Archive - Nov 23, 2012

With EURUSD hitting one-month highs, Greek and Spanish government bonds pushing higher day after day, and EU stocks up 5% this week, one could be forgiven for thinking all is well across the pond. Tail-risks removed, firewalls in place, and everything ticking along nicely. The reality, of course, is a rather different picture. As Credit Suisse notes, the apparent inability of the euro area to reach any sort of decision on how best to address Greece’s debtload is far more negative in our view than just its impact on Greece. It speaks, once again, in our view, of the inability for progress at the euro area level in the absence of market pressure. The ECB’s (unactivated) OMT backstop has worked extremely well until now, but the ability of it to continue to do so without progress on the political side is limited in our opinion. As we head into year-end, European storm clouds are building. Meanwhile, the private sector is voting with its feet: German exposure to the periphery continues to fall (down 56% from the peak to the end of September), with exposures to Italy and Spain in particular lower this year. As Santander’s CEO said this week: while the Treasury may not need the Spanish bailout, the Spanish economy and firms do.

It's one of those low-volume melt-up technical kinda days... so why is the should-be-correlated high-yield credit market selling off? (and Treasuries rallying as stocks push swing highs)

The borderline incomprehensible gibberish is highlighted by us.

Courtesy of Calibrated Confidence, here are the 50 charts that lull Marc Faber to a deep, peaceful slumber each night.

In what should be the least unexpected news of the day, Europe has failed for the second time in one week, after disappointing with no Greek resolution on Monday (and forcing the BIS into a EUR liftathon scramble to indicate that all is still well), this time announcing that an attempt to come to a deal on the EU budget has failed, with another budget summit scheduled now for January. This follows yesterday's misreported news that Cyprus, too, was fixed and the country had achieved a "hard-won" (as some sad Eurohack called it) bailout: turns out it wasn't in the end. And just how does one "hard-win" a bailout - crash their economy better than the rest? And speaking of Greece, nothing is fixed there either, but Germany, whose position was the reason for the first stalemate, demands optimism.

It all makes so much sense... risk markets everywhere have gone vertical. As we noted earlier, "with the US trading session today at half mast, expect another  record low volume half-trading day, which means a risk levitation is practically guaranteed." QED. And yet something appears broken - just look at these cross-asset class charts... oh and of course EURUSD surges to 1.2952 as the Eurogroup Summit has been confirmed as 'called off'. Is repatriation risk-off flow driving the correlated ignorance of algo-based risk-on? 300 pips in 10 days. S&P 500 back above 1400. Gold pushing $1750. This move seems to be entirely driven by technical stop-runs everywhere as EURUSD blows through its 50DMA, S&P 500 Futures cross above the 100DMA, and Gold blows through the 50DMA. Efficient markets forever...

And how to defeat Black Friday...

Shoe-throwing has escalated to building burning as demonstrators clash in Egpyt over Muslim Brotherhood-backed Mursi's 'coup-like' decision to make his decisions above judicial review. The self-annointed omnipotence comes after the judiciary were about to undo the Islamist-dominated panel drawing up the country's new constitution. This so-called "coup against legitimacy" has brought back painful memories as opposition leaders (ElBaradei) calls the 'temporary dictator' a "new pharaoh" - the same term of derision used against Mubarak when he was in power. The Muslim Brotherhood offices have been set ablaze as a consequence of this 'decree' and the US (a generous benefactor to Egypt's military) is "very concerned about the possible huge ramifications of this declaration on human rights and the rule of law in Egypt." But protest leaders perhaps summarize the situation best: "The decree is basically a coup on state institutions and the rule of law that is likely to undermine the revolution and the transition to democracy, I worry Mursi will be another dictator like the one before him."

"All good things come to an end, sadly. So it is with my time here alongside Albert, Andy and the rest of the gang at SG. I’m signing off, checking out, moving on to pastures new. It’s been a wonderful time. But after three years of trying to sound clever it’s time for me to do something altogether more difficult, and actually be clever. So early next year, I will join a small but outstanding investment practice. Naturally, I hope it will be a great success."

When Darwin conceived his theory of Natural Selection, he hardly had this in mind, but if it succeeds in eliminating the "less than viable", well... so be it.

Because only in America are people ready to kill each other for things they don't need and can't afford, after spending the day before being "grateful" for things they already have.

So we have the Greek debt crisis, the European Union budget problem and the European bank oversight issue and twenty-seven countries all wanting “this, that and the other” except “the other” is not that much fun unless Ms. Merkel surprises everyone by saying she is a little tired and pulling a Mae West and telling all twenty-seven nations that one will have to leave. The scenario is unlikely of course but then everyone involved is now playing the grand old game of “Work Around” where someone must pay and it is going to be anybody but them. “Not this little piggy,” says the IMF and “not this little piggy” says the ECB and “not this little piggy” says the European Union. This is all because no one wants the political winds to “blow their house down.”

Aside from fading any headlines and articles about a "recorder-er" Thankgsiving and holiday sales season...