Archive - Aug 7, 2012

The idea of “collapse”, social and financial, comes with an incredible array of hypothetical consequences ranging from public dissent and martial law, to the complete disintegration of infrastructure and the devolution of mankind into a swarm of mindless arm chewing cannibals.  In an age of television nirvana and cinema overload, I have found that the collective unconscious of our culture has now defined what collapse is based only on the most narrow of extremes.  If they aren’t being hunted down by machete wielding looters or swastika wearing jackboots, then the average American dupe figures that the country is not in much danger.  Hollywood fantasy has blinded us to the tangible crises at our doorstep. In 2012, we still await that trigger event, which I believe will be the announcement of QE3 (or any unlimited stimulus program regardless of title), and the final debasement of the dollar.  At the beginning of this year, I pointed out that we were likely to see such an announcement before 2012 was out, and it would seem that the private Federal Reserve is right on track. Last month, the Fed announced that it was formulating a plan to “expand its tool kit”.

The Swiss are the envy today. Soon they will be goats.

"Who knew that the 24th electoral district in Chicago actually sits in Northwest Madrid?" That is how Art Cashin concludes his tangent into the president's pre-election tactics, which now apparently involve begging heads of sovereigns to accept bailouts from other sovereigns (coughgermanycough) just to boost one's reelection chances. Why? Because the one thing that could send the S&P ripping higher, however briefly, is what we have been discussing for the past week: namely the market finally getting the paradoxical catalyst that the market has already priced in - Spain admitting it is broke. And why would Obama be focused on a rising S&P, fiscal cliff after the election notwithstanding? The chart below should explain it.

Recent research by Robert Shiller indicates sounding the all-clear for a housing recovery is premature since the home-price rebound, if that's what it is, doesn't yet have momentum - which is the most powerful driver of home prices. As he notes in today's WSJ, momentum is a modestly weak force in the stock market but the most important driver of the 'feedback loop' in home-price increases (followed by unemployment). "It could be a bottom, I just don't know", he adds pointing to the large overhang of homes that are either in foreclosure of near it - which would push prices down further if they were ever released to the market (wanting to see momentum carry into the Spring to be convinced). Critically, he sees bubbles once again forming in some areas, commenting that investors have been "primed to think speculatively" adding that "There was a change in our mindset. Now we start thinking about the housing market as like the stock market." Our question is, if the increasingly speculative housing market is part of the CPI basket, why then is the stock market not also part of it?

Courtesy of Bloomberg's Michael McDonough, here is how the end game for demographically defunct, deflationary debt holes such as Japan looks like extrapolated into the future. And for the time-strapped it is condensed into 333 words and 3 charts. "Fewer workers and less labor will reduce the potential output of the Japanese economy, which will increase the country’s reliance on imports as retirees continue to spend, inhibiting GDP growth. The rising number of retirees will strain the government’s welfare programs and the country’s pension funds, which have been major buyers of government bonds. Japan already maintains the world’s second-largest debt load in nominal terms at more than $13.7 trillion and growing."

In spite of all the exuberance of front-running the ebullient print/buy response of a dysphoric request for help (that may never come - just like QE3 if market levels remains elevated), Spanish and Italian 10Y bond spreads are only now just making it back to pre-Draghi 'let-down' press-conference levels - and holding steady. The basis (the spread between CDS and bond spreads) has compressed dramatically as bonds have outperformed with the 'hope' of a substantial SMP enabling an illiquid bond market to remove whatever event risk (PSI/haircut/subordination) premium was priced in cash and not CDS. The front-end of the Spanish and Italian curves is softening modestly 7-10bps (though admittedly off compressed levels) but with Spain and Italy stock markets up 12 and 9% from Thursday close respectively - and well above pre-Draghi levels (even as German and Swiss rates stumble along the bottom on a safety bid) it seems whatever volume there is (which is tepid at best) is marginally lifting the unshortable irrepressible equity market (which is outperforming credit markets notably now).

The tin man is now living at the bank in Frankfurt and he has received the Wall Street certificate for his brain which promises much and is short on delivery but that is what he learned. The Munchkins are all out on the yellow brick road and off to see someone or another and are presently mired in the poppy fields where they are having flower induced dreams of unlimited money, no responsibility and the Wizard, now living in Florida with Toto’s cousins Princess and Mr. Trooper, is finding great amusement with the antics of it all and reminds everyone that a horse of a different color will be a staring figure in the next act of the play as the poppy fields are left behind and the gates of the not quite so Emerald City come into view.

European equities are seen in decent positive territory heading into the Wall Street bell, though a clear lack of direction has been observed as well a thin summer volumes . The FTSE-100 is the day's underperformer following last night's allegations made by the State of New York against UK bank Standard Chartered that the company violated US sanctions by making secret transactions to the tune of USD 250bln with Iran. The Spanish 10-year yield has held below the key 7.00% level, though higher than yesterday's close at 6.76 with the spread over the benchmark Bund is slightly wider by 1.2bps. Steepening seen in the Spanish 2-year over the last couple of days as ECB's Draghi commented that any periphery bond-buying programme would be in the short end has halted and is now wider by 13bps. The Italian 10-year yield briefly traded above the 6.00% level though has since pulled back to lows printed earlier, currently standing at 5.91%, its spread tighter by 10.4bps on the session.

Market players are watching for any details on the ECB’s bond purchasing plans, after bank chief Mario Draghi said last week that the ECB would target short-term debt, fuelling optimism in the bond markets. A Reuter’s poll of economists on Friday highlighted that they expect the Fed to start QE3 in September, but a top Fed official said that a stimulus package so close to a presidential election would not be prudent. Since the ECB conditioned it would buy more government debt from Spain & Italy if they agreed to strict austerity packages, this has decreased pressure on either country to act quickly. The Financial Times interviewed Ken Wattret, a BNP Paribas economist who said: “If people think this will all be sorted in a matter of days, or weeks, then they will be disappointed. We could be in limbo for months.”

According to the latest Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS) poll, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s popularity has sunk to the point where 77.9% of the country’s electorate has little or no confidence in him. The survey still shows Rajoy’s conservative Popular Party (PP) ahead of the Socialist Party, however, by 6.7 per cent – eight percentage points down from the PP’s historic election win eight months ago. Ironically, during his entire his political campaign, and during his time as leader of the opposition, Rajoy’s fundamental message was that the country needed “a shot of confidence” to overcome its economic woes. Rajoy’s promises to implement swift and credible policies that would restore confidence in Spain were pivotal to his landslide electoral victory last November. However, the complete U-turn his Administration begun only days after taking office has left many feeling betrayed. Broken promises aside, his distant and elusive manners have only added to the detriment of his public image.

• Standard Chartered Falls Most in 24 Years on U.S. Iran Probe (Bloomberg)
• Iran accusations wipe $15 billion off StanChart shares (Reuters)
• Hilsenrath tells us that Fed Official Calls for Open-Ended Bond Buying (WSJ) - shocking indeed
• German opposition backs fiscal union, demands constitutional change and referendum (FT)
• Gary Gensler speaks: Libor, Naked and Exposed (NYT)
• IMF Pushes Europe to Ease Greek Burden (WSJ)
• Second TSE System Error in Seven Months Halts Derivatives (Bloomberg)
• Rice Hoard Offers World Respite as Food Costs Surge (Bloomberg)
• UK coalition in crisis over parliamentary reform (Reuters)
• Ethics probe could deal losing hand to Nevada Democrat (Reuters)

This morning there was a round of European economic data which showed that regardless of whether Italian and Spanish bonds trade up or down by 100 bps on any given day, the continent remains deeply mired in recession. First we got Dutch June Industrial Production (a AAA country), which slid from -0.3% to -0.6%, on expectations of an increase, then this was repeated with Italian June Industrial Production which also missed estimates printing at at -1.4% in June, a drop from +1.0%, and below the estimate of -1.05%, followed by UK Industrial production which collapsed, IP sliding from 1.0% to -2.5%, the biggest one month drop since November 2008, but modestly better than expectation which is what apparently drove the GBP higher - the market: always the optimist. And then the cherry on top was German factory orders which plunged from 0.7% to -1.7%, missing expectations of a -0.8% print. Completing the sad economic picture was Italian Q2 3GDP which which was essentially unchanged at -0.7% compared to Q1's -0.8%. Goldman was certainly not happy with Italian data: "The recessionary dynamic is likely to mechanically weaken tax revenues this year, creating hurdles for the fiscal consolidation that is otherwise well underway... We believe that the domestic economy - in particular private sector consumption and investment - currently faces strong headwinds (fiscal adjustment, financing conditions) that may end up harming sequential growth dynamics by more than we currently foresee."