap' hedge on the equity market's freefall? or more likely, yet another rogue algo got loose and is toying with another market. Romney's odds exploded from 41% to 48%, crashed back down to 42% and are leaking higher once again. Obama's odds (and note the market was crossed for a while) have fallen off a cliff to their lowest since before QEtc at around 57%...

Twice this year we have seen the US equity market become enamored of its own hope-holding, momentum-trapping, liquidity-driven, success while the bond markets (Treasury and High Yield) have remained a little less sanguine. This lack of exuberance among all but the equity players perhaps better reflects the sad reality of fundamentals (as we noted here) or perhaps this time it is different. To wit, the following two charts as a gentle reminder that gravity still exists and where the short-term floors might be...

Greg Smith's 15 minutes of fame has come and gone, but the muppet crushing at Goldman is only starting to ramp up, courtesy of the man who singlehandedly has made sure Goldman's FX prop trading team should be the most profitable one in the entire universe by simply doing the opposite of what Goldman's clients do. As a reminder, sent out at 5 pm yesterday, as we alerted our Twitter followers: "Go long EUR/CAD on further risk premium compression in the EUR and a more dovish BoC... We recommend going long EUR/CAD at a current level of 1.296 with an initial target of 1.37 and a stop on a London close below 1.26." Big Oops (see chart). Then again, after Stolper epic failure to Impala the muppets on his last EURUSD trade reco, it is great to see him back to 0.000 batting form.

Toppling central banks is a messy business.

Last week, the misty eyed reminiscences were recalling the 25th anniversary of Black Monday. Today, we look even further back. 83 years back to be precise to this date in hallowed antiquity, when in 1929 the selling had officially begun, with what would ultimately culminate as the Great Crash. Cue Art Cashin: "on this Thursday morning, the market opened nervous but relatively steady. Within the first half hour, prices began to fade and the tape began to run late. By noon the tape was nearly an hour and-a-half late in reporting transactions in a market that had opened only two hours before. To speed the reporting digits were deleted and so "Radio" which had opened at 68 3/4 now showed on the tape at 8 3/4. But prices were moving so fast that the price was not 58 3/4 but 48 3/4 on its way to 48 1/4 before it would bottom in the afternoon at 44 1/2. To avoid confusion the Exchange published flash prices of selected securities on the slower moving bond tape." By early afternoon the cascade of prices caused an emergency meeting at the offices of J.P. Morgan across the street from the Exchange...."

The debates are over; and perhaps last night's 'chat' was the least interesting from any substantive angle of any of the interactions given the candidates tendency to agree on virtually everything (apart from bayonets) - and still say absolutely nothing. In the interests of being fair and balanced - as we always are - we present two sides of this epic farce. First, the Asian animated interpretation - for some light-hearted insight into just how our potential leaders are perceived across the ocean after last night's debate; and second, a more retrospective view by Ben Tanosborn on the three 'meaningless' debates - and the questions that should have been asked. "Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have shown to be equally adept at dealing with trivia and secondary issues... and equally inept at dealing with every substantive issue."

S&P futures are trading down around 18 points in the pre-day-session market. This would be the largest gap-down day in three months, and only the third largest gap-down open in 2012. The market has broken to its lowest since QEtc was announced and retraced more than half of the Draghi 'Believe' moment spike...

With the entire world engaged in global coordinated easing, slashing, burning, and overall lowering rates and printing money by the wheelbarrow, the Bank of Canada just fired a shot across the bow. Here is the kicker: "Reflecting all of these factors, the Bank has decided to maintain the target for the overnight rate at 1 per cent. Over time, some modest withdrawal of monetary policy stimulus will likely be required." Surely they must be punished for this blasphemy in the holy church of Saint John Maynard and the apostles of collapsing fiat.

With Greek tax-collectors under increasing pressure to squeeze their quote out of an increasingly bombastic population, Italy's Rossi arguing for the need to fight VAT evasion, and France taxing anything and everything that moves - all in the name of austerity; it seems, as Bloomberg Brief's Niraj Shah notes today that attempts to bring burgeoning debt levels in Europe under control - by tackling the unofficial, or gray, economy - may backfire. It seems, given the large and growing (average 17.3% of euro GDP or EUR1.5tn) size of the gray economy that the more governments try to capture 'gray' externalities (or hike VATs - up from 18.1% to 20% on average), they merely succeed in pushing more transactions into the gray area. A study by Schneider of Linz University finds that focusing on the gray economy may be counter-productive as some of the activities may act as a safety net and contribute to growth - in a counter-cyclical way - serving as a cushion for people facing wage cuts and job losses. With as much as 24% of Greece's economy now estimated to be 'unofficial', the Troika-inspired 23% VAT rate is having quite the unintended consequence it seems.

Between today and the American elections; virtually nothing else will matter. Gone are the promises of social redemption from Mr. Obama’s speeches because, in my view, the promises were not delivered upon. There is no ground swell of younger voters campaigning and voting for some sort of Orwellian new world order and I wonder just how many in this sub-set will actually vote for anyone. Gone are the speeches promising new hope for the next generation because America has run up the debt to the point that something must be done and we have reached the limit of our social indulgence and so that hard choices, tough choices, are going to have to be made by whoever assumes the American presidency.

German Federal auditors handed in a report slamming the Bundesbank for not inspecting their foreign held gold reserves to verify their book value. The report says the gold bars "have never been physically checked by the Bundesbank itself or other independent auditors regarding their authenticity or weight." Instead, it relies on "written confirmations by the storage sites."  The lion’s share of Germany's gold reserves (nearly 3,400 tons estimated at $190 billion) are housed in vaults of the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the Bank of France since the post-war days, when they were worried about a Cold War Soviet invasion. The Bundesbank stated, “There is no doubt about the integrity of the foreign storage sites in this regard". In contrast with best industry practices Germany’s gold reserves do not seem to be independently verified by a third party. Philipp Missfelder, a politician from Merkel’s own party, has asked the Bundesbank for the right to view the gold bars in Paris and London, but the central bank has denied the request, citing the lack of visitor rooms in those facilities, German’s daily Bild reported. The Bundesbank won't let German parliament members inspect the German gold vaulted abroad because the central bank vaulting facilities supposedly lack "visiting rooms." And yet one of those vaults, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, offers the public tours that include "an exclusive visit to the gold vault".

The Mañana approach endorsed by the Spanish government is finally beginning to have its toll on investor confidence and after being contained by the so-called Draghi put, 2y bond yields are up over 20bps for the second consecutive day. The decoupling that is being observed is being driven by yesterday’s downgrade of several Spanish regions by Moody’s, citing deterioration in their liquidity positions. As a result, Spain runs a risk of being forced to raise the size of its regional bailout fund which stands at EUR 18bln, with EUR 17.2bln already tapped, as the latest downgrade will likely put an upward pressure on borrowing costs. Major equity markets in Europe are down close to 1%, led by basic materials and oil & gas sectors, as WTI continues to consolidate below the key USD 90 level, while spot Gold continues to lose its shine and is looking to make a test USD 1700. The second half of the session sees the release of the latest Richmond Fed report, as well as the weekly API report.

While the theater of the presidential election hits peak season, and InTrade odds for this candidate or that are approaching flash crash territory, the one person who truly runs not only the US, but the entire "developed" world, Ben Bernanke, is going nowhere. At least not until January 2014. At which point he may be going somewhere - retirement. Reuters cites the NYT: "U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has told close friends he probably will not stand for a third term at the central bank even if President Barack Obama wins the November 6 election, the New York Times reported." In other words: the republican Fed Chairman who mysteriously became a Democrat president's bestest friend (and has been publicly threatened by every other GOP candidate, including Romney, although that would be merely to replace him with Bill Dudley, not Glenn Hubbard)  that $4 trillion that the Fed will have in assets at the time of Ben's departure, and $5 trillion at December 31, 2014, just became someone else's problem. Good luck to that someone else unwinding a Fed balance sheet which as we explained previously, will at one point in the next 2 years hold well over half of the marketable US Treasury debt inventory. How the sale of this inventory will happen in a time of spiking rates (because that's what the Fed wants - inflation) is literally anyone's guess, because in practice it will never happen.

• Moody’s Cuts Ratings on Catalonia, Four Other Spanish Regions (Bloomberg)
• And the market top: Billionaire Ross Interested in Buying Spanish Bank Assets (Bloomberg)
• Japan Jojima denies govt seeks $250 bln BOJ asset buying boost (Reuters)
• China hints at move to strengthen Communist rule (Reuters)... well everyone else is doing it
• Euro-Area Bailout Fund Faces Challenge at EU’s Highest Court (Bloomberg)
• Obama, Romney now tied in presidential race: Reuters/Ipsos poll (Reuters)
• Former China Leader Jiang Resurfaces Before Political Transition (Bloomberg)
• Some in Congress look to $55 billion fiscal cliff 'fallback' (Reuters)
• CLOs stage comeback in US (FT)
• TXU Teeters as Firms Reap $528 Million Fees (Bloomberg)
• China’s Factories Losing Pricing Power in Earnings Threat (Bloomberg)