Archive - Jul 4, 2012

We know its a holiday trading day but Europe is active (if not watching Bob) and deteriorating quite rapidly. EURUSD just traded below the ledge of the initial spike after the EU SUmmit (and has retraced around 60% of the rally now). Italian and Spanish sovereign bond spreads are 15-20bps wider from their open today and have retraced over 40% of the spread compression post the EU-Summit now. Bunds are rather notably 5-6bps lower in yield (as we noted earlier the 'nein' to ESM standards relieves some risk transfer concerns for now). Equity indices across Europe are down between 0.5% and 1.5%. European bank equities are down around 1.5% on average (modest) but have quickly retraced around 25% of their post-summit gains. It appears the initial squeeze euphoria is wearing off quite quickly.

UPDATE: *BARCLAYS SAYS HAS RECORDING OF DIAMOND, TUCKER CALL, SKY SAYS

We suspect the Treasury Select Committee hearing with Barclays ex-CEO Bob Diamond will have a few more fireworks than Jamie Dimon's congressional hearings. The Chairman of the committee noted "This is the most damaging scam I can recall" as the goal of the hearing is to ensure "the public know what went wrong and whether the perpetrators have been rooted out." While we will have our own fireworks on this side of the pond, we suspect the live stream below will contain more than a few as the independence of Libor remains in question.

Those curious why peripheral European bond yields have once again resumed their levitation creep higher, it is because not only did yesterday the key Merkel coalition partner, CSU, threaten to leave Germany's ruling party hanging "if further euro zone states secure bailouts, saying there were limits to how far his party was prepared to go", but today we have gotten even more furious backtracking on Mario Monti's history "success" less than a week earlier, after on one hand German opposition SPD has said it opposed Direct ESM aid to banks, but more importantly, the German Finance Ministry itself said that the entire bailout timeline is now in question, saying that it "remains unclear if Eurozone finance ministers will decide on Spain's request for banking sector aid at their next monthly meeting on July 9." The ministry also added that a decision could only come once the report on Spain by the troika - the European Commission, the ECB and the IMF - had been finalized. In other words, that much maligned Troika, which Monti had supposedly exorcised from intervening in the economies of Spain and Italy, will, after all be very much present, which also means that all the media spin about last week's "gamechanging" and unconditional bailout summit resolution, has been for nothing, in line with all the skeptical expectations.

Paul Tucker, the Bank of England executive at the center of the Barclays/Diamond trigger-conversation, has issued a statement requesting a Treasury hearing to show his "keenness to clarify the position with regard to the events" of that hanging chad of a phone-call. What is most troublesome (for every major banker and politician) is his apparent willingness to take more down with him. As the M.A.D. escalates, MNI reports that minutes from 2007 show Tucker (who was/is in line as we noted yesterday for the top-job once King leaves next year) was fully aware from the early days of the financial crisis that market participants believed Libor was rigged. The Group’s November 2007 minutes, from a Tucker-chaired meeting, state “Several group members thought that Libor fixings had been lower than actual traded interbank rates through the period of stress.” The minutes show that not only was the issue raised back in November 2007 but that the BOE went to great lengths as the crisis deepened the following year to keep its finger on the money markets’ pulse. It seems that instead of mounting the 'plead-da-fif' defense Tucker is coming all-guns-blazing and is willing to drag more names into this miasma as a suicide-bomb of a hearing where the truth is realized could well bring every high ranking banking official to admit the continued unreality of Libor rates.

In the ongoing story of confusing (as even the US has now said Syria was in its right to defend itself) yet continuing Turkish provocation, whereby a Turkish jet was shot down after entering Syrian airspace, resulting in immediate NATO-wide escalations and fighter jets being scrambled every single day since, the latest news is that the pilots who had been hoped to be alive, have been found dead.

• Most Germans Reject Ceding Sovereignty to EU, Stern Poll Shows (Bloomberg)
• How Stockton went broke: A 15-year spending binge (Reuters)
• Manchester United Shoots for $100 Million IPO (WSJ)... with 4x leverage and Jefferies as underwriter
• Iran says can destroy U.S. bases "minutes after attack" (Reuters)
• Poison claims spark call for Arafat exhumation  (FT)
• Diamond Would Be Catch for Investment, Private Equity (Bloomberg)
• Investors may shun big Libor lawsuit and go it alone (Reuters)
• New Particle Found, Consistent With Higgs Boson (WSJ)
• Chinese riot police clash with protesters  (FT)
• Euro-Area June Manufacturing, Services Output Contracts (Bloomberg)
• Utilities Struggle to Restore Power in East (WSJ)
• Dark economic clouds gather anew over Obama campaign (Reuters)