Archive - Nov 16, 2012

Two weeks ago, when Spain unveiled the specifics of the SAREB, also known as the Spanish Bad Bank initiative, which is simply the haphazardly put together chaotic plan to shift toxic assets from Spain's already insolvent banking sector to a bank that is even more insolvent than all others as it is fulled to the brim with "assets" such as land which has already been discounted by 80%, and backed with Spanish government guarantees, which are largely worthless as the entire country has been on the verge of demanding a bailout for 4 months now, we summarized it simply as follows: "it is ugly - far uglier than many had expected. And while the Spanish government expects private interest to take some of this massively discounted 'crap' off their hands, we have three words: 'deleveraging' and 'no bid!" We were right, although one wouldn't get that impression if one reads the official party line. Here is how Reuters summarized the government's party line: "Spain's bad bank is generating a lot of interest amongst international investors, an economy ministry source said. The bad bank would be possible with only domestic participation but non-resident investors gave the vehicle credibility, the source said." That's a lie. Here is the truth.

Foreign money is flowing heavily into US real estate markets. Now some think that foreign money is going to prop up the entire market but this is simply not the case. The money flowing in from abroad is going specifically into targeted markets. This isn’t necessarily a US trend only. Canada is experiencing a massive housing bubble from money flowing in from China in particular. Here in Southern California many cities are seeing solid money flowing in from Asian countries. You have this occurring while big fund domestic investors are buying up low priced real estate cross the country as investments. What occurs then is the crowding out of your typical home buyer. I get e-mails from local families looking to buy saying they were outbid by $50,000 or $100,000 for properties that had nothing special. Even after the crash, why does it seem hard for domestic buyers to purchase a home?

Because few things are better than having a little Tom Lee in your life all day, every day...

We like to keep our charts just simple enough that a PhD in Economics can understand them; and so we present what must be the scariest chart in the world for much of the developing (and for that matter developed) world. Demand for food is rising inexorably (as is the demand for fuel) but at the same time supply is falling rapidly as the availability of arable land per capita plunges. Perhaps this (along with central bank liquidity spillovers) explains the 'paradigm' shift in staple prices. Food for thought? (pun intended)

Update: Israel CDS 162/170, +8 bps

Earlier today, air raid sirens went off in Tel Aviv, and even Jerusalem was supposedly in danger of a missile attack: hardly the deescalation Israel was hoping to see. Sure enough, the ball is in Bibi's court and he wastes not time:

• NETANYAHU CONVENING MINISTERS TO APPROVE RESERVES CALL-UP; TV
• ISRAEL PLANNING TO CALL UP 75,000 RESERVISTS, CHANNEL TWO SAYS

Next: flip flops and other various closed-toed shoes on the ground.

You've probably noticed the cookie-cutter format of most financial media "news": a few key "buzz words" (fiscal cliff, Bush tax cuts, etc.) are inserted into conventional contexts, and this is passed off as either "reporting" or "commentary" depending on the number of pundits sourced. Correspondent Frank M. kindly passed along a template that is "officially deny its existence" secret within the mainstream media. With this template, you could launch your own financial media channel, ready to compete with the big boys. Heck, you could hire some cheap overseas labor to make a few Skype calls to "the usual suspects," for-hire academics, hedge fund gurus, etc. and actually attribute the fluff to a real person.

Great timing. The ubiquitous post-European close trend-reversal was extended by some 'nothing' comments from Boehner that every media outlet is inferring means everything's fixed and compromise is close.  Boehner says talks with Obama were constructive. Outlined a framework with Obama; Will accept revenue if spending cuts.  It's not - what did we expect him to say?AAPL jumped up to VWAP and S&P 500 futures coincidentally reached overnight highs/stops. Now let's see if anyone really believes...

I was a super bull of long-term bonds. I stated my case over 3 years ago with a yield target on 30-year maturities of 2.5%. Back then, the timing and structure looked right for another run to new highs. Discussions about hyperinflation were premature.

"A popular revolt will happen" is how Kyle Bass sums up the endgame from kicking the can in Europe. Dismissing the headline-making 'But, Blackrock is buying European bonds', Bass reminds Bloomberg's Stephanie Ruhle that very few ever get the crises correct and that the herd will keep buying things until it blows apart. With massively over-leveraged banks and a Greek dependency, Bass notes that investing in Europe now is like picking up a dime in front of a bulldozer and expects Germany will eventualy leave the Euro (within 3-4 years) as the 'joint-and-several' liabilities will never happen. 150 well-spent seconds to summarise just what is going in Europe, as he concludes with Milton Friedman's quote on Europe: "when they hit a bump in the road, it will tear them apart at the core."

Everything that has happened since 2007, every Central Bank move, ever major political decision regarding the big banks, every trend, have all been focused solely on one issue.

Mere hours after BP settles, the US Coast Guard confirms there is an offshore (shallow water) platform burning in the Gulf of Mexico in the area of West Delta Block 32 (near West Cote Blanche Bay). Local TV says that two people are dead and two people are missing after an explosion at the platform. More to come...

UPDATE:Gulf rig fire was result of rig explosion at oil/gas platform "West Delta 32"owned by Black Elk Oil, ac. to Coast Guard

While we have yet to go through the thousands of files that hacker collective Anonymous has just released as a result of its hack of the Greek Finance Ministry, an exploit it described as follows: "We gained full access to the Greek Ministry of Finance. Those funky IBM servers don't look so safe now, do they... We have new guns in our arsenal. A sweet 0day SAP exploit is in our hands and oh boy we're gonna sploit the hell out of it. Respectz to izl the dog for that perl candy," what we find even more amusing, if not surprising, is that of the 136 username accounts Anonymous hacked, the password of precisely 50 of them, or some 37% of all workers, is .... 123456 (full list here).

Whether it is leveraged AAPL traders forced to sell winning collateral to meet margin calls, correlation-driven algos running stops down and up, or simply the whims of worried custodians managing risk for their clients' holdings; one thing is sure - someone (or more than one) has been a size seller of precious metals in the US-day-session-open to Europe-close period for four days in a row now...