Archive - May 18, 2012

While all eyes are focused on Greece (and contagiously Spain), they have forgotten that two far weaker countries still exits - and combined have the power to do as much (if not more) damage than Spain. Portugal and Ireland have moved back into the Red-Zone of risk in Europe's credit markets. Ireland back over 700bps and Portugal back over 1200bps reflects both their idiosyncratic issues (that we have discussed at length) or the systemic issues (which we discussed most recently this morning here). In the case of Portugal, it appears the Dan Loeb trade (we said to fade it) is now being unwound en masse as the reality of the fundamental risks we discussed here seem to be realized. In the case of Ireland, not only is there a rising chance of a 'no' vote at the forthcoming referendum (discussed here) but as Deutsche Bank notes today, via Bloomberg, that Irish banks may face a further $5.1 billion capital call to cover loan losses as "A new, even modest, increase in capital requirements could deter sovereign investor participation and tip the balance in favor of the sovereign requiring a second loan program." Of course the CDS reflect not just the chance of these nations restructuring but also the probability of a EUR devaluation (since the instruments are denominated in USD) but still - we thought Ireland was the template for the success of austerity?

So stepping aside from the biggest aggregator of private data for a few minutes, and focusing on what actually matters, here is Citigroup telling our European readers who have those fancy multi-colored bills in their wallets, that they are in deep trouble.

To summarize from Citi:

• There are many scenarios for a Greek exit;  almost all of them are likely to be EUR negative for an extended period
• Some scenarios could be positive in equilibrium but the run-up to the new equilibrium could be nasty, brutal and long 
• The positive scenarios for the euro involve aggressive reduction of tail risk; none of these seem likely
• It is unlikely that central banks busily substitute EUR for USD in their portfolios during periods of intense political uncertainty.

Remember there is no short-selling - only long-adds and long-exits. Syndicate fall back...26.7mm shares at $38.00, 9mm shares at $39.00, and 42mm at $40.00 - leaves a VWAP (or average price at which everyone is in Facebook) at $40.36 (green arrow) with over $10.5b billion traded so far as over 60% of the float has 'turned-over' this morning.

All Hail to the Great One...Moolaram!!!

If you just submitted an order to buy FB today, and were confident the order was executed even if at market, you may be out of luck:

• NASDAQ HAS PROBLEM DELIVERING FACEBOOK TRADE EXECUTION MESSAGES

What this means is that the exchange at this point is deciding whether or not to send back late executions to all people who bought, or thought they bought. Needless to say this means that the indicated price is likely not the real price if one factors for all the latent orders, on both the bid and offer side, unless of course all those orders get cancelled, further eroding confident in the market, only this time hitting that one segment most disenchanted with the stock market - mom and pop.

The Elite Financial Players Are Manipulating the Game So that They Get the Stimulus ... and the Little Guy Gets the Austerity

$38.00 Syndicate bid holding...high was $45.00 - 200mm shares traded

The situation in Europe is bad...  How BAD? Well, France, Spain, and Germany have ALL implemented border controls. That's not a typo. Spain, France, and Germany can each close their borders for up to 30 days at any point if they so choose. Why are they doing this? Because they know that when the stuff hits the fan and the EU collapses (which it will in the next few months) people are going to attempt to flee with their money... so they have made it so that no one can get it... and no one can get out. 

Now that, thank God, the Facebook IPO is behind us, effective immediately, new Federal regulations expressly ban the following terms within the fifty United States and its territories:

UPDATE: $40 handle broke - $38.3!!

UPDATE: Algos defending $40.00 desparately! 115mm shares

From the $38 IPO price, we open at $42.05 (now at $40.1) but we note that in Germany it has tumbled from well over EUR90 earlier. We get the sense the media is disappointed, but of course they will be talking longer-term now and defending a weaker-than-expected open: CNBC: "I just want to make sure we don't whip ourselves into a frenzy on the short term value." - perhaps a little late for that eh?

Yes, we are all waiting for what is increasingly becoming an epic disaster. In the meantime there is this:

• TRADERS FOR FACEBOOK HAVING PROBLEMS CHANGING/CANCELING ORDERS:WSJ...

We believe CANCELING is the operative word. Of course, Europe is about to close which according to some may be the catalyst. In other news, nobody even dare think, let alone whipser "Market Conditions"

Update: $42, $43.25, $45, $44

There's a big, fat "I told you so" coming down the pike.