Archive - Aug 3, 2012

The short-end of the Spanish curve is collapsing rapidly, and at last check was tighter by nearly 70 bps even with the 10 Year essentially unchanged, for one simple reason: more hope and prayer. This time we have completely unconfirmed and unverified talk that either the ECB will hold another conference, or that Spain will finally request a full blown bailout. Neither is likely to happen, certainly not on a Friday. In other words, the rapid steepening of the curve on more "talking" will not last. What will however, is increasingly negative sentiment toward the longer end of peripheral country bond curves. To wit, here comes JPM recommending a new short position in Spanish 10 Years. Below is the full text of JPM's Gianluca Sanford saying to short the Spanish 10 Year until it touched 7.75%. Why 7.75%? Because that is the level at which Rajoy will have no choice but to demand a bailout. The irony is that the market, by frontrunning politicians, continues to make the required political decision impossible - welcome to the new normal. Paradoxically, only after the market has fully abandoned hope, can the desired outcome happen. But it will take the broken market a few more weeks to figure this out.