Archive - Jun 2012

In a no-holds-barred interview with Bloomberg TV's Francine Lacqua, the increasingly droopy-faced George Soros remains as sprite-minded as ever in his clarifying thoughts on Europe. His diagnosis is spot on: "Basically there is an interrelated problem of the banking system and the excessive risk premium on sovereign debt - they are Siamese twins, tied together and you have to tackle both" and summarizes the forthcoming Summit 'fiasco' as fatal if the fiscal disagreements are not resolved (and as of this afternoon, we know Germany's constant position on this). His solution is unlikely to prove tenable in the short-term as he notes "Merkel has emerged as a strong leader", but "unfortunately, she has been leading Europe in the wrong direction". His extensive interview covers what Europe needs, the Bund bubble, GRexit, post-summit contagion, and Mario Monti's impotence.

While the extreme polarization of our political parties has been discussed often, the upcoming Presidential election is perhaps more notable in another way. Given Obama’s experience as a Senator and Romney’s single term as Massachusetts governor, the 2012 election is as light on 'high-level public sector experience' as we have seen in many decades. The implications are subject to debate, but as JPMorgan's Michael Cembalest points out: there’s no question that it’s an anomaly; or at a minimum, a throwback to the elections of the 19th century, when this kind of thing was more common. At a time when confidence in all institutions (non-financial business, banks, Congress, the Fed, etc) are close to multi-decade lows, this is not a surprise. Why should experience count for anything? Throw the bums out and hand the reins over to outsiders! Still, Michael (like us) finds this chart disconcerting, even though it’s hard to explain why. Do politicians who have not wielded substantial power underestimate the consequences of being wrong? It’s easy to be dead sure about something if you haven’t created a public policy train wreck of your own.

At this point even those who have never heard of the Gulf of Tonkin know where this is headed:

• SYRIAN ACT 'WON'T GO UNPUNISHED,' TURKEY'S ARINC SAYS
• SYRIAN ACT 'HOSTILE,' 'COLD-BLOODED,' ARINC SAYS
• SYRIA SHOT DOWN TURKISH JET WITHOUT WARNING, NULAND SAYS
• TURKEY INVOKED ARTICLES 4 & 5 FOR NATO MEETING, ARINC SAYS
• TURKEY TO PROCEED AGAINST SYRIA USING LEGAL RIGHTS, ARINC SAYS
• TURKISH JET SHOT DOWN IN INTERNATIONAL AIRSPACE, ARINC SAYS

And yet:

• TURKISH JET 'MISTAKENLY' ENTERED SYRIAN AIRSPACE, ARINC SAYS
• TURKISH JET WAS IN SYRIAN AIRSPACE ONLY 5 MINUTES, ARINC SAYS

Just the tip, eh?

Radioactive "Dirt" Hits Tokyo

It seems, as JPMorgan's CIO Michael Cembalest notes, that ahead of yet another EU Summit; everyone understands now why Europe matters (even the once-bloviating decoupling diehards). The summit is likely to focus on bank recapitalization, easier repayment timetables for Greece, bank deposit guarantees and an alleged “roadmap” for EU integration. The challenge, Cembalest confirms, is that Germany cannot afford a blank check given debt levels already over 80% of GDP. However, if policymakers don’t do something about growth in the Periphery (bailouts primarily designed to aid German and French banks don’t count), the North-South divide will continue to widen, putting pressure on the ECB and EU taxpayers. Sometimes there are no easy answers. Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal are contracting at a 2%-5% annualized pace, and unemployment in Spain and Greece is sky-rocketing (1st chart). These levels are notable from an historical perspective. As shown in the 2nd chart, 20%+ unemployment was the level at which National Socialists in Germany began to take seats away from liberal democratic parties during the 1930’s. If the jobs picture does not improve, other EU policy decisions may not matter much (as we noted six months ago)!

With so much economic doom and gloom out there, it’s easy to forget that there are actually some bright spots in the world. I’ve spent the last few days in one of them– Georgia. Perhaps most famous for being continually stomped on by Russia, this place has suffered severe hardship practically since independence from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. In 2005, Georgia was shut out of the Russian market, it’s largest trading partner. It happened again in 2006. Then, of course, you may remember the Russian military invading Georgia (do you see the theme here?) in August 2008 in support of the breakaway republic of Abkhazia in northwest Georgia. Russian forces rolled across the border, occupied several key areas in the country, and bombed the hell out of Tbilisi just for good measure. The damage is still visible to this day. Yet despite so many challenges, Georgia has finally turned the corner and become one seriously exciting economy with some seriously compelling opportunities.

This has to be a record:

GREEK FINANCE MINISTER RAPANOS RESIGNS; PRIME MINISTER ACCEPTS

This is the same guy who was appointed last week, and who fainted after seeking the official Greek numbers. In fact we are not sure he ever got an official appointment. And elsewhere:

CYPRUS REQUESTS EU AID
CYPRUS SEEKS EXTERNAL FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE FROM EURO AREA: China just said NEIN

Prepare the bath salt firehose.

With Facebook down over 3.5%, it appears the only real safe haven from Europe's catastrophe headline-fest is the precious metals complex. Gold and Silver are surgiung as Europe closes.

Equity, credit, and sovereigns all ugly. Merkel's unequivocal comment on her nation's unwillingness to 'share' burdens and slap the proverbial cheek of Monsieur Hollande, Italy's banking union looking for more 'aid', Spain actually asking for their bailout, Greece 'avoiding' reality, and Cyprus pulling the 'China rescue plan' last ditch retort to market angst; but apart from that, things are dismal in Europe. Italy down over 4% and Spain almost as bad on the day as every major equity index is well into the red. Italian banks monkey-hammered down 6/7.5% and halted a number of times. Investment grade credit outperformed (though was notably wider) as financials (subs and seniors), XOver, and stocks are plummeted to 11-day lows. After breaking below the pre-Spanish bailout levels on Friday, Spain and Italy 10Y are now 20-40bps wider with Italy and Spain 5Y CDS notably wider and well over 500bps. Notably the short-end of the Italian and Spanish curves underperformed significantly (curves flattened): 2Y BTPs +57bps vs 10Y +21bps; 2Y SPG +37bps vs 10Y +17bps. Europe's VIX snapped back above 27% (and we note that our EU-US Vol compression trade is moving well in our favor). EURUSD has been smacked lower by over 80pips ending under 1.25 once again.

Spain has finally made the “formal” request for aid (and Italy right behind them it seems this morning). There is another summit. Expectations for anything positive seem incredibly low. There seems to be a scramble to shoot down anything that is said out of Europe. It really doesn’t matter what is said, the negatives and potential negatives, and imagined negatives get the traction. Of all the things people want Europe to do, buying bonds on the secondary market seems the least effective (which ECB's Novotny has now written off) Any program that has a chance of working has to help both the sovereigns and the banks. If an action only helps the sovereign or the bank it is less likely to succeed. If it helps neither, than it is a total waste of limited capital. So don’t waste the money on secondary market purchases. The money barely helps the sovereign and does nothing for the banks. It may help some speculators who will buy ahead of the activity, but will be quick to get short again when the time comes.

As the following image from Spiegel summarizes, three things will happen simultaneously when the unthinkable finally occurs: i) economic output plummets, ii) unemployment rate soars, and iii) consumer prices explode. Of course, this is nothing but merely deferred consequences for Europe partying for over a decade under an unsustainable regime that borrowed from the future (sound familiar?). And now the inevitable hangover. In other words: payback is a bitch.

Those hoping for supreme court to overturn socialism today will have to wait a few more days:

• HEALTH-CARE CASE ISN’T AMONG TODAY’S U.S. SUPREME COURT RULINGS

But SCOTUS did slap Obama in the face nonetheless:

• ARIZONA ILLEGAL-IMMIGRATION LAW GETS MIXED TOP COURT DECISION
• U.S. SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS KEY PART OF TOUGH ARIZONA IMMIGRATION LAW, IN DEFEAT FOR OBAMA - RTRS

Now that all know bank collapse is guaranteed, what assinine steps will be taken next?

Today, new home sales came in at 369K, a "big beat" to expectations of a 347K print and up from the 343K previously. What does this mean? The chart below sums it up.