Archive - Apr 29, 2012

Tyler Durden's picture

The Next Circle Of Spain's Hell Begins At 5% And Ends At 10%





Three weeks ago we discussed the ultimate-doomsday presentation of the state of Spain which best summarized the macro-concerns facing the nation and its banks. Since then the market, and now the ratings agencies, have fully digested that meal of dysphoric data and pushed Spanish sovereign and bank bond spreads back to levels seen before the LTRO's short-lived (though self-defeating) munificence transfixed global investors. However, the world moves on and while most are focused directly on yields, spreads, unemployment rates, and loan-delinquency levels, there are two critical new numbers to pay attention to immediately - that we are sure the market will soon learn to appreciate. The first is 5%. This is the haircut increase that ECB collateral will require once all ratings agencies shift to BBB+ or below (meaning massive margin calls and cash needs for the exact banks that are the most exposed and least capable of achieving said liquidity). The second is 10%. This is the level of funded (bank) assets that are financed by the Central Bank and as UBS notes, this is the tipping point beyond which banks are treated differently by the market and have historically required significant equity issuance to return to regular private market funding. With S&P having made the move to BBB+ this week (and Italy already there), and Spain's banking system having reached 11% as of the last ECB announcement (and Italy 7.7%), it would appear we are set for more heat in the European kitchen - especially since Nomura adds that they do not expect any meaningful response from the ECB until things get a lot worse. The world is waking up to the realization that de-linking sovereigns and banks (as opposed to concentrating that systemic risk) is key to stabilizing markets.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Guest Post: Anything The Government Gives You, The Government Can Take Away





"A majority of doctors support measures to deny treatment to smokers and the obese, according to a survey that has sparked a row over the NHS‘s growing use of 'lifestyle rationing'", The Guardian notes, and that’s the trouble with services and institutions run from the taxpayer’s purse, administered by centralists and bureaucrats. It becomes a carrot or a stick for interventionists to intervene in your life. Its delivery depends on your compliance with the diktats and whims of the democracy, or of bureaucrats. It is easier to promote behaviour desired by the state when a population lives on state handouts; and increasingly throughout the Western world, citizens are becoming dependent on the state for their standard of living. With the wide expansion of welfare comes a lot of power, and the potential for the abuse of power. Citizens looking for a free lunch or an easier world should be careful what they wish for. Welfare recipients take note: you depend on government for your standard of living, you open yourself up to losing your liberty.

 

ilene's picture

Market Forces





Stock World Weekly visits w/ Mark Hanna, Washington's Blog, Allan Trends, Lee Adler and Pharmboy. 

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Hugh Hendry Is Back - Full Eclectica Letter





Hugh Hendry is back with a bang after a two year hiatus with what so many have been clamoring for, for so long - another must read letter from one of the true (if completely unsung) visionary investors of our time: "I have not written to you at any great length since the winter of 2010. This is largely because not much has happened to change our views. We still see the global economy as grotesquely distorted by the presence of fixed exchange rates, the unraveling of which is creating financial anarchy, just as it did in the 1920s and 1930s. Back then the relevant fixes were around the gold standard. Today it is the dual fixed pricing regimes of the euro countries and of the dollar/renminbi peg."

 

Tyler Durden's picture

The View From The Bridge Over The Rotten Boroughs of Europe





Once upon a time when Nigel Farage got up to speak you often wondered whether he was the full ticket, but today when he gives the European parliament the benefit of his opinion he is the only one making any sense and that includes most of our other politicos back home. Instead of planning to get out of the EU madhouse we have confirmed that £10 billion of our money, yours and mine, has been re-pledged to the IMF “pour encourager les autres” as I am sure was the phrase Christine Lagarde used as she sidled up alongside an impressionable young chancellor, who is totally out of his depth in such company – Lagarde’s youthful pastime of synchronised swimming for the French national team is now paying dividends. It is only a promise at this stage, but it already has parliamentary approval – slid through in a dark period rather like TARP in the States – without any proper scrutiny and an absence of opprobrium from the main stream media the supposed guardians of free speech. If only…

 

undertheradar's picture

News.nl





Satudarah is expanding to Antwerp and Duisberg as its clubhouses are shut down in many parts of the Netherlands. They are reportedly strengthening ties with the Outlaws and Bandidos. 

http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2012/04/29/omstreden-motorclub-satudarah-krijgt-afdeling-in-antwerpen/

 

Tyler Durden's picture

“A Trillion Here, A Trillion There...” – Why 90% Of The European Bank Sector’s Market Cap Is Vaporware*





Two weeks ago the BIS released the Basel Quantitative Impact Survey, "Results of the Basel, III monitoring exercise as of June 2011" which contained several very scary numbers that were noted in Zero Hedge yet which barely received any mention in the broader press. Because the numbers were all very, very large (think eyes glazing over 11-12 digits large), and because their existence meant that the long-term, chronic pain for Europe, which is and has been one of public (and selected private) sector deleveraging (which oddly enough is called “austerity” by everyone to no doubt habituate people to associate debt reduction with pain - where is "mean-reversionism" when you need it?), they, and the BIS report, were promptly buried under the dense foliage of the signal-to-noise forest. Yet it is numbers such as these, that provide us with the best possible glance at the entire forest, no matter how much the various global financial authorities enjoy inundating the hapless speculator crowd with endless irrelevant “trees” on a daily basis.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Europe's "Dead Bank Walking" List And An ETA Until The Next Contagion Peak





In yet another 2011 déjà vu moment, Europe’s bank funding window is slamming shut again (the catalyst that brought the 2011 Euro crisis vintage to its heights). Nowhere is this more evident than when comparing monthly debt issuance in the first 4 months of 2012 to the previous two years. Sadly, even despite taking place while the LTRO effect was front and center, Europe still was unable to match prior year debt.  Fine, the skeptics will say, this simply means that there is less debt maturing and thus less need for new issuance… And the skeptics would be wrong. As charts two and three demonstrate, this is broadly correct for only 4 countries, of which 3 still have their own currencies (coincidence). The balance is a sorry sight, with Germany, Spain and Italy seeing nearly EUR100 billion in net unrolled redemptions just Year to Date alone! As UBS very poignantly points out, “It is difficult to see this as anything other than contagion from the latest variant of the euro crisis.”

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Don't Forget Portugal: MS Sees A Second Bail-Out By September With A Bail-In To Follow





With all eyes firmly planted on Spain, the little-Escudo-that-could has quietly slipped off the heading-into-the-abyss list of the mainstream media. Little was made this week of the fact that 10Y Portuguese bond yields dropped to seven-month lows - except by us of course where we explained that this is almost entirely due to the CDS-Bond basis trade 'arb-du-jour' that has placed a technical bid under Portuguese bonds. Between the help from LTRO and the fact that ISDA is under-pressure to improve/amend CDS rules to 'honor the spirit of the CDS contract to the fullest extent' which implicitly reduces the massive 'event' premium uncertainty between CDS and Bond risks for distressed-names (thanks to the ECB's actions in Greece), every bond in the short- to mid-term maturity of Portugal appears notably rich - with only the longest-dated bonds reflecting the crisis that remains. As we described in detail here, the real Debt/GDP of Portugal is around 140% (notably higher than the EC estimates of 111% once contingent liabilities are take account of) and the issues that face this small nation are entirely unresolved with bank recapitalization needs of at least EUR12bn and a highly indebted private sector. The bottom-line is that optically-pleasing bond improvements recently have been entirely due to synthetic credit arbitrage and, as Morgan Stanley notes, the nation remains mired in the three risks of contingent liabilities, bank recap needs, and a grossly indebted private sector; leaving a second bailout very likely by September 2012 and the challenging debt dynamics likely to mean a restructuring.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Deflecting Attention From The Real Question





The US is now about to enter fully-fledged "election mode". With only two candidates left in the "race" for the Republican nomination - only one according to the mainstream media, but more on that below - the "issues" at stake in the upcoming election are now being very carefully tailored for an increasingly unruly domestic US political audience. A less polite way of phrasing this is that the spin is becoming dizzying. The foremost task of preparing for the November vote is to maintain the illusion that any and all economic or financial "hiccups" which might affect the US in the next six months are not home gown. The US establishment has never fooled all of the people all of the time -just enough of them to keep their power. The problem is that this keeps getting harder to do.

 

MacroAndCheese's picture

The Market Equilibrium Puzzle





So many shorts, so little time

 

Tyler Durden's picture

iTax Avoidance - Why In America There Is No Representation Without "Double Irish With A Dutch Sandwich" Taxation





Back in October 2010 we presented an analysis by Bloomberg which showed not only that courtesy of not paying taxes at its statutory rate of 35% Google was adding about $100/share to its then stock price of $607/share, but just how this was executed. Now, it is the turn of Apple, with its $110 billion in cash, to fall under the spotlight, with an extended expose in the NYT titled "How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Taxes" in which we learn that, shockingly, if you are at a table with only corporations sitting to your left and right, then you are the only person in the room paying taxes. Why - because global corporate tax "avoidance" schemes are not only perfectly legal, but they are actively encouraged, and in some cases form the backbone of a sovereign's (ahem Ireland) economic and even domestic policy, which just happens to be front and center in virtually every global corporate org chart permitting virtually the entire elimination of cash taxation at the corporate level.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Second Baby Squid Rumored To Be In The Running For Bank Of England Head





Two weeks ago we reported the somewhat surprising news that according to the FT, current Bank of Canada head, and former co-head of sovereign risk at Goldman Sachs had been "informally" approached by the Bank of England to be Mervyn King's replacement when the latter's contract runs out in June 2013. Once the news broke, the tenuous arrangement to have a former-Goldmanite at virtually every single developed world central bank seemed to have hit a snag as both the Bank of Canada and Carney himself were forced to deny that any interest by the BOE had been expressed. Of course, what was missing from the public discourse is that this was likely one of those "reverse inquiry" type of career moves, whereby the candidate himself, or rather the employing firm - in this case Goldman Sachs, makes the decision whether or not the candidate would be suitable to head the Goldman subsidiary known as the Bank of England. Which is why it is with even less surprise that we now learn that it is none other than the firm's most permabullish strategist Jim O'Neill, who after coining the globalist wet-dream term "BRIC" was sent in exile to chair the firm's worst performing division, GS Asset Management, that is rumored to be the latest replacement for Mervyn King.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

"We Are Number One!", Or Why At Least Broke Greece Is Not America





A rather curious phenomenon that has been observed in the popular press lately is that on those rare occasions when total global public debt is demonstrated correctly on a country by country basis, i.e., including contingent liabilities, as well as various trans-national, public-sector backed guarantees (such as EFSF backstops), and most importantly the Net Present Value of pensions and healthcare, or the cost of the welfare state expressed in current dollars, there is one country that is  systematically excluded. That would be the United States. Today we set the record straight by adding the US to the list where it rightfully belongs, and also answer the rhetorical question of why the US just so happens to be consistently omitted from such column-chart based, hair-raising classifications. Simply said, it is quite clear why the now defaulted Hellenic Republic could and should be forgiven in saying that “at least Greece is not America…”

 
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