Archive - Jun 4, 2012

Before or after breakfast...

• Spain Seeks Joint Bank Effort as Pressure Rises on Merkel (Bloomberg)
• Banks Cut Cross-Border Lending Most Since Lehman: BIS (Bloomberg)
• Shirakawa Bows to Yen Bulls as Intervention Fails (Bloomberg)
• Merrill Losses Were Withheld Before Bank of America Deal (NYT)
• Investors Brace for Slowdown (WSJ)
• China's lenders ordered to check bad loans (China Daily)
• Obama Seeks Way Out of Jobs Gloom (WSJ)
• Noda Reshuffles Japan Cabinet in Bid for Support on Sales Tax (Bloomberg)
• China to open the market further (China Daily)
• Australian Industry Must Adapt to High Currency, Hockey Says (Bloomberg)
• Tax-funded projects to be more transparent (China Daily)

The past two weeks it was Spain, now it is back to Portugal, which overnight announced it is bailing out three banks to the tune of €6.65 billion. If at this point who is bailing out whom is becoming a confusing blur - fear not: that is the whole point. From AAP: "Portugal will inject more than 6.65 billion euros ($A8.49 billion) into private banks BCP and BPI, and the state-owned CGD to meet criteria established by the European Banking Authority. "In all, the state will inject more than 6.65 billion euros in these banks," though five billion euros is to come from an envelope worth 12 billion included in a financial rescue plan drawn up in May 2011, the finance ministry said. Portugal last year became the third eurozone country after Greece and Ireland to be bailed out, receiving an EU-IMF package worth up to 78 billion euros in return for a commitment to reform its economy and impose austerity measures." And surely that will be it, and Portugal will be fixed. Just like Spain was fixed, until someone actually did some math and found a hole up to €350 billion out of left field. Funny how those big undercapitalization holes just sublimate into existence, usually moments before client money is vaporized.

Contrary to what some may have been expecting, there was no coordinated grand central-bank bailout announcement over the weekend (and likely won't be one for a while). Instead we got promises of plans for a master plan, even as Soros gave Europe 3 months (or 2 months and 29 days as of today). Still, that has not prevented European stocks from rising to intraday highs driven by the EUR, and fears of a major snap-back rally in the record oversold currency as explained here yesterday. It also means that, as warned repeatedly, even the faintest hint of German capitulation will trigger buy programs. Such as this one just hitting the tape:

• MERKEL, BARROSO TO MAKE STATEMENTS AT 7 P.M. IN BERLIN
• EU SAYS BANKING UNION ON AGENDA FOR BARROSO-MERKEL MEETING

No clarification, nothing of substance: the mere suspense now is enough to make traders ignore that nothing is getting better. But at least for the time being nothing is (much) worse.

All you need to read.