Archive - Feb 29, 2012

The following people are paid to have an opinion, whether right or wrong, so it is our job to listen to them. Supposedly. Reuters summarizes the professionals kneejerk reaction to the LTRO 2. Because when it comes to explaining why Europe's banks are not only not deleveraging but increasing leverage while paying an incremental 75 bps on up to €700 billion in deposits soon to be handed over to the ECB, one needs all the favorable spin one can muster.

• Euro-Area Banks Tap ECB for Record Amount of Three-Year Cash (Bloomberg)
• Papademos Gets Backing for $4.3B of Cuts (Bloomberg)
• China February Bank Lending Remains Weak (Reuters)
• Romney Regains Momentum (WSJ)
• Shanghai Raises Minimum Wage 13% as China Seeks to Boost Demand (Bloomberg)
• Fiscal Stability Key To Economic Competitiveness - SNB's Jordan (WSJ)
• Bank's Tucker Says Cannot Relax Bank Requirements (Reuters)
• Life as a Landlord (NYT)

Since for all intents and purposes the ECB's LTRO is equivalent (and likely accepts even 'looser' collateral) to the Fed's massive (for its time) liquidity injection following the failure of Lehman, a good question is what happened to stocks after the Discount Window usage spiked back in the fall of 2008. Spoiler alert: nothing good.

As US markets hit their all time highs, there is nothing but bad news in EU sovereign land. What does it take for people to understand that equities have detached from fundamentals & the macro outlook?

UPDATE: European Sovereigns not excited and PORTUG getting ugly...and corporate credit spreads leaking wider

EURUSD and equity markets are undecided, European sovereigns have rallied modestly back to earlier day tights but no further (and Portuguese debt is underperforming), and credit markets in Europe are leaking modestly wider so far. The biggest movers initially appeared to be AUD (carry FX as we noted earlier) and the precious metals (with Silver outperforming Gold so far). Cable (GBP) is weakening relative to USD and EUR and that is holding DXY up a little here. Treasuries are doing better. As we post, the USD is now strengthening, ES is losing steam, and gold and silver are slipping back. CONTEXT is lower than pre-LTRO as risk is leaking off for now.

Goldman waited exactly 20 minutes to try to comfort the market, especially the EURUSD which is getting increasingly jittery, that €1 trillion in Discount Window borrowings is a "positive." We beg to differ that trillions in more debt collateralized by candy bar boxes and condoms will cure an excess debt problem, especially with all the good collateral now gone, and we are confident that ongoing deleveraging needs will put a major cog in the system, especially since the only liquidity expansion move now is "fade", at least until the next major crisis.

The results for the second European 3 year discount window operation, pardon LTRO are in, and the winner is...

• ECB ALLOTS EU 529.5BLN IN 1,092 DAY REFINANCING TENDER
• ECB SAYS 800 BANKS ASKED FOR THREE-YEAR LOANS

Since the expected range was €200 billion - €1 trillion, and just above the median €500 billion, this is clearly within expectations, however notably less than what the Goldman investor survey expected at €680 billion. What is certainly scary is that the number of banks demanding a hand out was a whopping 800, well above the 523 from the first LTRO: clearly many banks are capital deprived.

It appears markets have re-converged in the last few days across asset classes as European credit markets have rallied to meet a modestly underperforming European equity market after quite significant drops in the former a week or so ago. In the US, equity futures have reconverged with CONTEXT (our proxy for broad risk assets) as Treasuries have weakened and FX carry has improved tone overnight while futures themselves have drifted sideways. Commodities have largely drifted also with a modest improvement in Copper and slow drift up in WTI (back over $107 now). For some perspective, GDP-weighted European Sovereign risk has improved 80bps from its Nov2011 wides (or around 23%) but remains over 200bps wide of Post March 2009 lows and over 500% higher still - back only to levels seen in August 2011. Consensus appears to be that a larger than expected LTRO is positive for risk assets with Equities and then Credit the main beneficiaries (with FX the least) and a notable divide between European traders and non-European traders with the former believing the EUR will strengthen vs USD and the latter not so much (more focused on carry trades). For now, Italian and Spanish sovereign yields are leaking higher but in general wait-and-see mode remains with anxiety high.