Archive - May 17, 2012

While the financial noose tightens....

Something funny happened in the aftermath of the US fraudclosure settlement, in which millions of backlogged housing units were supposed to enter the foreclosure process and begin the clearing of the nearly 9 million housing units in shadow inventory: nothing. Because as RealtyTrac disclosed overnight, in April the US saw a mere 188,780 foreclosures events of various type (NOD, auction, REO) take place. Why is this number significant? Because it is the lowest in 5 years, despite shadow inventory in the US now being virtually the highest ever. But, but, "this is precisely what the foreclosure settlement was supposed to prevent" one may ask... That would be correct. Next question. In other words, not only did banks get away scott free from being litigated to the 7th circle of hell, but for them the "profitable" business model continues to be one where house lending is largely irrelevant. And why not: with NIMs are record lows, banks couldn't care less if the houses and marked down loans against them in the asset pool go up or down. The real money is made elsewhere: like hedging the IG9. In the meantime for everyone else hoping to get a true clearing price on housing and millions in units in shadow inventory being finally absorbed by the market: good luck. Not only has the foreclosure process in America ground to a complete halt but as the second chart below shows, the time to liquidation once a property enters 60 day-delinquent status just hit an all time high: that's right, the average time during which a deadbeat can occupy a home without payment if they so choose is 31 months. Thank you central planning politburo and USSA.

The dollar was a median step towards a newer and more corrupt ideal.  Its time is nearly over.  This is open, it is admitted, and it is being activated as you read this.  The speed at which this disaster occurs is really dependent on the speed at which our government along with our central bank decides to expedite doubt.  Doubt in a currency is a furious omen, costing not just investors, but an entire society.  America is at the very edge of such a moment.  The naysayers can scratch and bark all they like, but the financial life of a country serves no person’s emphatic hope.  It burns like a fire.  Left unwatched and unchecked, it grows uncontrollable and wild, until finally, there is nothing left to fuel its hunger, and it finally chokes in a haze of confusion and dread…

It seems every critical-to-stay-relevant talking head and blogger is trying to make sense of, and gain as much airtime discussing, how JPMorgan's CIO unit could have been so 'stupid'. The answer is - they weren't. As we described first here and here - and has now been accepted by the mainstream media as fact (of course we are flattered by the mimicry) - the reason that the hedge got out of control was the massive amount of delta-hedging that Iksil had to do to manage the position as the Fed and ECB crushed the systemic risk out of the system and blew up the correlation assumptions in his models. This is complex to explain but, by way of example, we show a chart of the implied delta of a proxy for the JPM hedge. The lower the delta, the more and more index protection that needs to be sold to maintain a stable hedge - and as is clear, not only did the delta collapse (almost halving in 4 months) but it reached pre-crisis levels which would have been generally unthinkable in the risk scenarios - given the backdrop of reality. Whether Iksil arrogantly enjoyed ignored the cornering of the IG9 index market and the momentum and P&L he was relishing in is a different matter but to comprehend the forced selling protection pressure he was under, this chart is all you need to understand...

Two years after bringing us the beginning of the end in Acropolis Now, the Economist has closed the loop with the end of the end courtesy of "The Greek Run."

After days and weeks and months of pounding, gold reacted like a stung dog, soaring over $20 upon the realization that following the Philly Fed confirmation that the "recovery" is now officially dead that, gasp, the Fed really has no other choice than to CTRL+P.

Remember the surge in the Empire Fed which was the straw so desperately clutched by all those who still held on to hope the US economy was still kinda sorta growing? Oops. The May Philly Fed just came out and was a disaster, printing at -5.8, down from 8.5 and crashing expectations for an increase to 10.0. This was the first contractionary print since September 2011 and the biggest miss since August 2011, but the worst news is that the Number of Employmees indicator was in absolute freefall, plummeting from 17.9 to -1.3. And now come the downward NFP revisions, and NEW QE (because courtesy of AAPL it is no longer QE [X] anymore) whispers.

We have seen three very loud and very clear messages this week on the state of the US consumer's mind. After a few months of extravagance, on the back of what can only be described as depression-fatigue, reality is biting once again. The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort index just missed expectations by its greatest amount in three years and has plunged over the last 5 weeks by the most in four years - dropping back to four-month lows. Do these two messages explain the catastrophe that is JCP's results this quarter? We suspect so as the outlook for the economy (sub-index) has plummeted by the most in 14 months - once again echoing the last two years and the end of the central-bank easing periods exposing the sad reality beneath.

One for the "You can't make this stuff up" folder...

What comes after Banana Republic? Because America is it - after last week Facebook co-founder, and native Brazilian, Eduardo Saverin announced he would denounce his US citizenship, America has decided to make it virtually illegal to denounce one's citizenship in what can only be classified as the dumbest proposed law in recent history: meet the Ex-PATRIOT Act (Expatriation Prevention by Abolishing Tax-Related Incentives for Offshore Tenancy) proposed by Chick Schumer and Bob Casey. One wonders just how much taxpayer money was spent to pay naming consultants to come up with this witty acronym for a law that can only be classified as utter idiocy. Here is our suggestion for the follow up law: The "GULAG" Act: Get Ur Laughable Asses Gone (although we are open to any other non-taxpayer funded acronym suggestions).

Currently, there is massive negativity surrounding gold and silver and in particular, gold and silver mining stocks. At times like this, when gold and silver have taken a fairly brutal hit in a condensed period of time thanks to low daily trading volumes both in PM futures and PM stock markets that make it very easy for the banking cartel to manipulate them, it can be difficult not to sell out of everything and run for the hills if one allows emotions to dictate one’s decisions (always a bad move).

The days have passed since January 13, 2010 when we first expressed opinion that Greece would default. Weeks and months have come and gone; Athens has been rescued by the Troika, private bondholders were forced into a Draconian swap as the Germans attempted to soothe their citizens and boatloads of money has been dumped into the Greek economy and into the Greek banks. The demands for “austerity measures” heaped upon the citizens and the economy of Greece has sent the marginally poor into the streets and into bread lines and caused a Depression in Greece based largely upon the imposition of the Troika’s demands that Greece must curtail the standard of living which was initially granted by Greece joining the European Union. Almost everyone has focused upon the sovereign debt, that it is no longer placed at the European banks and that it is resident at the European Central Bank which is protected by all of the nations in Europe. This is true, as far as it goes, but the summation does not go nearly far enough. The hit, when it comes, will require the ECB to be recapitalized, will be felt at the IMF where the United States will take 16% of the hit or around $16 billion which will be trumpeted in the Press by the Republicans and waved like a banner in the Press. The EIB will also take a hit and it may get downgraded but all of this just focuses upon the sovereign debt and is non-inclusive of the rest of the story or even of the truth of the sovereign debt. Greece has $90 billion in derivative contracts that will likely default and the losses will then have to be taken at the French, German and American banks. The number is approximately $1.3 trillion in total and all of it is going to default as Greece heads back to the Drachma.

While claims were expected to improve from last week's pre-revision print of 367K, we got not only a miss but a deterioration, with the print coming at 370K on expectations of 365K. But all is well, for the media already has its spin: "Unchanged", because you see last week's number was as usual pushed up higher to 370K, hence no change. Of course, next week this week's 370K will be revised to 374K or something, but the algos will be long past caring. What is worse is that the exodus from the cliff continues, as those off EUCs and Extended benefits declined by another 68K (and down by 1.14 million from this time last year): people who no longer get their weekly allowance from Uncle Sam and having been without a job for 99 weeks are pretty much guaranteed to not find a job, thus making them rely exclusively on disability and foodstamps.

The World Gold Council has released the Q1 2012 Gold Demands Trend report. Gold demand grew 16% over the past 12 months to 1,098 tonnes. This had a US dollar value of just $59.7 billion spent on gold, globally, in Q1 2012. While global demand was down 5% from the record high of Q4 2011, it was significantly higher than demand in Q1 2011 suggesting that global demand may be consolidating at these higher levels.  Probably the most important aspect of demand and one of the most important fundamentals in the gold market is that of still very robust and increasing Chinese demand. In this the Chinese Year of the Dragon – China is becoming a fundamental driver of the gold market. Global demand was boosted by China posting a quarterly record of 98.6 tonnes of investment demand up 13% from Q1 2011. This increase was a result of investors’ continued move to preserve wealth amid ongoing concerns over inflation, volatility in equity markets and price falls in some property markets. Jewellery demand in China, much of which is also store of wealth demand, increased to 156.6 tonnes – 30% of the global appetite.  This increase places China as the largest jewellery market for the third consecutive quarter.

European cash equities are in the red across the board at the midway point, as the bourses fail to reverse the trend of the past few sessions. With data points very light today, participants continue to focus on the macroeconomic themes as speculation regarding a Greek exit maintains focus. A medium-term maturity Spanish bond auction slightly eased fears, selling to the top of the indicative range, however the appearance of solid demand was countered somewhat by limited supply and sharply higher yields across all three lines. Following the auction results, EUR/USD saw some modest support and the Bund exhibited slight weakness, but this was short-lived as the macroeconomic concerns took over once more. Unexpectedly, the 3-month Euribor rate fixing came in with its first increase since December last year, prompting some selling pressure on the Euribor strip. This move was retraced as it was rumoured that one bank had not submitted a rate due to the Ascension Day market holiday across certain European markets, prompting the incline.