Archive - Dec 28, 2012

UPDATE: An hour later, Volatility and stocks have converged down to HYG...

It seems that while the volatility, equity, and interest rate markets are moving in a risk-on direction (admittedly on dreadful volumes); that HY credit is not enojoying the uncertainty. HYG is now at lows of the day (after filling its gap from a few days ago). What is also more evident from the chart is equity (and vol)'s relatively high beta today to any and all headlines...though it is now anchored at VWAP.

We are happy to announce that starting today, and going forward every week, as part of a new feature dubbed, appropriately enough, FleeceBook, we will introduce our readers to one, previously largely unknown member of the ruling banker aristocracy: an individual who is as far from the glamor of the daily media headlines as possible: just the way they like it, and just the way the co-opted media will agree to have it. We hope that by the end of the series, these individuals - all of them perfectly law abiding citizens of their various jurisdictions, at least under conventional legal terms - will form a tapestry of what really happens behind the scenes, especially in a context such as that presented yesterday, where we found that no matter how guilty beyond a reasonable doubt a member of the political-financial elite is, hell would have to freeze before any legal action is taken (for reference, please see the very underrated movie The International). For our inaugural edition on FleeceBook, which will compile various public profiles already posted elsewhere, we present Benoît Gilson, Head of Foreign Exchange & Gold, which he describes as "a really special place to work because it is a link between the markets and the central banks." In other words if confused why gold is imploding on any/every given day, and/or why the EUR is soaring on news of a failed ECB sterilization, now you know who to thank.

To put this in the most basic terms: registration and restriction equals revolution.  Count on it.  It is not a matter of what we "want", it is a matter of what is necessary.  Without a citizenry armed with weapons of military application, we lose our last deterrent to tyranny, and thus, we lose everything.  When backed into a corner, a victim has two options: he can lie down and die, or, he can fight regardless of the odds.  Sadly, this is where we are in America; fear, servitude, subservience, or civil war.

EURUSD remains bid on every dip but has been more choppy this week as the world realizes the implications of desperate repatriation (see failed ECB sterilization). Spanish stocks bucked the trend this week and are down 2% - more than double the losses of the rest of Europe's stocks. European sovereign bonds are bleeding gently higher in yield and spread (Spain/Italy +10bps or so). Just as we saw in the US, it appears today's under-the-surface anxiety (that very few in the mainstream comprehend) has led to a bid for protection as Europe's VIX has jumped 2.5 vols to 20.75% - its highest in 6 weeks.

Much has been made of newly appointed uber-easer Abe's plans to weaken the JPY by any means possible. Since the global financial crisis began in early 2008, USDJPY has tracked remarkably closely with the ratio of Federal Reserve assets to Bank of Japan assets - as the currency wars escalated. Assuming the Fed proceeds with its planned QE3/4 $1tn expansion, then BoJ assets would need to expand by around JPY100tn to meet this target. The current BoJ holdings of JGBs just crossed JPY100tn - so this new printing is double the current holdings and considerably more than double the planned JPY44tn purchases for the year. Good luck with that given the expected JGB issuance this year is only around JPY44tn and good luck persuading anyone that the BoJ is not directly funding the government in the ultimate reacharound. As the Fed monetizes 1 year of Treasury issuance so the BoJ has to monetize over 2 years of JGB issuance - sustainable?

Was it just yesterday that this efficient market rallied on Boehner's return and news that Obama will propose a scaled back Democratic Plan B (subsection ii, para (a))? Perhaps - or did we dream it? Anyway, stocks are beholden to nothing but the next flashing red headline and so - a 7 point ramp in the S&P 500 is warranted for no news whatsoever of any consequence:

• *OBAMA TO MEET WITH CONGRESS LEADERS AT WHITE HOUSE TODAY
• *OBAMA SAID TO PLAN OFFER OF SCALED-BACK BUDGET PACKAGE TODAY
• *OBAMA PLAN SAID TO AVERT SOME OF TAX AND SPENDING CHANGES

While coming to some agreement over living within America's means now seems hopelessly beyond the ability of Congress, at least the Senate can agree on one thing:

• U.S. SENATE HAS ENOUGH VOTES TO RENEW WARRANTLESS WIRETAP LAW - BBG
• WIRETAP LAW LETS U.S. GOVERNMENT MONITOR E-MAILS AND CALLS

In other words, when it comes to spying on its citizens, the US government is quite united. It will also be unanimous when it has to vote its annual COLA salary increase to keep up with the true 10% inflation.

This is not junk mail...

If there was any good news in today's Chicago PMI, it is that the headline number beat expectations of 51.0, rising from November's 50.4, to 51.6, leaving the two months of sub 50 prints in September and October in the past, or so the ISM institute would like us to believe. Because a casual glance at the data reveals that things are actually getting worse, with the Employment index plunging from 55.2 to 45.9, the lowest print in three years, while the all critical Capital Equipment buying policy plunged to a new 28 month low. So much for that CapEx spending. In fact the only indicator that posted an increase in today's release was the New Orders index which jumped to 54.0 while Order Backlogs, Supplier Deliveries, and Prices Paid all dropped. And for those hoping that in Q4 that inventory glut will finally clear itself, we have news: it won't -the Inventory index posted yet another jump, from 47.1 to 49.8. And while the data was ugly, perhaps the saddest, or funniest blurb, came from one of the respondents, which probably captures business sentiment in America with absolute precision: "We are on a hiring freeze in Q4, waiting to assess the outcome of the fiscal cliff deliberations. We are also planning cutbacks due to increased healthcare costs and Obamacare related expenses." Nuf said.

The ECB's original bond monetization program (the SMP) may now be defunct, having been replaced with the mythical OMT which will work as long as it never has to be used (see Spain), but its aftereffects linger on. Specifically, the aftermath of the SMP manifests itself in the weekly sterilization of accrued SMP bond purchases, which at last check amounted to some €208.5 billion. Why do we bring this up? Because a few hours earlier, the ECB failed, for the first time, to find enough demand and interest to sterilize the full amount of rolling peripheral bond purchases, and was instead able to find only enough bidders, 43 of them or the lowest in a year, to "sterilize" just €197.6 billion of the total weekly allottment. The last time the ECB failed in a sterilization action? November 29, 2011, one day before the coordinated global central bank bailout of 2011.

It seems between photos of the family Zuckerberg brunching Christmas Day and the revolt against the rules change, Instagram has been slapped with an exodus of users. As NY Post reports, Instagram, which peaked at 16.4mm users the week it rolled out the policy change, had fallen to 12.4mm users as of yesterday - a massive 25% plunge. The terms of service change which enabled the selling of user's photos 'without any compensation' seems to have perturbed more than a few tweens (including Justin Bieber and one of the Kardashians). How quickly the worm turns as these 'fad' sites come and go; from its busiest 24 hours over Thansgiving to a 25% plunge by Christmas - and all this as Twitter steps up its competition. We are sure that Facebook was priced for this decline though and will monetize the mobile exodus.

Enjoy your job in North Dakota while you can as in four years, those shale oil projects are no longer sustainable.

Apparently this is the message that popped up on the Congressional computer system when they were scheduling the last, last, last minute meeting before jumping over the cliff. The techies worked for hours I have heard but to no avail. What is interesting about this is that neither the computer geeks nor the people in charge of our government has any responsible position that is really useful to prevent the failure that is about to take place. The best that can even be hoped for now is some minor change in the rigging which may be heralded as “the fix to fix all fixes” but will be of little importance when considered in the light of day. I think the odds of any grand scheme that will honestly make a difference is equivalent to the value of a toe nail clipper when performing brain surgery.

Presented with limited comment

The U.S. federal deficit is now exceeding $1 trillion dollars every year —up from $161 billion in 2007, the last year before the financial crisis. Spending is up some $1 trillion, as outlays for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlements have increased by an amount equal to the entire 2013 military budget – a budget which may again surpass the combined military expenditure of every other nation in the world. U.S. unfunded liabilities are now estimated at between $50 trillion and $100 trillion and by the end of the decade (in less than just 7 years), runaway entitlement spending will require shutting down the military or crippling many other vital domestic spending programs to head off massive deficits that will likely lead to a dollar crisis and significant inflation. No matter what deal is eventually agreed, whether before or after the new year, it will at best nibble at the edges of the trillion dollar annual deficits that are being piled up. While all the focus has been on the so called U.S. ‘fiscal cliff’, amnesia has taken hold and many market participants have forgotten about the far from resolved Eurozone debt crisis – not to mention looming debt crisis in the UK and Japan.